160 STAG-HUNTING AT TURIN. 



March ; and, if the season is forward, you should 

 leave off sooner. 



Having now so considerably exceeded the 

 plan I first proposed, you may wonder if I omit 

 to say any thing of stag-hunting. Believe me, 

 if I do, it will not be for want of respect, but 

 because I have seen very little of it. It is true, 

 1 hunted two winters at Turin; but their hunt- 

 ing, you know, is no more like ours, than is the 

 hot meal you there stand up to eat, to the 

 English breakfast you sit down to here. Were 

 I to describe their manner of hunting, their in- 

 finity of dogs, their number of huntsmen, their 

 relays of horses, their great saddles, great bits, 

 and jack-boots, it would be no more to our pre- 

 sent purpose than the description of a wild-boar 

 chase in Germany, or the hunting of jackals in 

 Bengal. Cest une chasse magnijiqite, et voila 

 tout. However, to give you an idea of their 

 huntsmen, I must tell you that one day the stag 

 (which is very unusual) broke cover, and left 

 the forest ; a circumstance which gave as much 

 pleasure to me as displeasure to all the rest — it 

 put every thing into confusion. I followed one 

 of the huntsmen, thinking he knew the country 

 best ; but it was not long before we were sepa- 

 rated : the first ditch we came to stopped him. 



