174 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER 



CHAPTEE XIII. 



COLONIAL AND AMERICAN HORSEMEN. 



JUST as Englishmen play cricket wherever turf can 

 be found, and sometimes where turf is not, so they 

 take their love of fox-hunting into far-off lands, and 

 practise the sport when anything the least bit like a 

 fox can be found. In India and at the Cape of Good 

 Hope they hunt the jackal. Gibraltar has a fine 

 pack of hounds supported by the officers of our 

 garrison there, and Australia is a land of hunters. 

 Bush-riding is no joke ; the worst hunting country 

 in England is pleasant compared with some of the 

 half -broken land and wholly uncultivated bush ol 

 Australia. Nevertheless, the bush-farmer or settler 

 rides merrily along, and crosses, quite as a matter oi 

 course, districts that would make an English hunting- 

 man pull up and scratch his head in perplexity. 



Anthony Trollope, the well-known novelist, had 

 some reputation as a hunting man in England. A 

 few years ago he paid a visit to Australia, and saw 

 what hunting is according to the ideas of the colonist. 

 Trollope's own words best describe the kind of enter- 

 tainment he was called upon to take part in. 



