WITH HOESE AND HOUND 181 



field, are well up with tlie hounds, and the ladies hold 

 their own with the best of them. In places the high, 

 rank vegetation of the veldt reaches well above the 

 saddle-girths, hiding completely from view even the 

 waving stems of the flying pack. Galloping through 

 this rough veldt grass and sage-bush is rendered danger- 

 ous by innumerable antbear earths, meerkat holes, and 

 other horse- traps quite invisible to the human eye. It 

 is little short of marvellous, however, the manner in 

 which the native-bred horses and ponies, more especially 

 the Basuto ponies, dodge these pitfalls by jumping over 

 or swerving to one side of them. 



But, mark, the hounds which might almost be covered 

 with the proverbial sheet, have just turned off right- 

 handed and head for yonder Dutch farm, roimd which is 

 built a high and roughly constructed stone wall. The 

 hunt ponies have been schooled over every kind of 

 obstacle and jump like deer, but a good many of the 

 horses ridden by the members of the J.H.C. have never 

 been over anything of more importance than the average 

 spruit or nullah, and at least two -thirds of the field go 

 ofi at a tangent before the wall is reached. 



The master and huntsman fly the obstacle girth and 

 girth, and the ladies, following their lead, manage to get 

 over. It is " touch and go " with one of them, however, 

 for her galloway pecks badly on landing, and very nearly 

 deposits the fair rider into a prickly-pear bush. One man 

 comes a cropper, but on the right side of the wall, and 

 although a little stream of crimson trickling from a cut in 



