246 NIMROD'S HUNTING TOUR 



On the day I have been speaking of, the hounds crossed the river 

 Ure, in which a gentleman farmer was drowned two years ago 

 whilst hunting with Lord Darlington's hounds, on the same day on 

 which two other sportsmen lost their lives in a similar manner with 

 other packs. The person I am alluding to was mounted on the 

 tallest horse in the field, and was a good swimmer; so it is supposed 

 his head turned giddy, and he fell off his horse, perhaps in a fit. 

 We crossed this river another day when it was neither so deep nor 

 so rapid, but, owing to being obliged to look at the water to avoid 

 the large stones at the bottom of it, it made me very giddy. There 

 are smelts and graylings in this stream, which is a very handsome 

 one, though very injurious, by its extreme rapidity, to the country 

 through which it passes. But Yorkshire is " a land of brooks of 

 water, of fountains, and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; " 

 and, to continue the simile, it might once have been said of it, that 

 it was " a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness ; 

 thou shalt not lack anything in it ; a land whose stones are iron, 

 and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass." 



The Saturday previous to my meeting Lord Darlington's hounds 

 at York Gate, rather a singular circumstance occurred. The pack 

 divided, and at the end of half an hour, eleven couples of them ran 

 in to their fox, with only tw^o couple and a half of entered hounds 

 among them, and the remainder of the pack killed theirs. 



Wednesday, 15th. — Met Lord Darlington at Tanfield bridge, and 

 had a very hard day for hounds, though never two fields out of 

 covert. I had this day — not much in favour of sport with fox- 

 hounds — an opportunity of seeing the magnificent scenery of Hack- 

 fall, another pic-nic place, where there is the grandest waterfall in 

 England. The morning was wasted in rattling these coverts, as 

 well as those of Mr. Staveley, of Slemford, and all the field, except 

 Lord Darlington, Sir Bellingham Graham, Hon. Captain Paulet, 

 Mr. Wharton, Colonel Ellice, Mr. Anderson, myself, and the servants, 

 were gone home. At half-past three o'clock, as Lord Darlington 

 was getting his hounds out of covert. Sir Bellingham addressed 

 him thus : — " Well, my Lord, I think it is time to go home, and 

 your road is my road." — " My road," said his Lordship, " is through 

 tlmt loood;" pointing to Heslett Wood, two miles in nearly a 



