210 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



a duck-gun of the old-fashioned sort on a swivel and ordinary 

 breech-loaders as well, and we certainly got a lot of shooting, 

 especially during a week of severe frost, when it was too hard 

 to hunt, and the cold weather drove in a lot of strange birds 

 such as geese, great northern divers, and other sorts. We 

 were also asked to shoot inland, near Prittlewell (I have 

 entirely forgotten who our host was, but remember we mauie 

 his acquaintance riding home from hunting), and I shall never 

 forget that day, because someone peppered a labourer, who 

 was crossing the line of guns and was hidden by trees. Yells 

 were heard from beyond the belt of trees, and when we got 

 there a burly man was rolling about on the ground, declaring 

 he had been shot all over. Examination, however, revealed 

 the fact that he was more frightened than hurt, and though 

 a considerable number of pellets were found in his breeches 

 and gaiters, none of them had penetrated the flesh, which is 

 not to bo wondered at seeing that he was practically out of 

 range, and had only been hit by spent shot. He was well 

 rewarded, and I saw him several times afterwards in South- 

 end, taking a holiday, and he invariably told us that the 

 day he was shot was the best he had ever had in his life. 



Essex is, I need hardly say, a sporting county, and much 

 of the hunting which takes place within its borders of very 

 high character. It is, I am inclined tO' think, the best plough 

 county in England, and this applies not only to the Union 

 pack, but to the Essex, the Puckeridge in parts of their 

 country, and the East Essex, The Essex and Suffolk I 

 never saw, and have been so little in the country that 

 I cannot write anything about it; but the Essex is a grand 

 open country, much of it very thinly populated, and though 

 there is arable land to gallop over rather than grass, much of 

 the arable is comparatively light going, especially during the 

 autumn months before the winter rains have come down. The 

 Roothings are generally considered to be the best part of the 

 hunt, and Roothing ditches arei no joke if one happens to slip 

 into one, for though they may be dry at the bottom, they are 

 very deep, and from some of them it is impossible for a horse 

 to scramble out, and he may have to be walked a mile or more 

 along the ditch to some spot where the ground shelves down- 

 wards to the ditch. Of this I have had actual experience 



