234 THE IMAGE OF WAE 



country, north-eastwards from the Bock, is perhaps 

 the most unrideable of all, and those meets are always 

 the worst attended. Taking it all in all, it is prob- 

 ably the roughest " country " in the world. The only 

 thing I know that will at all compare with it is that 

 which one meets with pig-sticking sometimes in India, 

 and this latter has the further drawback that you 

 must go top speed all the way. 



Fences there are here and there, nevertheless, 

 generally made by heaping up thorns and interlacing 

 cactus. The newly-landed subaltern generally makes 

 a point of putting his horse at the first of these he 

 sees. Instead, however, of the good-humoured ap- 

 proval ^'larking" meets with at home, he is met with 

 yells of horror from the field. " Come back ! Culti- 

 vation ! " is the cry. These little fences mean that 

 the brown earth the other side has been ploughed, 

 and as the not very wealthy Hunt has to pay for 

 every footmark on these, they are even more care- 

 fully guarded than wheat or seeds in England. Nay, 

 more, the Spanish cultivator is quite likely to take 

 the law into his own hands. I recollect one summer 

 evening, when two of us were larking over a loose 

 stone-wall near the sea, a Spanish peasant shouting 

 to us to desist. But not only did he not wait to see 

 if we stopped, which we did, but rushing into the 

 house, returned with his escopeta or blunderbuss, the 

 sight of which effectually sent us galloping ofi*. As a 

 rule, however, the Spaniards are fairly tolerant of the 

 Hunt, though I have known them bring a shot fox to 

 the covert-side in triumph. Stories of violence were, 

 however, already of ancient date in my day, though, 

 more as a matter of tradition than otherwise, we 

 generally carried heavy brass-handled hunting-crops. 



