The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen - Rudolf Raspe

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one stuck

      in the throat of the other! and they were struggling to extricate

      themselves! I fortunately recollected my _couteau de chasse_, which was

      by my side; with this instrument I severed the lion’s head at one

      blow, and the body fell at my feet! I then, with the butt-end of my

      fowling-piece, rammed the head farther into the throat of the crocodile,

      and destroyed him by suffocation, for he could neither gorge nor eject

      it.

      Soon after I had thus gained a complete victory over my two powerful

      adversaries, my companion arrived in search of me; for finding I did not

      follow him into the wood, he returned, apprehending I had lost my way,

      or met with some accident.

      After mutual congratulations, we measured the crocodile, which was just

      forty feet in length.

      As soon as we had related this extraordinary adventure to the governor,

      he sent a waggon and servants, who brought home the two carcases. The

      lion’s skin was properly preserved, with its hair on, after which it

      was made into tobacco-pouches, and presented by me, upon our return to

      Holland, to the burgomasters, who, in return, requested my acceptance of

      a thousand ducats.

      The skin of the crocodile was stuffed in the usual manner, and makes a

      capital article in their public museum at Amsterdam, where the exhibitor

      relates the whole story to each spectator, with such additions as he

      thinks proper. Some of his variations are rather extravagant; one of

      them is, that the lion jumped quite through the crocodile, and was

      making his escape at the back door, when, as soon as his head appeared,

      Monsieur the Great Baron (as he is pleased to call me) cut it off,

      and three feet of the crocodile’s tail along with it; nay, so little

      attention has this fellow to the truth, that he sometimes adds, as soon

      as the crocodile missed his tail, he turned about, snatched the _couteau

      de chasse_ out of Monsieur’s hand, and swallowed it with such eagerness

      that it pierced his heart and killed him immediately!

      The little regard which this impudent knave has to veracity makes me

      sometimes apprehensive that my _real facts_ may fall under suspicion, by

      being found in company with his confounded inventions.

      CHAPTER II

      _In which the Baron proves himself a good shot – He loses his horse,

      and finds a wolf – Makes him draw his sledge – Promises to entertain

      his company with a relation of such facts as are well deserving their

      notice._

      I set off from Rome on a journey to Russia, in the midst of winter, from

      a just notion that frost and snow must of course mend the roads, which

      every traveller had described as uncommonly bad through the northern

      parts of Germany, Poland, Courland, and Livonia. I went on horseback, as

      the most convenient manner of travelling; I was but lightly clothed, and

      of this I felt the inconvenience the more I advanced north-east.

      What must not a poor old man have suffered in that severe weather and

      climate, whom I saw on a bleak common in Poland, lying on the road,

      helpless, shivering, and hardly having wherewithal to cover his

      nakedness? I pitied the poor soul: though I felt the severity of the air

      myself, I threw my mantle over him, and immediately I heard a voice from

      the heavens, blessing me for that piece of charity, saying —

      «You will be rewarded, my son, for this in time.»

      I went on: night and darkness overtook me. No village was to be seen.

      The country was covered with snow, and I was unacquainted with the road.

      Tired, I alighted, and fastened my horse to something like a pointed

      stump of a tree, which appeared above the snow; for the sake of safety I

      placed my pistols under my arm, and laid down on the snow, where I slept

      so soundly that I did not open my eyes till full daylight. It is not

      easy to conceive my astonishment to find myself in the midst of a

      village, lying in a churchyard; nor was my horse to be seen, but I heard

      him soon after neigh somewhere above me. On looking upwards I beheld him

      hanging by his bridle to the weather-cock of the steeple. Matters were

      now very plain to me: the village had been covered with snow overnight;

      a sudden change of weather had taken place; I had sunk down to the

      churchyard whilst asleep, gently, and in the same proportion as the snow

      had melted away; and what in the dark I had taken to be a stump of a

      little tree appearing above the snow, to which I had tied my horse,

      proved to have been the cross or weather-cock of the steeple!

      Without long consideration I took one of my pistols, shot the bridle

      in two, brought the horse, and proceeded on my journey. [Here the Baron

      seems to have forgot his feelings; he should certainly have ordered his

      horse a feed of corn, after fasting so long.]

      He carried me well – advancing into the interior parts of Russia. I found

      travelling on horseback rather unfashionable in winter, therefore I

      submitted, as I always do, to the custom of the country, took a single

      horse sledge, and drove briskly towards St. Petersburg. I do not exactly

      recollect whether it was in Eastland or Jugemanland, but I remember that

      in the midst of a dreary forest I spied a terrible wolf making after me,

      with all the speed of ravenous winter hunger. He soon overtook me. There

      was no possibility of escape. Mechanically I laid myself down flat in

      the sledge, and let my horse run for our safety. What I wished, but

      hardly hoped or expected, happened immediately after. The wolf did not

      mind me in the least, but took a leap over me, and falling furiously on

      the horse, began instantly to tear and devour the hind-part of the poor

      animal, which ran the faster for his pain and terror. Thus unnoticed and

      safe myself, I lifted my head slyly up, and with horror I beheld that

      the wolf had ate his

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