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course, he was instantly shot. His owner had been saying, just before the accident, that this good horse had carried him seven seasons, and that he was quite sure he never should meet with his fellow again. The fox came back to Alley-thorn, where the hounds worked him till dark, and then-went home.

Friday Dec. 1.-Astwell Mill. Found number one in Alley-thorn: had a sharp burst for ten minutes, and lost; thus reminding one of the explosion of a bottle of soda-water—pop, phiz, and it's all over. Found number two in a new gorse cover: had an uncommonly good run for an hour and thirty minutes, at a rattling pace, when unfortunately the hounds, just as they should have tasted him, got upon a fresh fox: stopped the hounds, and sang "dulce domum.'

Saturday, Dec. 2.-Salcey Lawne. Drew Preston Park blank: found in Salcey Forest, to which he stuck like a martin cat, but going at a very different pace through it. For one hour and forty minutes they screeched with one accord in his rear, and they ran into him, without a check or a cast, in the very heart of the forest: an ancient dog-fox. This was a run after the fashion of old Ned Rose. It might have been the very fox that beat him so many times during the last years of his life, and, it was whispered by some of his acquaintance, hurried the old man himself to ground at last, through vexation that he could not kill him.

Monday, Dec. 4.-Stowe-nine-churches. "The ladies" again at the cover side, looking bright and beautiful, and displaying the work of an artist in their condition. Found in Stowe Wood, and stuck as if they had been glued to him for two hours, when they killed.

:

Wednesday, Dec. 6.-Cowper's Oak. The dog pack: found immediately in Yardley Chase (a name at once sacred to the Muses and Diana) took one turn through West-wood, leaving Ranson-wood on the right, and crossing the Northampton road by "the Bull," entered Salcey Forest; here he had not a moment's rest, though he ran his foil and tried many a wile. The hounds were hard at him from first to last, at least two hours (the oldest forester could not remember such a crash), and killed. Butler was in his glory; well pleased to see every hound in his place, and delighted with the day's sport. After all, condition is the main-stay of every establishment; and unless matters go well in the kennel, they cannot do so in the field; the art of feeding hounds is only acquired by long experience, and a nice discrimination is requisite to enable a man to do it judiciously. "Some hounds will feed better than others; some there are that will do with less meat; and it requires a nice eye and great attention, to keep them all in equal fleshit is what distinguishes a good kennel huntsman." According to Beckford, "to distinguish, with any nicety, the order a pack of hounds are in, and the different degrees of it, is surely no easy task; and to be done well, requires no small degree of circumspection." Up to the present date, the weather has been so changeable and so adverse to scent, that no opportunity has been given of testing the condition and stoutness of his lordship's pack by any severe days; but the most casual observer need but cast his eye over them, and he will not fail to discover in their clean, glossy skins and muscular development that their form is first-rate, and that they are indebted to no novice, no inexperienced hand for such a brilliant state of condition.

Friday, Dec. 8.-Lord Southampton's bitch pack at Foxley found directly; and just as the hounds were settling to their fox, and all thought we were in for a good thing, a check ensued that proved fatal : in vain were they cast, not a hound hit it afterwards. Found No. 2 in Seawell Wood, rattled him in cover for twenty minutes; the field seeming determined that he should not break, by encircling the cover in all directions; at length, however, he did get away, from the end of Maidford Wood, the pack well at him, and screeching for his blood: he led us, like a Will-o-'the-Wisp, through a heavy and distressing country, where the fences, though in reality they were small, looked like very big ones, as the horses, up to their hocks in mire, attempted to take them in their stride; through Farthingstone Wood "like an arrow he passed," skirted Henwood, and to the Everdon brook, over which Mr. Brereton Trelawny gallantly led the field, and into which, bumper as it was, many a good steed, with its gallant rider, plunged on he flew, over the hill, still sinking the wind, with his head pointing for Daventry, when he was suddenly headed by a farmer, who turned him from his line, and the hounds, cutting off the angle, raced him to Everdon Mill, where he was fairly run into: time, fifty-eight minutes--with but a momentary check throughout the piece.

Saturday, Dec. 9.-Tile House. Drew Akely Wood, and found; crossed the Park, by Stowe House, for Hatch Woods, where he was lost found again in the Crown Lands, a tremendously strong place, and the dread of old Ned Rose; ran him hard through Bucklands, the hounds being knee-deep in slosh, and on to Silverstone, where they killed him without a check-time, fifty minutes. A fine cover run as

any man could wish, but the rides unmercifully deep.

