20 STAGHUNTING WITH THE 



very first opportunity after tfie enforced idleness 

 of summer for the foregathering of all the various 

 sorts and conditions of men that go to make 

 up a modern hunting field. Then, too, nearly 

 every master of foxhounds throughout the 

 British Isles is as yet free from the cares of 

 cub-hunting, and many of them wend their way 

 to Cloutsham, where they are sure of meeting 

 a number of their confreres. A sprinkling of 

 American visitors are sure to be found amongst 

 the throng by the time the pack appears, some 

 of them tourists only, who have chanced to find 

 themselves at Lynton or Lynmouth, or perhaps 

 at Minehead, just at the time of this great West 

 Country festival, and others members of Hunt 

 Clubs in the land of the star-spangled banner. 

 Austrians and Russians, Belgians and Germans, 

 Frenchmen, Portuguese and Spaniards are at 

 times to be found amongst the throng, and 

 occasionally a "coloured pusson" or two join in 

 the first mad rush of the season. Exmoor is a 

 land where everything depends upon the weather, 

 and a heavy thunder shower or two in the earlier 

 morning hours will keep hundreds of picnic- 

 makers and cyclists away from the meet, thereby 

 lessening the crowd of vehicles and decreasing 

 incidentally the dangers, as well as the humours 

 of the traffic which for a couple of hours before 

 mid-day pours up the rough and narrow lane 

 from the Porlock Vale, or down the sandy 



