Hunting with Hounds 203 



but both sports are really artificial, and in 

 their essentials alike. To any man who has 

 hunted big game in a wild country the stress 

 laid on the differences between them seems 

 a little absurd, in fact cockney. It is of course 

 nothing against either that it is artificial; so 

 are all sports in long-civilized countries, from 

 lacrosse to ice yachting. 



It is amusing to see how natural it is for 

 each man to glorify the sport to which he has 

 been accustomed at the expense of any other. 

 The old-school French sportsman, for in- 

 stance, who followed the boar, stag, and hare 

 with his hounds, always looked down upon 

 the chase of the fox; whereas the average En- 

 glishman not only asserts but seriously be- 

 lieves that no other kind of chase can com- 

 pare with it, although in actual fact the very 

 points in which the Englishman is superior to 

 the Continental sportsman that is, in hard 

 and straight riding and jumping are those 

 which drag-hunting tends to develop rather 

 more than fox-hunting proper. In the mere 

 hunting itself the Continental sportsman is 

 often unsurpassed. 



Once beyond the Missouri, I met an ex- 

 patriated German baron, an unfortunate who 

 had failed utterly in the rough life of the 



