156 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



comes to county Cork, where a stopping frost is known 

 only as a wild exception. The Cork banks were built at 

 some remote period in a fashion of their own. (Would 

 that it could be imitated elsewhere — the sharp points of 

 the stone being eliminated in the process.) Two walls 

 were, I imagine, raised side by side (one by each proprietor 

 of adjoining allotments), and the interval between them 

 filled in by contribution from midfield on either side. For 

 there are few, if any, ditches from which the banks can be 

 accounted — though, by the same token, a " ditch " in 

 Western Ireland is a bank, and a dyke goes to make up a 

 "ditch." Hedge-growth is therefore unnecessary, and 

 wire would be a superfluous extravagance. Goats and 

 horses can alone climb such fences ; and goats, though a 

 strong contingent of existing live-stock on most of the 

 Cork farms, are seldom urged to enterprise by dint of 

 long spurs. On Monday we met nothing that I suppose 

 the horse of the country could consider terrifying — though 

 I take upon myself to assert that, during the ring of a few 

 miles via Healy's Bridge and the hillside northward, they 

 crossed some half-dozen parapets that would, each of them, 

 have stayed a field of Leicestershire horses and men 

 (myself most certainly among the latter). Hounds hunted 

 their fox into view, and coursed him back to the gorse he 

 had come from. Here he found refuge under ground, 

 having at any rate done me the kindness of showing the 

 manner of fence they build in county Cork, and of allow- 

 ing me once again to see hounds working busily and well. 

 The condition of the pack, by the way, would do credit to 

 any kennel in the three kingdoms — every hound being 

 full of muscle, but with his ribs plainly marked. 



I conclude my hurried notes by appending such few 

 names as I was able to gather, of the little field of the day, 

 viz.: Colonel Torin (commanding 13th), Captain Pedder, 

 Messrs. Neville, Battye, Major L. Johnson, Mrs. E. Hegan, 

 Messrs. Hawkes, and Murphy (3). 



