ve never been robbed or threatened with robbery. Perhaps there
exists a sort of sympathy between brigands and sportsmen, for I cannot
call to mind any instance of a sportsman being robbed. It is true that
sometimes a fat financier, or rich _rentier_, who may have called
himself a sportsman, has been carried off and ransom demanded for him,
but a real sportsman never.

It is true that in some of the villages where dwell the peoples of a
nation I am not supposed to love, you are liable to and probably will
be _exploite_ to a considerable extent in the way of pilfering
cartridges, &c., but it is their nature to. So, brother sportsmen, when
you come out here take your abode in Turkish villages.

CHAPTER XXI.

SPORT AND SOCIETY.

I have mentioned, in what I have written above relating to sport, the
name of a somewhat celebrated spaniel of mine, whose name was 'Dick.'

The commencement of this bow-wow's career was as strange as the many
adventures he afterwards went through. When he was quite a young dog, he
once worked with me all day in ice and snow, and at last fell down
lifeless. A heavy snowstorm was raging, and as poor Dick seemed quite
dead, we made him a grave in the snow and covered him up with leaves and
bushes. We accomplished this with difficulty, on account of the blinding
snow and the streams that were much swollen by torrents from the
mountains. Dick's burial-place was about eight miles from where the
vessel was lying. We all got on board that night. I was deeply grieved
at the loss of the dog, who had already shown great promise as a
first-class sporting dog, a most difficult thing to procure in this
country. What was our astonishment the next morning at daylight to see
Dick on the beach, making piteous howls to draw attention to his
whereabouts. He was warmly welcomed, as may be supposed; he did not seem
a bit the worse for his brief sojourn in the grave, and went out
shooting again the same day as happy as ever. This enthusiastic little
spaniel was always doing strange things; he followed every fox and every
badger into their holes, and we have had, time after time, to dig him
out covered with blood and fearfully mauled, after having passed perhaps
twenty-four hours in the earth.

Mr. Dick generally hunted alone, occasionally coming near to see that I
was all right. Now this sounds bad for Dick's qualities as a sporting
dog, but such a dog is necessary in a thickly-wooded region such as I
shot