Hunting the Wild Stag. 73 



ceedingly steep hill to gaze with admiration on 

 the varied scene around. On the right I saw a 

 large district of cultivated land, the hillsides covered 

 with the dense foliage of wide-spreading beeches 

 that flourish so greatly in Somersetshire, inter- 

 spersed with meadows of the brightest emerald 

 green, where, up to their knees in the herbage, 

 the red, gazelle-eyed Devon cattle feed and fatten. 

 Before me a wide expanse of moorland, densely 

 covered with purple heather in the fullest bloom, 

 dotted here and there with tufts of the brightest 

 green gorse I have ever seen, covered with golden 

 blossoms; beds of tall ferns and straggling bushes 

 of blossoming broom, amidst which the snow-white 

 sheep snugly repose, while a number of the cele- 

 brated Exmoor ponies — some with foals at their feet, 

 look up for a moment to see who it is that comes 

 to disturb their wonted tranquillity. On the left an 

 extent of beautiful country is discernible, stretch- 

 ing far away beyond Dartmoor, with hill and dale, 

 meadow and moorland, densely wooded combes, and 

 a vast range of heather-clad hills, the hues of which 

 were marvellously beautiful, seen on a day when 

 sunshine and shadow followed in rapid succession, 

 making the face of the country to resemble the ever- 

 changing views in a kaleidoscope. Then I jog on 

 again, and reach Comber's Gate, a well-known "fix- 

 ture " of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds, and 

 pull up for a minute to observe a camp of gipsies, 

 who, I learn, have travelled thus far from Havering, 

 a village in Essex. Farewell to romance, I said, if 

 these are the gipsies merry and free of whom poets 

 used to sing. No, no ; I would not be a gipsy cer- 



