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+====== TRAVELS OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN ======
+===== CHAPTER V =====
+//The effects of great activity and presence of mind--A favourite
+  hound described, which pups while pursuing a hare; the hare also
+  litters while pursued by the hound--Presented with a famous horse
+  by Count Przobossky, with which he performs many extraordinary
+  feats.//
+All these narrow and lucky escapes, gentlemen, were chances turned to
+advantage by presence of mind and vigorous exertions, which, taken
+together, as everybody knows, make the fortunate sportsman, sailor,
+and soldier; but he would be a very blamable and imprudent sportsman,
+admiral, or general, who would always depend upon chance and his
+stars, without troubling himself about those arts which are their
+particular pursuits, and without providing the very best implements,
+which insure success. I was not blamable either way; for I have always
+been as remarkable for the excellency of my horses, dogs, guns, and
+swords, as for the proper manner of using and managing them, so that
+upon the whole I may hope to be remembered in the forest, upon the
+turf, and in the field. I shall not enter here into any detail of my
+stables, kennel, or armoury; but a favourite bitch of mine I cannot
+help mentioning to you; she was a greyhound, and I never had or saw a
+better. She grew old in my service, and was not remarkable for her
+size, but rather for her uncommon swiftness. I always coursed with
+her. Had you seen her you must have admired her, and would not have
+wondered at my predilection, and at my coursing her so much. She ran
+so fast, so much, and so long in my service, that she actually ran off
+her legs; so that, in the latter part of her life, I was under the
+necessity of working and using her only as a terrier, in which quality
+she still served me many years.
+Coursing one day a hare, which appeared to me uncommonly big, I pitied
+my poor bitch, being big with pups, yet she would course as fast as
+ever. I could follow her on horseback only at a great distance. At
+once I heard a cry as it were of a pack of hounds--but so weak and
+faint that I hardly knew what to make of it. Coming up to them, I was
+greatly surprised. The hare had littered in running; the same had
+happened to my bitch in coursing, and there were just as many leverets
+as pups. By instinct the former ran, the latter coursed: and thus I
+found myself in possession at once of six hares, and as many dogs, at
+the end of a course which had only begun with one.
+I remember this, my wonderful bitch, with the same pleasure and
+tenderness as a superb Lithuanian horse, which no money could have
+bought. He became mine by an accident, which gave me an opportunity of
+showing my horsemanship to a great advantage. I was at Count
+Przobossky's noble country-seat in Lithuania, and remained with the
+ladies at tea in the drawing-room, while the gentlemen were down in
+the yard, to see a young horse of blood which had just arrived from
+the stud. We suddenly heard a noise of distress; I hastened down-
+stairs, and found the horse so unruly, that nobody durst approach or
+mount him. The most resolute horsemen stood dismayed and aghast;
+despondency was expressed in every countenance, when, in one leap, I
+was on his back, took him by surprise, and worked him quite into
+gentleness and obedience with the best display of horsemanship I was
+master of. Fully to show this to the ladies, and save them unnecessary
+trouble, I forced him to leap in at one of the open windows of the
+tea-room, walked round several times, pace, trot, and gallop, and at
+last made him mount the tea-table, there to repeat his lessons in a
+pretty style of miniature which was exceedingly pleasing to the
+ladies, for he performed them amazingly well, and did not break either
+cup or saucer. It placed me so high in their opinion, and so well in
+that of the noble lord, that, with his usual politeness, he begged I
+would accept of this young horse, and ride him full career to conquest
+and honour in the campaign against the Turks, which was soon to be
+opened, under the command of Count Munich.
+I could not indeed have received a more agreeable present, nor a more
+ominous one at the opening of that campaign, in which I made my
+apprenticeship as a soldier. A horse so gentle, so spirited, and so
+fierce--at once a lamb and a Bucephalus, put me always in mind of the
+soldier's and the gentleman's duty! of young Alexander, and of the
+astonishing things he performed in the field.
+We took the field, among several other reasons, it seems, with an
+intention to retrieve the character of the Russian arms, which had
+been blemished a little by Czar Peter's last campaign on the Pruth;
+and this we fully accomplished by several very fatiguing and glorious
+campaigns under the command of that great general I mentioned before.
+Modesty forbids individuals to arrogate to themselves great successes
+or victories, the glory of which is generally engrossed by the
+commander--nay, which is rather awkward, by kings and queens who never
+smelt gunpowder but at the field-days and reviews of their troops;
+never saw a field of battle, or an enemy in battle array.
+Nor do I claim any particular share of glory in the great engagements
+with the enemy. We all did our duty, which, in the patriot's,
+soldier's, and gentleman's language, is a very comprehensive word, of
+great honour, meaning, and import, and of which the generality of idle
+quidnuncs and coffee-house politicians can hardly form any but a very
+mean and contemptible idea. However, having had the command of a body
+of hussars, I went upon several expeditions, with discretionary
+powers; and the success I then met with is, I think, fairly and only
+to be placed to my account, and to that of the brave fellows whom I
+led on to conquest and to victory. We had very hot work once in the
+van of the army, when we drove the Turks into Oczakow. My spirited
+Lithuanian had almost brought me into a scrape: I had an advanced
+fore-post, and saw the enemy coming against me in a cloud of dust,
+which left me rather uncertain about their actual numbers and real
+intentions: to wrap myself up in a similar cloud was common prudence,
+but would not have much advanced my knowledge, or answered the end for
+which I had been sent out; therefore I let my flankers on both wings
+spread to the right and left and make what dust they could, and I
+myself led on straight upon the enemy, to have nearer sight of them:
+in this I was gratified, for they stood and fought, till, for fear of
+my flankers, they began to move off rather disorderly. This was the
+moment to fall upon them with spirit; we broke them entirely--made a
+terrible havoc amongst them, and drove them not only back to a walled
+town in their rear, but even through it, contrary to our most sanguine
+expectation.
+The swiftness of my Lithuanian enabled me to be foremost in the
+pursuit; and seeing the enemy fairly flying through the opposite gate,
+I thought it would be prudent to stop in the market-place, to order
+the men to rendezvous. I stopped, gentlemen; but judge of my
+astonishment when in this market-place I saw not one of my hussars
+about me! Are they scouring the other streets? or what is become of
+them? They could not be far off, and must, at all events, soon join
+me. In that expectation I walked my panting Lithuanian to a spring in
+this market-place, and let him drink. He drank uncommonly, with an
+eagerness not to be satisfied, but natural enough; for when I looked
+round for my men, what should I see, gentlemen! the hind part of the
+poor creature--croup and legs were missing, as if he had been cut in
+two, and the water ran out as it came in, without refreshing or doing
+him any good! How it could have happened was quite a mystery to me,
+till I returned with him to the town-gate. There I saw, that when I
+rushed in pell-mell with the flying enemy, they had dropped the
+portcullis (a heavy falling door, with sharp spikes at the bottom, let
+down suddenly to prevent the entrance of an enemy into a fortified
+town) unperceived by me, which had totally cut off his hind part, that
+still lay quivering on the outside of the gate. It would have been an
+irreparable loss, had not our farrier contrived to bring both parts
+together while hot. He sewed them up with sprigs and young shoots of
+laurels that were at hand; the wound healed, and, what could not have
+happened but to so glorious a horse, the sprigs took root in his body,
+grew up, and formed a bower over me; so that afterwards I could go
+upon many other expeditions in the shade of my own and my horse's
+laurels.
+----
+Go to [[CHAPTER VI]]