CHAPTER XV
SPORT IN THE ALPS
If I were younger and able to walk over bad ground, I would certainly prefer a good shooting in Austria to the best forest in Scotland, though the expense is now little, if any, less, and the best shootings are rarely, if ever, let.
Baillie-Grohman has well described Alpine sport as it was years ago, and still is in many places, where millionaires, noblemen or princes have not controlled it. But I have never assisted at any of the great deer or chamois drives, and began too late to become a good shot at chamois, which I think the most difficult of all animals to hit. I have enjoyed many delightful if not very bloody days in a shoot which I rented in the Vorarl- berg with my friends Mr. J. Fairholme and the late Mr. Gardner Bazley. Without the help of the former, who was born and lived in the country and spoke the language like a native, and was equally at home with peasants or princes, I could never have rented or managed this shoot; and even with his help and supervision there were many difficulties and draw¬ backs which prevented us from going on with it after our lease expired.
Egg was the name of a large parish comprising about 14,000 joch, # and situated at a short distance from Bregenz at the east end of the Lake of Constance. It had, until we took it, been shot over by the sportsmen of the commune, whose Mayor, or Vorsteher, was a keen sportsman, and would not willingly have allowed it to be let. But the majority of the inhabitants, finding that only a few of them got anything out of it, petitioned the Governor to have it put up to auction. If Fairholme had not had an intimate knowledge of the country, we should never have obtained it at such a seemingly low rent as we paid.
Two keepers were engaged by him. One was a clever fellow but a rogue, who later on was caught shooting the game. The other keeper, a Styrian and a very pleasant fellow, was looked on as an intruder by the very clannish inhabitants of the valley, and was not likely to be too friendly with the men, however much he might enjoy the society of the girls in the Alp hutten. Poor Willi, as he was named, was not a first-class keeper, and the ground was so wide and so broken that he was unable to look after it thoroughly. At first we tried to nurse the roe and chamois, believing that they would increase a good deal when the ground was kept quiet. But we discovered later that the stags, which found a splendid wintering ground in the sheltered woods and valleys of our shooting, spent the summer and most of the autumn on adjoining higher land, and did not come on to our ground till after the rutting season. When the snow became deep they came down, and caused great damage to the young trees by gnawing the bark. This damage was assessed by the Government forester m the spring, and a bill for “ Wildschaden ” caused by deer which we never saw was sent in, and amounted to as much as or more than the rent of the shoot. Then we would get a notice from the Vorsteher in
1 A “joch" is is more than two acres.
