CHOICE OF A COUNTRY. 297 



South Africa, wrote as follows about drag-hunting in Baity s 

 Hunting Directory for 1899-1900: "Drag-hunting is of 

 course only excusable in a country where there is no 

 animal suitable to hunt, or where the country is so cut up by 

 wire, market gardens, railroads, canals and other impossible 

 obstacles, that any but a selected line is out of the question. 

 To those who live in such a country, the Drag affords a 

 legitimate excuse for a gallop over fences. Those who hunt 

 to ride, rather than ride to hunt, find that it has many very 

 great advantages. 



" The pace is always good, the line generally straight, every 

 fence is jumpable, and there is seldom a check before it is 

 wanted. Of course, the knowledge that it is not the * real 

 thing ' spoils it as a sport ; the pleasant anxiety in finding and 

 the skill and difficulties of hunting are wanting, but the pace 

 and jumping commend the Drag to the hard-riding division, 

 and make it a grand school for the young beginner. 



" I remember a discussion on this subject by some keen 

 hunting men, certain of whom were disposed to run it down. 

 These latter were silenced when a well-known old sportsman, 

 who had hunted all his life, and been master of hounds for 

 many years, summed up the debate as follows : ' You are 

 quite right to hunt a drag if you have got nothing else. 

 Always hunt, even if you have to lay the line yourself.' " 

 Major Hanwell's article contains a full and lucid description 

 of this sport. 



CHOICE OF A COUNTRY. 



As hunting cannot be fully enjoyed unless one understands 

 it, a man who is new to the game will do well to begin with 

 harriers ; for he will see more of their work, all of which is 

 done in the open, than he would do that of foxhounds, who 

 are a good deal in coverts and woodlands. The mere rider 

 extracts from a day's hunting about the same proportion of 



