Transylvania has often been nicknamed the B?renland, and though bears and wolves do not exactly walk about the high-roads in broad daylight, as unsophisticated travellers are apt to expect, yet they are common enough features in the landscape, and no one can be many weeks in the country without hearing them mentioned as familiarly as foxes or grouse are spoken of at home.
The number of bears shot in Transylvania in the course of the year 1885 was about sixty. Eight of these fell to the share of the Crown-prince Rudolf of Austria, who for the last few years has rented a chasse at Gyergyó Szent Imre, in one of the most favorable bear-hunting neighborhoods.
As to the wolves destroyed each year, they are not to be reckoned by dozens, nor even by scores, but by hundreds, and I was assured by a competent authority that between six and seven hundred is the number of those who last year perished by the hand of man.
It is the commonest thing in the world on market-days to see a group of shepherds in the ironmonger’s shop (where a store of common fire-arms is kept), in deep consultation as to the merits of the pistol or revolver they are in want of for scaring the wolves so constantly molesting their flocks; and occasionally a snapping and snarling wolf, or a pair of bear cubs, are brought in a cart to the town in quest of an amateur of such fierce pets.
Even in the neighborhood of Hermanstadt it is not safe to walk far into the country alone in very cold weather for fear of wolves, which can easily approach the town under cover of the forest, which runs unbroken up to the hills; and while I was at Hermanstadt a large gray wolf was reported to have been seen several nights in succession prowling about within the actual precincts of the lower town.
At one of the toll-bars marking the limits of the town, and whence stretches off a lonely plain towards the south, a large fierce dog is kept chained up; but he never retains his situation two years running, because he is invariably destroyed by wolves before the winter is out. “The dog at the Poplaka toll-bar has been eaten again,” is the matter-of-fact announcement one hears every year when the cold is rising, and which has long since lost all flavor of sensation or novelty; and one only wonders how any Hermanstadt dog can still be found infatuated enough to undertake this forlorn hope.
Up in the mountains, however, the wolves do not slink in stealthy groups of twos and threes, but assemble in such mighty packs that sometimes on the high pasturages the snow is found to be trampled down by the tread of many hundred feet, as though large droves of cattle had passed over the place. Officers who have been engaged in{294} the work of going over the country, classifying all horses for purposes of national defence, have told me that in many out-of-the-way places up the hills they used to find the horses frequently bitten or scarred about the nose—as many keepsakes from the wolves, whose invariable habit it is first to spring at the horse’s head.
Many are the ruses which the wolf employs in order to induce a horse or foal to detach itself from a drove of grazing animals. Sometimes he will roll himself up into a shapeless mass, and lie thus immovable for hours on the ground, till some young inexperienced colt, bitten with curiosity, wanders from its mother’s side to investigate the strange bundle it espies at a distance. The wily murderer lets himself be approached without moving, and only then, when the hapless victim bends down to snuff the packet, he springs at the throat, and makes of it an easy prey.
The more experienced horses have long since learned that their only safety is in numbers; so at the approach of wolves they draw themselves together in a wheel, each head turned inward touching the others, their tails all pointing outward, and with their hind-hoofs dealing out such furious kicks as to enable them to keep at bay several enemies at a time.
The Transylvanian bears will rarely attack a man unless provoked, experiencing as much terror from a chance encounter as any they are likely to occasion. A Saxon peasant told me of such a meeting he had some years ago, when up in the mountains with some gentlemen who had come there in quest of deer. As they were to sleep in the open air, he had gone to collect firewood on the ground between a scattered group of fir-trees. When issuing from behind a tree-trunk he suddenly found himself face to face with a gigantic bear—not ten paces off. “We were both so taken aback,” he said, “that for nearly a minute we stood staring at each other without moving. Then I called out, ‘Der Teufel!’ and took to my heels; and the bear, he just gave a grunt, which perhaps also meant ‘Der Teufel’ in his language, and he also turned to run; and when I looked back to see where he was, there, to be sure, he was still running down the hill as hard as ever he could go.”
Only a couple of summers ago two Hungarian gendarmes were patrolling near Szent Mihaly where each of them, walking at a different side of a deep ravine, could see, without being able to reach, his comrade. As one of them came round a point of rock, he was suddenly{295} confronted by a bear carrying a sheep in his mouth. In this case, also, man and bear stared at each other for some seconds; then the bear turned away in order to carry off his booty to a safe place. The gendarme, recovering from his surprise, fired at the retreating bear, which, wounded, gave a loud roar. A second shot likewise took effect, for now the bear, dropping the sheep, raised himself on his hind-legs, and advanced on his assailant. By the time a third shot was fired the bear had come up close and seized the muzzle of the gun. A fearful struggle now began between man and beast. The gendarme was holding on convulsively to his gun, when, his foot catching in a tree-root, he stumbled and fell to the ground. Already he saw the dreadful jaws of the bear close to his face, and gave himself up for lost. However, the bear was getting weaker, and let go its hold on the gun to seize the leg of the man, who, with a last desperate effort, struck the animal on the breast with the butt-end of his rifle. This turned the scale, and the animal fled down the ravine to hide itself in the stream. In the mean time the second gendarme, who from the other side had been spectator of the scene, arrived, along with some shepherds armed with clubs and pickaxes, and pursued the bear into his retreat. The animal received them with terrific roars, and began to pick up large stones, which he hurled at his adversaries with such correct aim as severely to wound one of the shepherds on the head. Finally the beast was killed, and his stomach discovered to be full of fresh ox-flesh. The wounded gendarme had to be conveyed home on horseback, and his gun was found to have been completely bent in the struggle.
At the costumed procession commemorating the arrival of the Saxons in Transylvania, which I have described in Chapter V., the most conspicuous object in the group of hunting-trophies was a gigantic stuffed bear, which, as a current newspaper announced, “had been shot expressly for the occasion.” This paragraph excited considerable derision among non-Transylvanian sportsmen, who mockingly inquired whether a bear could be killed to order like an ox or a prize pig.
In this case, however, the newspapers said no more than the simple truth, the bear in question having been literally shot to order by Oberlieutenant Berger, a native of the place, and one of the most noteworthy Nimrods in the land.
It happened, namely, that about a fortnight before the day fixed for the procession, some of the gentlemen charged with its arrangement were lamenting that the only bear they ha............