2 THE SALT OF MY LIFE 



love of fishing, shooting, or hunting. I should 

 not dream of apologising even for having once had 

 ideas about the beauties of otter-hunting, though 

 for me its joys are of the past. I have seen it 

 north and south. I have driven across the Menai 

 Bridge with the late Mr. Assheton-Smith, with 

 whom I was staying at Vaynol, at an hour when 

 we should both have been better in bed. The 

 whole forenoon we scoured the ponds and streams 

 of Anglesea for an otter that may, or may not, 

 have existed there. I have no good reason for 

 supposing either that it did, or that it is not 

 there still. I once walked with that crack pack, 

 the Culmstock, fourteen miles in a downpour of 

 rain, round Bolham Weir and Bampton. Strange 

 to say, hounds did not find on that occasion. Next 

 week I was out with the Dartmoor. Hounds 

 found a water-hen. 



In spite of the outcry against "mudded oafs" 

 and :< flannelled fools," sport, which does not 

 necessarily mean dreaming of other people play- 

 ing cricket, or backing horses without ever going 

 to a race, seems in some form or other necessary 

 to the primitive, well-balanced mind. Though a 

 good sportsman should not grudge his hobby what 

 he can reasonably afford without prejudicing the 

 interests of those dependent on him, the amount 

 spent is no gauge whatever of the sportsman. A 

 passion for riding may be indulged by playing polo 



