158 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



the country. Truly Tipperary is a grand arena — or rather, 

 I suppose, part of the grand arena that stretches, roughly 

 speakuig, from Limerick southward to the Waterford 

 Mountains. My introduction to it was my journey by rail 

 from Mallow to Limerick Junction, thence to Clonmel ; 

 and, as I travelled, it came home to me vividly how aptly 

 Ireland merits the name of the Green Island. I had 

 recently left the grassy slopes of the Rockies to cross 

 America to the Atlantic. There the pasture, whether 

 prairie or " tame " grass (so termed), was everywhere 

 brown as old hay. Here in Ireland the sod was brilliantly 

 green, and in some fields fresh and full-coloured hay was 

 still being carted or cocked. 



Far more undulating than Meath — at all events than 

 any but Northern Meath — is Tipperary. Thus, without 

 attempting the impertinence of any further comparison, 

 you can see more of what hounds, often of what your 

 fox is doing, at a distance. And of this facility do the 

 country people take fullest advantage. You would im- 

 agine, when gazing over the landscape from a point of 

 vantage, that jts inhabitants are few and far between. 

 For a few white-washed hamlets and a few^ scattered 

 cabins appear to constitute all the dwellings of the dis- 

 trict. But you quickly reason otherwise when a fox 

 covert is being drawn, with or without warning. With 

 the instinct of eagles to the carcase the country folk flock 

 forth, and in a few minutes every hillside is clustered, 

 while dogs enough come forward to form a second, a 

 bobbery, pack upon a passing fox. Blame the cur dogs. 

 But who shall blame the natives ? Sport is their natural 

 prerogative, their inborn and strongest taste — which only 

 their own misguided agitators have opposed, and en- 

 deavoured in vain to crush. The interest taken by every 

 held labourer in the hunt is as intense as to the stranger 

 it is almost comical to witness. For instance, such con- 

 centrated disappointment and reprobation you never saw 

 depicted on man's countenance as when, one of these 

 days, a cast was being made, but made some few yards 

 too high upon the hillside to carry out the views of the 

 eager informer. " Faugh ! They're beyant it : black 



