458 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



Sands, Mr. J. Bunter, Mr. R. Patmore, Mr. Joseph Lucking, Mr. J. Caton, 

 Mr. P. Barker, Mr. W. Havers, Mr. D. Lewis, Mr. W. Rayner, Mr. J. 

 Walton, Mr. G. Baker, Mr. S. Baker, Mr. Meyer, Mr. H. Lawrence, Mr. 

 G. Self, Mr. Self, jun., Mr. E. H. Barnard, Mr. G. H. Goodchild, Mr. 

 Bodkin, Mr. J. Cowlin, Mr. G. Milbank, Mr. R. G. Rust, and many others. 



1876-1S77. 



Weather was wet and stormy throughout the season and 

 I was never before wet so often. It was really tiresome always 

 coming home soaked through, and occasionally it was too 

 stormy to render sport possible. Sport: "The Essex," Ark- 

 wright, had an unusually good season, the wet weather causing 

 a better scent over " the Roothings," which did not suit 

 the heavy clays of the Essex Union country, and there the 

 season was a poor one. The staghounds also did not have 

 their usual good sport, the country being too heavy for the 

 deer, especially the hinds, so that they were inclined to run 

 circuitously and take advantage of roads instead of going 

 straioht. "The Drag" was good fun, and Sir Thomas 

 Lennard and his wife and family very pleasant and agreeable, 

 though there the extremely wet state of the ground was trying 

 to horses as well as farmers. 



Hay was a serious item for so many horses. Owing to the 

 loss by fire of all my hay, old and new at least 150 loads, 

 I was compelled to purchase, and had to give as much as £"] ys. 

 a load for old hay. The fire occurred from spontaneous 

 combustion. From non-appreciation and forgetfulness of the 

 effect of the average clause in my policy, I proved to be 

 uninsured practically, since I only received (and with going to 

 arbitration) ^90 towards a loss amounting to nearly ^900. 



1877-1878. 



A complete change of country and style of hunting and 

 ridino- from what I have for so many seasons been accustomed 

 to. Anything more dissimilar than "the Roothings" of Essex, 

 with their low, wide and deep fences and ditches, and but little 

 removed from a flat surface and fair-sized fields for a gallop, 

 and the steep, cramped, rocky and boggy country of Pembroke- 

 shire and Carmarthenshire, with their small enclosures, high 

 banks, precipitous hills, boggy and impracticable bottoms and 

 rocky narrow lanes, can scarcely be imagined, though since 

 they lie at the extreme east and west of England, at nearly the 

 widest place, there is room for dissimilarity. 



But it is rather a trial, not only to one's nerve and reso- 

 lution, but also to one's fondness for hunting, to make so great 

 and complete a change, especially when all the change is for 

 the worse and the victim a sexagenarian. However, acting on 



