LETTER XVIII 



CONDITION OF HUNTERS RESUMED 



IT is upwards of two years since I wrote my 

 last letter on this interesting subject, but I 

 now intend to pursue it to its conclusion. 

 In these my labours I am encouraged and 

 solaced by one reflection. Four seasons have now 

 elapsed since I awakened the attention of my brother 

 sportsmen to a different treatment of their hunters 

 at the various periods of the year ; and I have never 

 yet had this cast in my teeth — " / have tried your 

 plan : I have followed your directions in my stable : 

 hut I have received no benefit therefrom." On the 

 contrary, I have had assurances out of number of the 

 excellent and permanent effects derived from a steady 

 perseverance in them ; and, as Truth is called the 

 daughter of Time, I think I am justified in coming 

 to the conclusion — that I am right. Certain is it I 

 have had some opponents ; but theory alone has been 

 brought to bear against me, and that could not stand 

 long. Classically speaking, we might as well give the 

 preference to the historian Livy's eloquent account 

 of Hannibal's celebrated Passage of the Alps to that of 

 the soldier Polybius, who personally explored his route. 

 Now, lest I should be deemed presumptuous, I 

 shall take this opportunity of counteracting such an 



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