A Da V o.v Ex MOOR. 417 



strangers. With the Devon and Somerset stag-hounds no one hunting pays the slightest 

 attention to the costume question. A select few, whom I could name and number on the 

 fingers of my two hands, are dressed fit for covert side in the midlands. Half that number 

 of ladies are dressed as well as they ride, which is saying a great deal ; but the multitude- 

 male and female, children and adults, yeomen, farmers, and vacation visitors — wear clothes that 

 may do for botanising, fishing, picnicing — in fact, anything handy. Best of all, they don't look 

 odd by contrast ; the whole style of the district is amusement or sport, or both, not dress and 

 admiration. 



Then as to the horses. The best blood-hunters, if accustomed to gallop over a rough 

 country and to take care of themselves going fast down-hill are not out of place, and, indeed, 

 may find a very good preparation for hard work in November. A few of such are to be 

 found at covert side on Exmoor in August and September ; but, for a family party, the sort of 

 ponies that run in butchers' and bakers' carts, taken straight from hard work, will afford an 

 ample allowance of sport, do all that can be reasonably required of them, and look quite in 

 character with the majority of the field. For choice, I would sooner ride a blood horse, not 

 over fifteen hands high, with the Devon and Somerset, although I have been perfectly carried 

 by a hunter of \6\ hands ; but I have observed that the ponies are generally there, or thereabouts, 

 at a check or kill. Lots of the farmers ride rough three-year-olds. I can speak with con- 

 fidence on this point, having been on every occasion mounted by the squire of Exmoor on a 

 blood hunter bred on the moors; yet, whenever galloping ceased (it never lasted very long), 

 I found the long-striding hunter had very little advantage in pace over the rough ponies 

 ridden by natives of the district. I'his arises from the nature of the country and the absence 

 of fencing. 



In the first place — and this is all in the favour of a family party— there is no such thing 

 as jumping with the Devon and Somerset staghounds ; some of the very best local men have 

 never in their lives taken a leap three feet high while hunting ; and for a very good reason— ninety 

 per cent, of the fences on the moors are impracticable, stone walls on turf banks with a wire at 

 top, or else turf banks with a perfect fortification of growing beech-trees at the top. The 

 hunting grounds of the Devon and Somerset may be divided into two parts — the first and best 

 the moors, which are either quite unfenced or separated into fields of not less than sixty acres, 

 with open or easily-opened gates. These moors are intersected by narrow valleys, along 

 which trout streams flow ; and these the deer traverse by preference, while the horsemen are 

 continually travelling along both sides of the valley. The other country is cut up into small 

 enclosures by banks like fortifications ; and if the riding is not along the deep lanes or the 

 beds of the streams— which you sometimes follow under arching trees for miles — it is pursued 

 under difficulties through the gates of miniature fields. There are also on the open moors 

 boggy places, which although never dangerous, are deep enough to take a stranger's horse up 

 to his belly. For all these reasons the Paterfamilias with his brood is never likely to be left 

 hopelessly behind, as he would be on a good day in any hunt where fencing is the principal 

 part of the business. 



To try to " keep with the hounds," to " sit down in the saddle, and put his head straight," 

 is simply impossible. Perhaps once in three or four seasons there is a straight run, in which 

 the deer gallops clean away from the hounds, and the hounds from the field ; but, as a rule, 

 the deer don't run straight, checks are frequent. The people who know the country, and the 

 habits of the deer, are seldom far out at the kill or the finish if they can keep up an average 

 pace of ten miles an hour. At this pace they see a great deal as easily as they could with 

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