Nothing can exceed the steadiness of Lord Southampton's hounds ; nineteen times out of twenty, if a hound speaks, it is a fox; but surely, whatever their character, fifty couple of hounds is a short complement for four days a week in his lordship's country, fenced as it is, to keep out the deer from certain parts of the forest, with huge black-thorn hedges, at least ten feet high, wattled, impenetrable, and dark as night. In topping these, from the inside, where they are not so high, hounds often fail to cover the ditch by which they are bounded, and the consequence is, the fore legs get shaken, and sprains occur, from which they do not recover for a long time. It is no uncommon thing in the kennel for eight or ten couple to be lame at once, principally from this cause.

Lord Southampton's "Field" are still fairly entitled to the charge of being a little too quick upon hounds. Old Tom Rose, we are told, whenever it was an open fixture, "dreaded the sight of the Pytchley Wild-boys,' who were ever for a scurry in the morning, and not being accustomed, when at home, to give them much room,' used to drive them over it most unmercifully, and generally soon lost their fox for them :" unquestionably, in the present day, a dash of the same blood still exists on that side of the country, and in unsettled weather, partly from over-riding, partly from wind-sinking, many a good fox is lost or headed, which would otherwise have shown a brilliant run.

To be too near hounds at any time, but especially when the scent is not first-rate, is a fault of which huntsmen have but too much reason to complain; indeed, the wonder is, how, crowded upon and over-ridden as hounds occasionally are, they ever contrive, under such circumstances,

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to kill their fox at all. Gentlemen yclept "bruisers" are usually the mischief-makers; and as the action of a hound catching the scent, dropping his stern, and flying upon it, is of secondary importance to the pleasure of fencing, so they not only constantly drive hounds over the scent, but cannot tell how far it has been brought when hounds come to a check with them, the man who is first over the fence is entitled to the chief glory; but this is not hunting, it is a kind of hybrid sport between steeple-chasing and the chase, akin to both, but legitimatized by neither. There are, however, some steady and first-rate men in his lordship's country: no one can surpass Capt. Fitzroy as a judge of hounds' work, and an undeniably good horseman; the captain is very quiet, but very determined; he possesses a clear head, a quick eye, and a wonderfully big heart, when hounds are running hard; his geographical knowledge, too, is such as to give him a decided advantage over most men who hunt in that country. Lord Euston and Lord Charles Fitzroy, his brother, are both very difficult men to beat, and are thorough-bred fox-hunters by birth and inclination; the latter rides a chesnut horse, up to about fourteen stone, which is as clever an animal as ever was saddled. The noble master has also a big chesnut or two, which carry him well, and have the action and airiness of ponies; "Claret" and " Congress" are first-rate animals: his lordship goes to Mr. Anderson, in Piccadilly, who, for his own sake, never allows a horse to pass through his hands that is not perfect at his business; and men of a certain calibre in bulk and pocket, who have once known the comfort of a made-hunter, never stick at price when a horse of such a character is required for their riding.

Butler, the present huntsman, was eleven years with Mr. Foljambe, six with the Sandbeck, and ten with the Badsworth, from which pack he came to Lord Southampton. These are his credentials, and they are quite enough to carry him through the world as an experienced houndsman, and as a servant who can appreciate a good master. The condidition of his pack, which has been already noticed, shows how well he has attended to the kennel department; without which, success in the field could never be ensured. His system in hunting is, to let hounds alone, which, by men accustomed to the fast countries, may be considered as carried to too great an extent; nevertheless, few huntsmen in the north of England showed more sport or killed more foxes than he did. He is remarkably silent with hounds, but often uses a whistle, which we cannot reconcile our ears to as the right "dog-language;" yet he has a fine manly voice, and one which hounds must fly to, when he catches a view or gets them together on a newly found fox. Butler is supported in the field by two very efficient men, Tom Atkinson and George Turner; the former, who is head-whip, has been two years in his present service, and came from Ireland with the pack, which Lord Southampton bought from Lord Shannon; the latter, an excellent horseman, learned his business at Rome, where he belonged to the pack of foxhounds which hunted that classic country.

SKETCHES FROM A SPORTSMAN'S PORTFOLIO.

BY PERCY B. ST. JOHN, ESQ.

No. I.

HUNTING IN ETHIOPIA.

