CHAPTER LXIV 



ON HOLLOAING 



Holloa ! what storm is this ? — Titus Andronicus. 



One of the curious things in connection with 

 hunting is the morbid desire which many people 

 who know nothing whatever about the subject, 

 have to write about it. Novelists whose ideas of 

 sport are of the most limited description are keen 

 to describe a hunting run in all its infinite variety ; 

 they delight in giving gorgeous but quite in- 

 accurate descriptions of men, horses, and hounds ; 

 the fences their heroes and heroines get over in 

 such easy style would astound Dick Christian him- 

 self, and, indeed, the whole thing is done generally 

 in a manner which is essentially ridiculous. It has 

 been said that an eminent modern novelist paid one 

 visit to the Derby, and then considered himself 

 capable of writing a chapter which is practically a 

 dissertation on the Turf ; and probably all that 

 the novelists to whom I allude have seen of hunt- 

 ing has been from a distance and in a carriage. 

 Truly ridiculous are the descriptions which we 

 frequently find in fiction of the king of sports, 

 and in no one particular are these descriptions so 

 ridiculous and so inaccurate as they are on the 

 question of holloas and noise in general. 



