HUNTING TOURS. 219 



cise of bis judgment. The excellent sport 

 they have afforded, but most particularly this 

 season, since the frost, is the best evidence of 

 good management. All his predecessors hunted 

 their hounds in person, but Mr. Sitwell has, 

 from his commencement, entrusted that duty 

 to Christopher Nicholl, who was first entered 

 by Lord Gifford, about twenty years since, 

 when his lordship brought some hounds from 

 Ireland, and came to reside at Kyre, where 

 he hunted a very confined country between 

 this and the Herefordshire hunt. Nicholl 

 went with his first master to the Vale of 

 White Horse, and since then filled up his 

 time with the Albrighton and other packs. 

 He is well assisted in the field by Thomas 

 Baker. Mr. Sitwell avails himself of the 

 opportunities presented in a country so highly 

 celebrated for breeding hunters by filling his 

 stables with very superior animals, and those 

 which he selects for his own use are quite of 

 the first class. A very clever chesnut is ridden 

 with great skill and judgment by Mrs. Sit- 

 well, who takes vast interest in all the pro- 

 ceedings connected with the chase, and gene- 

 rally accompanies her husband, except when 



I. 2 



