And as the sun sank apace and the guides and Headmen 

 rode apart on some o'er-looking height and reined their cattle 

 in, the closing up of the flying squadron for the evening camp, 

 the great circular camp of these our Scythians proof against 

 sudden raid crowning the landscape far and wide, seen, yet 

 seeing every foe, whose subtle coming through the short-lived 

 night was watched by eyes as keen as were their own. 



When reached, their bellowing, countless quarry : the 

 plain alive and trembling with their tumult, what tournament 

 of mail-clad knights but was as a stilted play to this rude 

 shock of- man and beast — carrying in a cloud of dust that hid 

 alike the chaser and the chased, till done their work the fright- 

 ened herds swept onward and away, leaving the sward flecked 

 with the huge forms that made the hunters' wealth ! And 

 now! on: fall prosaic from the wild charge, the danger of the 

 fierce melee! — drifting from the camp the carts appear piled 

 rirddily in a trice with bosses, tongues, back fat and juicy 

 haunch, a feast unknown to hapless kings. 



We but glance at this great feature, that fed so fat our 

 Utopia, leaving to imagination the return, the trade, the feast- 

 ing and the fiddle when lusty legs embossed by " quills ' or 

 beads strove emulous in that mysterious articulation — the 

 dance. 



The outcome of the " Plain Hunt " was not only a wide 

 spread plenty among the Hunters on reaching the quiet 

 farmer folk upon the rivers, but also the diffusion of a sun- 

 shine a tone of generous serenity that sat well on the chivalry 

 of the chase — the bold riders of the Plain. 



Beneficent nature nowhere makes her compensations 

 more gratefully felt than in the summer season of our Utopia 

 of the north, where the purest and most vivifying of atmo- 

 spheres hues with a wealth of sunshine the great reaching 

 spaces of verdure covered with flowers in a profusion rivaling 

 their exquisite beauty. Green waving copses dot the level 

 sward, and rob the sky line of its sea-like sweep. The wind- 

 ing rivers, signalled by their wooded banks, upon which rest 

 the comfortable homes of the dwellers in the " hidden land " 



