A Day With the Essex Otterhounds 239 



— bless their weakness for adornment, — and they will know 

 better next time. 



The staff is a great assistance, especially in vaulting fences. 

 With one hand near the top of the staff, the other on the fence, 

 one can go over a fairly high fence in an easy, graceful vault; 

 it is quite as indispensable for the ladies as for the men. It is 

 a vaulting pole for jumping ditches, a steadying staff when 

 stepping from stone to stone over shallow brooks, or a sound- 

 ing pole in wading a stream. As we move up stream the chal- 

 lenge becomes more frequent and more pronounced. Half of 

 the pack are now owning to it with increasing clamour. They 

 are working now with ever greater vigilance, until, presently, 

 it becomes an almost unbroken song, the otterhound leading in 

 depth of voice, the Welsh hound excelling in sweetness, and the 

 foxhound in melody ; what a grand chorus ! Here from under 

 a clump of overhanging bushes comes a burst of hound music 

 followed by impatient whimperings, then charging on along the 

 shore until once more the whole pack unites in one tumultuous 

 roar that brings everyone running to the spot. Again the 

 harmony swells to a climax and dies away, amid fault-finding 

 mutterings and scoldings, disappointments, like the fading 

 echo from distant hills. 



Thus the trail moves on with ever increasing interest. 

 Halting, trying back, and again going forward. The hounds 

 are now full of fire, and their dash and drive, through brambles 

 and underbush, are something beautiful to see. And again, 

 when some reliable hound swimming along, suddenly gives 

 tongue, all the other hounds running along the bank, jump, or 

 rather throw themselves heedlessly into the stream, three to 

 five feet below. Splash, splash, three, four or five at a time, 

 disapjDearing beneath the water, to reappear again, giving 

 tongue to the scent as they come to the surface with a mouth- 

 ful of water. Then again, when slipping backwards into the 

 stream in attempting to climb out at some wet, slippery or 



