128 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



Mondays and Fridays were quite as big, even in the worst of 

 weather, and some seasons ago when hounds were drawing 

 at. two o'clock in the aitemoon I countied sixty ladies 

 (including little girls) and thirty-seven scarlet coats. Once, 

 by the way, and I think about fifteen yeara ago, I 

 counted seventy scarlets with the Zetland. This was while 

 the first covert was being drawn after a Halnaby meet, but 

 I remember making a mental note at the time to the effect 

 that, though ladies were numerous, they were not in such 

 numbers as were to be seen with the Tynedale about the same 

 period of time. It has frequently been said that if the Tyne- 

 dale country were situated 100 instead of nearly 300 miles 

 from town it would draw the crowd as do the best of the Shire 

 packs; but its remoteness is its safeguard, and most cer- 

 tainly its " fields " are quite large enough, though, thanks 

 to the fact that Mr. Straker is a disciplinarian, there is very 

 little over-riding of hounds. And without doubt the Tyne- 

 dale hunt has a reputation which extends all through the 

 hunting world. It is, in point of fact, generally known that 

 the country is one of the best in the kingdom, that 

 the blood of the kennel is most valuable, and that 

 the sport shown reaches a very high standard indeed. 

 A projJos I may meution that nearly twenty years ago, when I 

 was hunting with the Tynedale a good deal, and sending 

 accounts of their doings to the Field, an ex-Master of one 

 of the Shire packs — whom I met one day in London — put me 

 through a regiilar cross-examination as to the Tynedale 

 country and so forth, and seemed (I thought) inclined to 

 think that I had over-egged the pudding in my description 

 of the hunting, and more especially of the country. Once or 

 twice afterwards this same gentleman renewed the subject, 

 but I had almost forgotten the matter until a Reigate show of 

 a few years ago, when my friend told me that, though he 

 had not seen the Tynedale in the field, he had shortly before 

 motored all through the country when on his way to Scot- 

 land, and had been greatly impressed. He told me that he 

 had had no time to spare for a look at the hounds in kennel, 

 but that he had crossed the country slowly from B5nv6ll 

 Bridge to Belsay, and then travelled up the North Road, 

 along the Tynedale-Morpeth boundary, and he had come to 



