Thirty Years of Shikar

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 edition. Excerpt: ... T is mid-winter, --that is to say, it is the 15th July, --and as I am writing these lines in Tasmania, my statement that it is mid-winter is locally accurate to the letter. It is mid-winter, then, inasmuch as it is middlewards of Tasmania's apology for a hyperborean season, and looking out from my studywindow, my eye ranges over a garden where roses, geraniums, chrysanthemums, nasturtiums, and other flowers are all abloom: looking beyond these witnesses as to the good character of Tasmania's climate, down the sloping paddocks that are bounded by a willow-fringed beck, and beyond to the broad waters of the Derwent, I see a sunlit river gay with a score of centreboard yachts; and looking farther yet afield, I find the scene closed in by hills of varied form that, tier after tier, exhibit tricks of light and shade that would delight the artist and drive the prosiest writer into poetry. This, by the way, is written in Hobart, where my home is not, and the room that I call my study is not a study any more than it is mine, except temporarily. I am in Hobart, and there fronting me is a scene that has more of summer than winter in it. But I am, nevertheless, within sight of snow, if I choose to go round to the back of the house, for I live under the shadow of Mount Wellington, that towers over 4000 feet above the sea-level, and bears upon its crest and upper slopes a snow mantle that, if the sun be less conspicuous than usual, lasts more or less from June to August. A most picturesque mountain is this from every point of view, as is Hobart the most beautifully situated city of the many cities that I have seen in three quarters of the world. Constantinople, the splendid capital of the Byzantine empire, I know only by repute, and I am therefore..