CHAPTER X.

Post-office at Karansebes—­Good headquarters for a sportsman—­Preparations for a week in the mountain—­The party starting for the hunt—­Adventures by the way—­Fine trees—­Game—­Hut in the forest—­Beauty of the scenery in the Southern Carpathians.

We put up at the Gruenen Baum, the principal inn at Karansebes.  My first business was to worry everybody about my guns, which I had telegraphed should be sent from Buda Pest to this place.  I am afraid the postmaster will never hear the name of an Englishman without associating the idea of a fussy, irritable, impatient being, such as I was, about my guns.  Of course it was very provoking that they had not arrived.  This postmaster was a pattern official, an honour to his calling; he not only bore with me, but he offered to lend me a gun if mine did not come.  In Germany there is a saying, “So grob wie ein postbeamter.”  The postmaster of Karansebes was a glorious exception to the rule.

On one occasion, while I was waiting in the office for an answer to one of the many telegrams that I had despatched, a peasant woman came in with a letter without an address.  The postmaster seeing this, and thinking she could not write, asked her to whom he should address the letter.  She was dreadfully indignant with him for his well-meant offer, and said, “My son knows all about it—­it is no business of yours.”

“But I can’t forward it without an address,” objected the postmaster.

“Yes, you must,” she rejoined, getting more and more angry—­“you must; that’s what you are paid for doing.”

Here some other people came to the rescue, and by dint of all talking at once for full twenty minutes, they induced her to give her son’s address; but it was a clear case of “convinced against her will,” for as she quitted the office she turned round and said, with a shake of the head, “It’s all very well to put that; but my son will know who it is from.”

Karansebes is not at all a bad place as headquarters for the sportsman.  In the neighbourhood there is very good snipe-shooting in spring and autumn.  The fishing too is excellent for trout and grayling.  The bear, the wolf, and the chamois are to be met with on the heights, which form this portion of the great horseshoe of the Carpathians.

The day before our expedition we were occupied with a few necessary preparations.  When these matters were settled to our satisfaction, we went off in good time to secure a few hours’ sleep, as we were to start at four A.M.

F——­ and I were up in capital time, eager for the day’s work, and anxious, moreover, not to keep the rest of the party waiting.  There was an Austrian general, however, amongst the number, and therefore we might safely have slept another hour.  The morning was very unpromising, the rain descended in a dull persistent downpour.  We tried to hope it was the pride of the morning.  The prospect was dreary enough to damp the spirits of some of our party.  One man found that urgent private affairs called him hence; another averred he had an inflammatory sore throat.  I expected a third would say he had married a wife and could not come.  Happily, however, the weather cleared a little as the morning advanced, and further desertions were arrested.