THE GREAT THIRST LAND. 



CHAPTER I. 



AN INVITATION TO TRAVEL. 



Herefordshire The Term " Hunting "A Visit to the West An Invitation 

 My Friend Morris Sport in the Highlands The Battery Buying Guns 

 Our Armament Beads and Gewgaws Particulars of our Personal Outfit. 



HEREFORDSHIRE must be acknowledged by all who 

 know it to be one of the prettiest counties in England, 

 and if a choice could be made as to which part has a 

 right to be considered the most attractive, I have little 

 doubt that all sportsmen would join me in the verdict 

 that the country north of the Malvern Hills is the most 

 charming. And why ? Because if it were unsettled, 

 uninhabited, unimproved, it would make the most 

 magnificent hunting-ground if I except the Bijou 

 Hills, in Nebraska in the whole world. But when I 

 say "hunting/' that term has so many significations 

 that it behoves me to become explicit. In America you 

 " go hunting " when you take your gun to procure a few 

 partridges, or squirrels, or wild fowl ; in England the 

 term is applied only to the pursuit of the fox or hare, 

 accompanied by hounds, with the sportsmen mounted. 

 Now it is neither in the American nor English sense 

 that I use the word, but to denote the killing of large 

 B 



