Capt. Hon, F. Johnstone's, 215 



The pack is kennelled at Snainton, about midway on 

 the main road between Scarborough and Pickering, 

 and some nine or ten miles from either place. The 

 question naturally suggests itself — Why should a 

 private pack be kept so far from the owner's resi- 

 dence ? A single glance at the wild heath and hill 

 that intervene between Hackness Hall and most of the 

 places of meeting is a sufficient answer. If not an 

 impossible task, it would be a rough and cruel one, to 

 bring hounds home across these miles of broken waste, 

 at the end of a day's work which must often have been 

 severe and trying in the extreme. The hounds have 

 been in the Johnstone family (Lord Derwent's) since 

 1862; previous to which Mr. John Hill, who had 

 succeeded his father in 1855, sold his hounds to the 

 late Duke of Grafton. They are thus no newly-raised 

 pack ; and of late years every pains has continued to 

 be bestowed upon their breeding, with the assistance 

 of the Bramham Moor, the Brocklesby and Lord 

 Middleton. 



One or two other features of the country that may be 

 mentioned are — the tract of rabbit warren which is 

 met with immediately above Thornton Dale; the 

 increasing roughness of ground that presents itself as 

 you move thence towards the centre of the country — 

 the neighbourhood of Cross Cliffe and Bickley being 

 especially wild ; the great wooded bank formed by 

 Trouts Dale ; the enormous woodland of the Forge 

 Valley, extending from Raincliffe to the Scurve hills ; 

 and the '^ becks,'' which so often present a difficulty in 

 the district below Pickering. The latter, though in 

 themselves often only insignificant trout streams, have 



Q 2 



