The Blackmoor Vale. 385 



sures of Devon and Somerset. Here you are offered 

 the oldest of turf and richest of scenting ground. 

 The lines of earthwork that form the fences of the 

 far west are here modified to practicable enjoyable 

 proportion ; and, stiff and deep though it be, the 

 Blackmoor Vale bears a character as a sporting and 

 riding ground that makes it the Queen of the West. 

 Deep — undeniably deep — it is, let the season be what 

 it may. And the deeper it rides, the faster hounds go. 

 The man and the horse that can consistently and 

 conscientiously live with hounds over the Blackmoor 

 Vale must both be good, and determined. 



Men come out of the far west glad to launch into a 

 sphere wherein horse and rider have more to say to the 

 game than amid the rough coombes and impracticable 

 enclosures, which, however favourable to hounds, 

 leave all the fun in the hands of the latter. There is 

 joy in the spectacle of hounds on a scent ; but there 

 is other, and to very many a greater, joy in taking an 

 active vigorous part in the melee and life of a foxhunt. 

 The soldiers think so too ; and many of them gladly 

 leave the weak- scenting plains round Mdershot for 

 the more lively country presided over by Sir Eichard 

 Glyn. 



The Blackmoor Vale Country is in reality, a succes- 

 sion of vales separated only by slight undulations of 

 so little elevation as to differ but in a very slight degree 

 from the lower ground on either side of them, except 

 that they begin to dry up earlier in spring than the 

 other. They represent, indeed, little greater difference 

 of consistency than is perceptible between the furrow 

 and the ridge of old Leicestershire grazing ground. 



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