*

Some time ago I entertained my readers with the records of two recollections, in which friends were concerned; I now set aside my own memories, though only for a while, to introduce the British public to the wild sports of South Abyssinia. Major W. C. Harris, well known to every lover of hunting on a large scale, by his delightful "Wild Sports in Southern Africa," and "Portraits of African Game Animals," has published a book, replete with information of every kind, written in a style at once animated, florid, glowing, and nervous, full of adventure and hair-breadth escapes, and bringing us in immediate contact and intimate acquaintance with a people of whom we knew before literally nothing-the reports of the French spy, Rochel d'Hericourt, being so full of glaring falsehoods as to be worthless, and Messrs. Combes and Tamisier being little known in this country. The result of Major Harris's visit is of great political and commercial importance; his account of Shoa, its king, people, priests, and productions, deeply and singularly interesting; and to us in particular his sporting recollections are replete with stirring and delightful charms. "The hunting portion of the Eesah tribe, remarks our traveller, while on his perilous journey from Tajura to Ankober, "usually carry a rude bamboo flute, the wild plaintive cadence of which is believed to charm the ostrich. Universally skilled in woodcraft, the ferocious subjects of Ibu Fara may be styled a nation of hunters, many being proprietors of trained ostriches, which graze during the day with the flocks in the open plain, and have their legs hobbled at night, to preclude wandering. These gigantic birds are employed with great success in stalking wild animals, a trained donkey being also in constant use, lashed below the belly of which the archer is carried among the unsuspecting herd, when his arrows, poisoned with the milk of the euphorbia antiquorum, deal death on every side."

To us poor folk at home, content to slay a pheasant, or at most a deer in the highlands, the following is awfully tantalising: "Judgment was calmly delivered, until the arrival of some breathless horseman, with intelligence of the discovery of a colony of baboons, would arrest the proceedings. 'Sáhela Sélassie ye moot?' inquired the sporting monarch of Shoa, on one of these occasions; are they well

"The Highlands of Ethiopia." By Major W. Cornwallis Harris. 1844.

Longman and Co. Three volumes.

London:

surrounded?" Being assured of this, "his majesty galloped towards the spot, followed by every rifle and fowling-piece of which the imperial armoury could boast. On the verge of a deep valley a countless pig-faced army was presently revealed, laying waste the rising crop. Lusty veterans, with long flowing manes, strutted consequentiously among the ladies; and others, squatted upon their haunches, with many a ghastly grin displayed their white teeth whilst hunting down the vermin that infested their rough shaggy coats. Casting aside his chequered robe, the king, with all the ardour of a school-boy, dashed into the middle of the amazed group, and, under a running fire from himself and courtiers, the field was presently strewed with slain and wounded. Mangled wretches were now to be seen dragging their mutilated limbs behind them, in ineffectual exertions to reach the precipitous chasm of the Bereza, where white foaming waters were thundering below; whilst the grimacing survivors, far out of danger, whooped in echoes amid the bush-grown clefts, to re-assemble the discomfited forces."

After this brilliant victory of the King of Shoa, an elephant-hunt is quite refreshing. Nine tailors make a man; in Shoa forty gallas make an elephant; and, at all events, to kill an elephant is equivalent to the destruction of forty of the human denizens of the forest. Immense terror filled the souls of the dusky Abyssinians at the desperate nature of European courage, and with difficulty were beaters found; at length "a gallop of three miles through a dense covert, consisting of strong elastic wands, interlaced with prickly weeds and coarse spear-grass, left the crowd far in the rear; and, arriving at the spot where the animals had been viewed, 'Yellow Horse,' with half a score of his wild riders, was alone present. The deep holes left by the feet of the monstrous animals in the wet sand at the water's edge were still bubbling from below; and from the summit of a tree, the broad backs of a herd being presently identified at some distance, by the measured flapping of their huge ears, it was resolved that the native allies should tarry where they were, whilst two of the party proceeded quietly to the attack on foot, before the governor, with his noisy retinue, should arrive from the rear. After much opposition on the part of old Boroo, who vowed that the despot would hold him responsible for the accident which the rash measure was certain to entail, the arrangement was finally carried. A stealthy advance up the wind, under cover of the copse wood, soon revealed a small open area which had been trampled completely bare; and in its centre, beneath the scanty shade of a venerable camel-thorn, which had been well polished by continual rubbing, stood a gigantic bull, surrounded by four of his seraglio. British credit was now completely at stake. Creeping, therefore, to the extreme verge of the Covert, in order to render certainty more sure, a two-ounce ball, planted in the only small fatal spot presented by the huge target, laid low the mighty patriarch of the herd, whose fall made the earth to tremble. One of the survivors, rushing towards the ambush, received a volley of hard bullets in her broad forehead, which turned the attack, and brought her also to the ground, after a flight with her companions of fifty yards. She, however, rose, after some minutes, and escaped into the thick forest to die, attention being meanwhile