14- 



TH E BEST OF THE FUN 



regard them, viz. as safe channels for facihtating progress in 

 pursuit of hounds. There they come rather as intercept- 

 ing barriers, crossing the Hne of route every half-mile or 

 mile at least. They run at right angles one to another, 

 and at short distances, as possible streets and highways of 

 the future. They may occur only as section-boundaries 

 (a section being 1600 acres, if my memory serves me), or 

 they may come thickly as the dream of a some-day popu- 

 lous town. Such at least is my impression ; and from 

 to-day's experience I can aver that they have to be jumped 





Making the dust fly handsomely 



mto and out of ; also that, though their inner surface is 

 sound and reasonably soft, their aspect to the stranger is 

 as uninviting as it is frequent and exacting. 



Our route to the meet ran alongside the Hempstead 

 plain, on whose broad bosom (as enticing for a gallop 

 almost as Newmarket Heath) the Meadowbrook Club have 

 planted their house, kennels, and polo ground. On our 

 right lay farmland of the usual Long Island type— fields 

 of somewhat rugged grass, now brown and scorched by 

 the outgoing heat-season, and stubble and dust-garden 

 remaming from lately gathered harvest. The whole is 

 upon a sandy, light, loamy soil, that never bakes hard, and 



