CHAPTER XXXIV. The Tokay district--Visit at Schloss G------Wild-boar hunting--Incidents of the chase.

My first expedition to the Tokay district was in the winter; I was then the guest of Baron V——, who has a charming chÂteau, surrounded by an English garden, in this celebrated place of vineyards.

In the winter there is a very fair amount of good sport in this part of Hungary. Sometimes one is enabled to go out hare-shooting in sledges; of course the horses' bells are removed on these occasions. Hares are not preserved in the Tokay district, but they are pretty numerous. I myself shot fifty-four in the space of a few weeks, which is nothing compared to an English battue of a single day; but then this is sport, and there is immense pleasure in dashing right across country behind a pair of fleet horses, thinking yourself well repaid if you bag a couple or three hares in the afternoon's scamper. For wolf and wild-boar hunting one must penetrate into the forests which extend in the rear of the southern slopes of this Tokay range of hills.

During my stay at G—— a party was got up for a few days' shooting in the interior. On this occasion we were to shoot in Baron Beust's forests, which extend over an area of about forty miles square; as it may be supposed, the sport is not the easy affair it is in the well-stocked parks of Bohemia.

There was not snow enough for sledging, so we drove to the rendezvous on wheels, using the springless carts of the country, the roads being far too rough for ordinary carriages. Wrapped in our bundas, we were proof against the cold. The wolf-skin collar turned up rises above the head and forms a capital protection; and very necessary it was on this occasion, for there was a keen cutting wind the day we started.

I carried a smooth-bore breechloader charged with the largest buck-shot in one barrel and with a bullet in the other. In Hungary the forests are usually so thick that one scarcely ever fires at a long range, and heavy shot at a short distance in a thicket is better than a bullet. After driving in a break-neck fashion for about two hours we arrived at the river Bodrog, a tributary of the Theiss. Nearly every winter the country hereabouts is under water; I remember once seeing it when there was all the appearance of an extensive inland sea. Sometimes the inundations are disastrous, but the ordinary flood is an accepted event, and no damage accrues beyond the prevalence of marsh fever in April and May, when the water recedes. This part of the country offers first-rate wildfowl-shooting in the season.

Everywhere in Hungary the different races are strangely mixed up together: the Tokay Hegyalia, it is true, is chiefly peopled by Magyars, and the language is said to be the purest Magyar spoken anywhere; but there are Slavs and Jews amongst them, and our drive of twenty miles brought us into an area where the Slavs predominate. The difference of these races is very marked: the one, fair complexioned and blue eyed; the Magyar, dark, almost swarthy amongst the lower classes. At Olasz-Liszka, a small town within the Tokay district, there is an Italian colony, as the name Olasz (Italian) would imply. As long ago as the days of Bela II. this place was peopled by Italian immigrants from the neighbourhood of Venice, invited hither by the king, who greatly encouraged the cultivation of the vine.

Go where you will in this country, there is a Babel of tongues. In this instance our special coachman was a Bohemian, speaking his own language—a very different dialect from the Slovacks who were the "beaters" for our hunt. The gamekeepers, or rather the foresters (for the game is of secondary consideration), were all Magyars. Their language, as we know, bears no affinity to any of the rest. The marvel is that the world gets on at all down here. The gentlemen of our party spoke together indifferently German, French, and English.

It is curious to hear the peasant come out with, "Why the Tartar are you doing this?" for an angry expletive. It is a relic of the old troubled times when the country suffered from the frequent depredations of Turks and Tartars. The Tokay district, say the chronicles, was fearfully harassed by the Turks as late as 1678.

It is worth while recalling a contemporaneous fact. In 1529 the crescent had been substituted for the cross on the Cathedral of Vienna to propitiate the Turks, and it was not till 1683 that the symbol of the dreaded Moslem was removed. When the Hungarians ceased to fear the Turk, they ceased to hate him; and since 1848 they remember only the generous hospitality of the Porte, and the cruel aggressions and treachery of the Russians. The Slav has a longer memory, for to this day he repeats the saying, "Where the Turk comes, there no grass grows."

When we arrived at our destination our appetites were far too keenly set to think about the Eastern Question, and right glad were we to see active preparations for supper. The national dishes, the gulyas hus and the paprika handl, were produced amongst a number of other good things, such as roast hare. You get to like the paprika, or red pepper, very much. I wonder it is not introduced into English cookery, it makes such a pretty-coloured gravy. If the traveller finds himself attacked by marsh fever, and should chance to be without quinine (a great mistake, by the way), let him substitute a spoonful of paprika mixed with a little red wine, repeating the dose every four hours if necessary. While smoking our peace-pipes after supper, one of the keepers came in to announce the welcome fact that it was snowing hard; fresh-lain snow would materially increase our chances of tracking the wild-boar.

