WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 291 



their being thrashed on the bare ground where they grew, the 

 dirt and grit intermixed with them detracted considerably from 

 their weight, and rendered the use of the sieve an absolute 

 necessity. My groom, a trusty Breton, knew more about milking 

 a cow than strapping and feeding a horse ; but if he had been 

 skilled as one of Scott's stable-boys, the usually wretched accom- 

 modation, in the form of draughty, undrained hovels, in which 

 a bar only separates one horse from another, and through which 

 the winds career as through a windmill, would have defied his 

 utmost efforts to keep a horse, doing hard work, in good form 

 and condition. I allude, however, to the stables of the country 

 inns, not to those of private houses, and to a time when the 

 interior of Brittany was almost as little known by foreigners as 

 Namaqua Land is at the present day. 



A wolf, unless crippled, will rarely go to ground, however 

 pressed by hounds, or however tempted by the hollow character 

 of the country : he keeps going so long as he can stand ; and, 

 although shier and wilier than most beasts of the forest, he is up 

 to none of the dodges in chase practised by the hare, the fox, and 

 the sinking stag. That day at Pontargoned and Huelgoet he 

 might have gone to ground a hundred times into one of the 

 numerous lead-mines, shafts, and caves with which that district 

 abounds. So frequent and- so deceptive were some of the old 

 shafts, being covered with wood long perished and utterly unsafe, 

 that it was only by a sharp look-out we were able to steer clear 

 and avoid those hidden pitfalls scattered around us on every side. 

 Keryfan, indeed, had a very narrow escape, his horse scrambling 

 over one, as the whole fabric of the woodwork gave way and fell 

 with a crash into the abyss below ; and sunk as some of these pits 

 are to a depth of several hundred feet into the silurian rocks, it must 

 have proved a fatal fall to both, if the steed, with wondrous 

 activity, had not gained a secure footing on the opposite bank. 

 There are instances on record, however, which indicate that such 



