MIGRATION IX THE P^ROST 197 



Barry, is, as may be known, in want of a master for next 

 season. The hopes of the Duhallow men have been 

 centred in Lord Chesham ; but whether this arrangement 

 will be brought about, or has ah-eady been abandoned, I 

 am not in a position to say. By general consent the 

 Duhallow is one of the most sporting countries in Ireland, 

 and doubtless will not be long witln)ut having a full choice 

 of candidates for the mastership. This pack, too, bears a 

 high reputation in Ireland, having been raised thereto by 

 the et^orts of the late Lord Doneraile. As far as I could 

 see of them to-day, they gave me the idea of possessing 

 speed and quality. They are a different style of hound from 

 what we are nowadays accustomed to see in England, 

 being rather narrow, and high on the leg, but having com- 

 pensatory depth of brisket, fair backs, and clean heads and 

 necks. If I may say it, without offence, they remind me 

 in some slight degree of what Mr. Henry Chaplin's hounds 

 (formerly Lord H. Bentinck's) were before he put bone 

 into them.^ 



A single day's hunting — and that not a particularly 

 eventful one — of course gives one no claim whatever to 

 form estimate or description of a country as a whole, the 

 more so that Friday, by common consent, introduced us 

 into the worst corner of it, to wit, a comparatively narrow 

 valley, having a heath-covered mountain on one side, the 

 same on the other, with the river Blackwater running 

 between. The better ground, to the north and west, I 

 hope to view at some future, not very distant, date ; for 

 this, I am led to believe, is as good as any in Ireland, not 

 even excepting the best of the Limerick, to which it adjoins. 



But Friday happened to be the day for the Cork 

 special ; and accordingly the party took train to Buttevant, 

 and rode on to the meet at Brough Cross — " two miles," 

 declared the rustics — a long four, I cannot but think it 

 should have been by English measurement. No such very 

 small field, as I had been prepared to expect. With the 

 Cork contingent there must have been well-nigh a hundred, 

 though the only reliable tally lies with the gentleman who 



' A remark justified by the fact that Lord Doneraile's pack was founded 

 tiuirely on material from Lord Henry Bentinck's kennel. 