Next morning when we started the weather had somewhat cleared, which was just as well, seeing we had to walk two or three miles to our first battue. Arrived at the rendezvous, we found the "beaters" waiting for us. They were a wild-looking crew were those Slovacks, with shaggy coats of black sheepskin, and in their hands the usual long staff with the axe at one end. Notwithstanding their uncouth appearance, later experience has shown me that the Slovacks, as a rule, are patient, hard-working people.

The forest where we were consisted entirely of beech and oak. The acorns attract the wild-boar, which have increased in a very remarkable manner in this locality. I was told that twenty years ago there were no wild-boar in these forests, while now there are hundreds. This seems odd, for the oak-trees are pretty well as old as the hills, and offered the same temptation in the way of food formerly as now. In fact the increase of the wild-boar is a serious nuisance to the vine-grower, for they tramp across to the southern hill-slopes, and occasionally make raids on the vineyards, devouring the grapes with unparalleled greediness, and what is still worse, they will sometimes plough up and destroy a whole plot of carefully-tended vineyard.

Formerly there were many deer in these forests, but now there are only a few roedeer. We saw no traces of wolves on this occasion, but there are plenty in this part of the country.

We were only ten guns, and were soon posted each man in his proper position waiting for the schwarzwild, as the Germans say; but, alas! nothing appeared till the beaters themselves came in sight. So we had to organise battue number two. The beaters walk quietly forward, tapping the trees now and then. This is quite noise enough for the purpose of rousing the game; if they shouted or made too much row, the game would get wild and scared.

In the next battue I had hardly been five minutes at my post when I heard from behind the breaking of dead branches, as of some animal advancing slowly. It was a fine buck which made his appearance, but he scented me and made off. Again about a hundred yards off I got a glimpse of him between the trees. I fired with effect. We found him afterwards about two hundred yards farther on, where he had fallen. It was very provoking; up to lunch-time we sighted no wild-boar, though we saw by the snow that they must have been about the hillside during the night. We had soon a good fire blazing, at which robber-steak was nicely cooked. I never enjoyed anything more. We washed down our repast with good Tokay.

After luncheon we commenced work again. By this time we had advanced into the very heart of the forest. The smooth boles of the tall beech-trees looked grand in their winter nakedness, rising like columns from the white frost-bespangled ground. I took up my stand, gun in readiness, waiting for the tramp, the snort, or the grizzly dark form of the wild-boar, but nothing came to disturb the utter solitude of the scene.

But hark! I hear shots fired repeatedly in the lower valley. I, too, begin to look out with quickened pulse, peering into the misty depths of the forest, and with ear alert for every sound, but all to no purpose. Nothing comes my way, though again I hear two more shots echo sharply in the narrow valley nearer to me than before. After the lapse of a few minutes the beaters came up, breaking through the dead branches of undercover. I knew now that my own chance was gone, but I was curious to know what had happened, and joining two of my friends whose "stand" had been near mine, we hurried down the valley to see what sport had turned up for the other guns. On inquiry it appeared that at least seventy wild-boars had passed close to one of our party, but the sight of so many at once had made his aim unsteady, and he only succeeded in wounding one of the number. The animal had dashed into the half-frozen stream at the bottom of the valley, and our friend had to reload and give him his final shot there.

We formed one more battue, but nothing came of it, and it was already high time to return to our quarters, for the whole scene was growing dim in the wintry twilight. Some of the party, myself included, went by arrangement to the house of one of the foresters. The good people, in their desire to be hospitable, gave us a warm reception. They had heated the rooms to such an extent that we were almost baked alive.

The next morning we resumed our sport. During the first battue eight wild-boars were sighted. One was shot instantly; the others broke through the line of beaters, but in doing so a very unusual thing happened, for one of the foresters succeeded in killing a boar by a tremendous blow from his axe. We were very much surprised that the animal had come near enough, for as a rule they will not approach human beings except when wounded, and then they are most formidable assailants. I regret to say that one of our dogs was ripped up by one of this herd of eight.

This was the beginning and end of our sport for the day. Our indifferent luck was to be accounted for from the fact of there being, comparatively speaking, not much snow.

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