COL. ANSTRUTHER THOMSON 99 



been waiting till I could give you some sort of a 

 description of the hounds and country — and the 

 hounds when I came here were in such form as I 

 never saw hounds before. I will tell you of two days. 

 The first : I was out with them at exercise the first 

 day. We left the kennels with twenty couple, all 

 old hounds and all in couples, and for an hour we 

 got on pretty well. But such a noise you never 

 heard, it was nothing but yelling and cracking whips 

 all the way. There was more row in that hour than 

 we made in Fife all the five years I was there ; and 

 I could not parlez vouz Francie and the huntsman 

 could not speak a word of English, but I could make 

 out that some of the hounds were good at running 

 cur dogs. And I soon had proof of it, for we turned 

 a sharp corner, and about 100 yards in front of us 

 was a bullock waggon and such a nice cur dog, and 

 as soon as the hounds saw him they began to dance 

 on their hind legs, the huntsman began cracking his 

 whip in front, his horse began dancing, the whip did 

 the same behind, then one or two of the hounds said 

 ' Bow Wow,' and away the lot went full cry, and 

 they ran poor cur about three-quarters of a mile and 

 rolled him over. They did not quite kill him, but 

 he got a great fright. And these are hounds that 

 came from Major Brown, the same blood that he 

 gave ;^ioo each for at Lord Poltimore's sale, and I 

 was glad when I saw them in the kennel safe. The 

 second day was just such another. The first part 

 was pretty quiet. I gave some of the worst a stripe 

 with the whip, and I began to think we should get 



