6008 



Bavarian Sporting. 



some peasants, a rope and a stout ladder, the horse was carried to a 

 neighbouring farm, it was of no use, and we learned from the riding- 

 master a few days after that it had been found necessary to shoot him. 

 But I must apologize for another digression, into which I have been 

 inadvertently led in my attempt to draw a picture of Bavarian sport. 

 I am well aware that the term " sport" thus applied will not meet the 

 ideas of an Englishman; indeed the word as used by a German is 

 not at all synonymous with the word as used by ourselves ; for with 

 regard to shooting, I was saying that the sole idea of the Germans is 

 to obtain the animals they seek, without reference to any laws of 

 honour and fairness by which we are governed : they can understand 

 nothing of the term unsportsmanlike, as applied to any method of 

 filling the bag, provided that desirable end is attained; and in their 

 eyes to shoot the sparrow or the finch from the bush, or on the ground, 

 is as great sport as to shoot the partridge on the wing ; and though 

 they take the field in most elaborate hunting costume, armed cap-a- 

 pie, and with every possible and many impossible appliances to boot, 

 the result is hardly commensurate with the preparations, and the 

 emptying of the large embroidered game-bag — the unfailing accom- 

 paniment of every German gunner — usually displayed a goodly row 

 of our smaller Conirostres, not unmixed with a few Dentirostres as 

 well, relieved here and there with an occasional partridge or quail, 

 these latter birds " rari nantes in gurgite vasto," proving the truth of 

 the adage that " all is fish that comes to the German net." 



And again, to revert once more to their horsemanship, the very 

 glimpse of a German on horseback shows what a sorry seat he has; 

 but as hunting is unknown there, and you may roam over the vast 

 plains of Bavaria without meeting the ghost of a hedge or ditch, his 

 erect immoveable seat in the saddle and military mode of riding, how- 

 ever ungraceful in our eyes, is perfection in theirs, and answers their 

 purpose ; and they ridicule without mercy the English style, while 

 they totally disbelieve the possibility of fencing, as they read or hear 

 of it in an English hunt, — a disbelief, by the way, very general on 

 the Continent, where we have a very great character for exaggeration, 

 and very small repute for truthfulness in these matters; and I shall 

 never forget the shouts of ridicule, and remarks of disbelief, in which 

 I overheard two smart young French officers indulge, when gazing 

 through the window of a print-shop in Paris, at some admirable 

 English pictures of hunting and steeple-chase scenes, which they did 

 not scruple to denounce as absurd caricatures, total impossibilities and 

 falsehoods. 



