It Is Poetic Foolishness To Hunt
It With A Gun; Very Few People Do That; There Is Not
One Man
In a million who can hit it with a gun.
It is much easier to catch it than it is
To shoot it,
and only the experienced chamois-hunter can do either.
Another common piece of exaggeration is that about the
"scarcity" of the chamois. It is the reverse of scarce.
Droves of one hundred million chamois are not unusual
in the Swiss hotels. Indeed, they are so numerous
as to be a great pest. The romancers always dress up
the chamois-hunter in a fanciful and picturesque costume,
whereas the best way to hunt this game is to do it without
any costume at all. The article of commerce called
chamois-skin is another fraud; nobody could skin a chamois,
it is too small. The creature is a humbug in every way,
and everything which has been written about it is
sentimental exaggeration. It was no pleasure to me to find
the chamois out, for he had been one of my pet illusions;
all my life it had been my dream to see him in his native
wilds some day, and engage in the adventurous sport
of chasing him from cliff to cliff. It is no pleasure
to me to expose him, now, and destroy the reader's delight
in him and respect for him, but still it must be done,
for when an honest writer discovers an imposition it
is his simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down
from its place of honor, no matter who suffers by it;
any other course would render him unworthy of the public
confidence.
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