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 Grünen 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.