AIDING ro HOUNDS :;71) 



What 1 have now said, was strongly exemphfied when he hunted 

 the Quorn hounds. He was galloping at three-parts speed down 

 one of those large fields in the Harhorough country, in the act of 

 bringing his hounds to a scent, and was looking back to see if they 

 were coming : in the middle of this field, and exactly in the course 

 in which his horse was going, was a pond of water, into which he 

 leaped, thinking it useless to refuse, and of course not knowing that 

 he was not intended to do so. This horse would, no doubt, have 

 jumped into the Thames or the Severn. 



Milton gives reason to brutes ; and undoubtedly some hunters that 

 have been ridden many seasons in enclosed countries, and are of 

 docile tempers, nearly bear him out in his hypothesis — for it is 

 wonderful with what care and caution many of them avoid danger, 

 and at the same time ease themselves of labour in a run, by taking 

 every advantage of picking their ground. A horse of this descrip- 

 tion can scarcely be made to go on the top of a deep-ploughed land, as 

 he knows he shall tread much more firmly in the furrow ; and he wlW 

 make many attempts to get on head-lands and other sound ground. 

 I once saw a particular instance of sagacity in a hunter of my own, 

 which I shall never forget: I was riding him at a small fence in 

 Northamptonshire, having my eye intent on the hounds, and did not 

 see a row of live stakes, the remains of another fence which had 

 been cut up, as is common in that country, and on which he would 

 have alighted ; but he stopped short, and refused it. Whether this 

 was or was not reason, I leave others to determine ; liut it was 

 something " sid f/oirrisi," which saved me a good horse, and I am 

 satisfied. 



Having mentioned what J have found to Ije tlie best method of 

 getting horses over brooks, I now come to point out the best w\ay of 

 getting them 071 1 of them, when they are so unfortunate as to get in ; 

 and which is always a troublesome and often a difficult task. When 

 a horse of my own was pulled out of the river Cherwell, the cheek 

 of the snafi^e bit was forced through his under jaw, so that he could 

 only eat bruised corn for the rest of the season. This was from 

 want of better management. Two seasons back I got a horse into a 

 brook in Staffordshire, tlie bottom of which was so ])ad that he was 

 unable to keep on his feet. His head was the only part above 



