The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-12-10
A WOLF HUNT.
In Which an Austrian Princess
Took a Prominent Part.

For many years public interest has
been drawn toward that portion of
Austrian Poland which would consti-
tnte the battle ground in the event of a
war with Russia. Beyond the track or
ken of the ordinary tourist, and COM
paratively undisturbed by the shrek
and rattle of the railway trains, it has
remained terra incognita to all ex-
cept the officers and troops charged
with the duty of guarding the frontier,
and to the few great mobiles who dwell
in grandeur in the magnificent castles
which here and there crown the rocky
eminences and dominate the boundless
steppes. The boundary line between
Austria and Russia is closely guarded
by regiments of Cossacks on one side
and by Austrian lancers on the other,
and the surrounding country, being ex-
tremely wild and but sparsely populat-
ed by a half-civilized peasantry, and
being, moreover, infested with wild
beasts, the life of the officers detailed
for frontier duty is often fraught with
much danger and adventure.
A few years ago, in the month of Au-
gust, my regiment, the -th Ian
GERS, was ordered to leave its pleasant
quarters in Vienna and proceed to
W for the purpose of relieving the
- regiment of lancers on the Rus
sian frontier, and four weeks later we
reached our station on the border of
the steppes. The country appeared ex-
tremely desolate, with villages few
and far between; immense plains of
grain and grass; large swamps of
reedy wilderness and gloomy forests of
pines, through which the wind moaned
piteously. The village where we were
quartered was rather picturesque. The
peasants huts, built on both sides of a
broad, muddy road. were painted blue,
yellow or pink, and were shaded by
groves of birches and willow trees.
The nearest town was a nineteen
hours ride over execrable roads, and
when finally reached was but a miser-
able tlace, which did not repay the
long journey. When we arrived at our
destination we looked rather disconso-
lately at the bare, damp, wooden bar
racks which our predecessors had left
in very unprepossessing condition,
and we should have given up the at
tempt of ever hoping to make our
abode even moderately habitable had
it not been for the cheerful and light
hearted manner in which young Prin-
cess NJ, the wife of our colonel, who
had been adventurous enough to ac-
company her husband into this vol
uutary exile, accepted all the hard
ships of the situation. The young prin-
cess, who was of French birth, had
been married at sixteen to our colonel.
Prince M, and at the time of which
am writing was about eighteen wears
old. She was small, slender, lovely
girl, with a fair, white skin, golden
brown hair, large, dark gray eyes and
fragile frame, which, however, seemed
steeled against any kind of fatigue.
She was one of Empress Elizabcth's
favorite ladies in waiting, and it was
only with difficulty that she had
obtained from her imperial mis-
tress permission TO follow her
husband into the wilds of Poland.
She said that she considered it to
be her duty to come with us, and to
cheer us in our dependency. God
hlcss her for her unselfishpess and