The East Sussex. 31 



foxes ; county-people and farmers join the sport in 

 considerable numbers ; and visitors to Hastings or 

 St. Leonardos have it in their power to combine with 

 the advantages of sea air the priceless benefits to be 

 derived from exercise with hounds. 



We compared Sussex to Kent a moment ago — but 

 it waSj mindj from a vernal not a venatic point of 

 view ; for^ in comparing the country of the East 

 Sussex with that of its neighbours the East Kent and 

 the Tickham, we find the most widely different 

 characteristics. In the two latter you may often ride 

 a bee line for miles without encountering any neces- 

 sity or even opportunity for jumping a single fence — 

 and you are goings the while, on the top of the 

 ground. In the East Sussex, on the contrary _, yoa 

 are in deep ground whether in covert or out; and, in 

 the latter case, can only make progress through the 

 medium of continual jumping. Many of the fences 

 are almost too strong to be attempted; and recourse 

 must be had to the '^ rackways^^ leading from field to 

 field. If time does not admit of the less ambitious 

 but safer plan of jumping off to pull the draw- rails 

 down, they are generally to be jumped — and constant 

 practice has made the men of East Sussex so familiar 

 with them, that they hold them altogether in contempt, 

 and, hke Mr. Pigg, seldom stoop to getting off. Thus 

 a man educated here, and seen with hounds elsewhere, 

 is likely to be found steering for timber involuntarily 

 — while others, brought up on the spot, are rather 

 diverging from it. Where timber can — and must — 

 be taken slowly, it may be (though the argument has 

 at least two sides to it, and we pretend to lay down no 



