The United Pack, 333 



THE UXITED PACK.* 



If the Wheatland Country and many parts of the 

 Ludlow are difficult to ride, that of the United Pack 

 requires still more circumspection, and insists upon 

 much more widely divided action between hounds and 

 horsemen. It is another step nearer Wales. Its hills 

 are loftier, steeper, and more closely contiguous : 

 while their heather-clad summits have in many cases 

 quite a moorland aspect. The valleys — highly culti- 

 vated, neatly and strongly fenced — are yet much 

 narrower and offer less scope for an open gallop with 

 hounds. The woods, very large and very numerous, 

 are mostly spread along steep hillsides in a fashion, 

 that entirely precludes riding with hounds through 

 them, and that would probably involve any stranger — 

 attempting to work on his own resources — in hopeless 

 confusion. For all that, the United Pack has a good 

 hound-country — and as such it must be accepted by 

 all who would hunt there, the ambition of mere riding 

 being altogether out of the question. But, when 

 hounds break covert down an open hillside, it is won- 



* Vide Stanford's " Huutiug Map," Sheet 14, aud Hohsou's 

 Foxhnutiiig Atlas. 



