THE CHASE AFTER A HOG 



THE chase is here at its height, and the artist shows us the beginning of the end. The sports- 

 men in the background have started fresh game, which seems to be leading them to a river. 

 But our two friends the one on a chestnut, the other on a grey are urging the chase of the 

 fellow we saw evicted fiom the sugar-field, who has made for the lair where his wife and 

 children are awaitin'g his return in the long reedy grass which the villagers are cutting and 

 stacking to be used hereafter in thatching their cottages. Piggy's domestic solicitude, however, 

 will be unworthily recompensed if the gentleman on the chestnut Arab manages his weapon 

 well ; for the boar is tired and only a length in his front, just above the hidden retreat where 

 the sow and her alarmed " sounder " are crouched. His only chance now is that chapter of 

 accidents to which both men and pigs are often left. And in pig-sticking that chapter is a 

 long and varied one. Blind, indeed, is the country over which the course lies, and many a 

 " cropper " is the result from buffalo holes, disused wells, ravines, &c. Another source of 

 danger in such a scene as that before us lies in the goanches, or lumps formed by the roots of 

 grass. These goanches are the residue of the stubble after it has been fired. In their hardened 

 state they are a frequent stumbling-block to the rider, who cannot stop to pick his way even if 

 he could see what is before him ; while, when they rot, they become pitfalls into which the 

 horse's foot goes down with the certain consequence of an ugly fall. 



