326 STAGHUNTING WITH THE 



overhang the East Lyn. To get about them at 

 all on horseback is a large order, but to have 

 to do so towards the end of a really magnificent 

 run with horses done to a turn, was what befel 

 in the course of the greatest run of half a 

 centurv from Hawkridge in 1899. Then it 

 became necessarv to follow the course of the 

 East Lvn upwards from Watersmeet, and in so 

 doing a place was soon encountered, where the 

 path beside the torrent had slipped away until 

 there remained nothing but the narrowest of 

 sheep paths. Some of the field crossed this 

 dangerous pass in safetv, while others elected 

 to ride up the bed of the river itself, a mass 

 of fallen and jagged boulders, but fortunately 

 not covered at the time by any great depth of 

 water. Then ensued a particularly heart-breaking 

 climb to the heights of Countisbury Common, 

 and no sooner had half a mile of this been 

 traversed than more nerve-shaking paths were 

 encountered along the cliffs by Desolate and 

 Wingate Wood, till the garden walks of Glen- 

 thorne were reached, and horses were once 

 again on safe ground, though with a climb of 

 a full thousand feet between them and the road 

 they all must reach at County Gate. 



The North Forest is a tract like the Chains, 

 whereon the average staghunter sometimes finds 

 himself, and when he does he cannot help 

 being aware of it, so swampy is the going in 



