'fftKE 2©, 1889.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



443 



such is the real custom of the country, and so devoted do 

 the people become to it that I was tdd of one farmer and 

 his daughter who have more Mian once arisen from bed, 

 saddled up their horses and joined a midnight hunt which 

 their pack had started on their own account, as country 

 foxhounds sometimes will. I saw this young lady on the 

 street, and she looked equal to such an exploit. Some of 

 the most skillful and daring of the riders of that whole 

 country are ladies. In passing I shoidd say that I had 

 heard much of the beauty of the ladies of the Blue Grass 

 country, but not enough. I do not think one could speak 

 too respectfully of them. They follow much one type, 

 are usually tall and of slender form, though rounded and 

 graceful to a degree. Their complexions are beautiful 

 and indeed wonderful to a city dweller, their hair is pure 

 silk of the corn, and they have an exquisitely thorough- 

 bred look. No wonder they can ride. They can and do, 

 and they belong in any talk of Kentucky fox hunting. 



Accounts of New England fox hunting with a gun 

 excite the liveliest disgust in a Kentuckian. If it were 

 known that a man had killed a fox with a gun, he could 

 never after that be received into good society in Blue 

 Grassdom, that is certain; but there is small danger of 

 such a contingency, for to kill a fox with a gun is some- 

 thing not to be dreamed of in that country. Equally 

 Homeric is a Blue Grass man's laughter at a drag hunt, 

 which latter is my own pet abomination. There is not in 

 the history of Kentucky the record or remembrance of 

 more than one drag hunt, and that is spoken of to-day 

 with as much gusto as that of the story of the fox which 

 took to earth under the doorstep of General Wm. C. 

 Preston's elegant home in the heart of Lexington, or that 

 of the fox which ran straight down the street of Win- 

 chester town. I presume the story of Deacon Dick Redd's 

 drag hunt will be remembered as long as Lexington has 

 a court house. Mr. Redd was candidate for county as- 

 sessor, and he had a hard opponent. The election drew 

 on apace, and Mr. Redd felt that something had to be 

 done to appeal to the patriotic ardor of his constituents, 

 He waited till midnight of the day before election, and 

 then sent out a trusty emissary, who dragged a dead fox 



that has been said may give some idea of the heartiness 

 with which they enter into the enjoyment of life and 

 the greatest of life's privileges— the following of rightful 

 pastimes in the open air and in scenes blessed by the 

 beauty of unhurt Nature. I left the Blue Grass country 

 more fully than ever impressed with the belief that people 

 of the North do not know how to live. They are learn 

 ing, and the sporting instinct is growing; but' for a long 

 time yet they may seek their scheme for a happy life 

 down among the blue hills of old Kentucky. 



In a trip of the kind, one cannot help falling upon an 

 amount of information which can hardly be called sport- 

 ing news, but which might bo of interest to sporting 

 readers. For instance, I saw at a restaurant counter at 

 Lexington race track a card hung upbearing the in scrip 

 tion "Genuine Kentucky Burgoo." Now, I didn't know 

 what genuine Kentucky burgoo was and I was afraid to 

 ask for any, because I didn't know whether you drank 

 it with a straw or ate it with a fork. Later on' 1 learned 

 that the Kentucky burgoo is nothing so ghastly and weird 

 as its name would indicate, but is a regular institution of 

 the great thoroughbred sales of the large breeding farms. 

 It is of the same purpose as the barbecue, but differs from 

 the latter in that it is a bod and not a roast. It is a boiled 

 aggregation of meats, fowls, squirrels and vegetables of 

 all sorts. It is made in a kettle that will hold about 400 

 gallons, and is served in cup*. The real burgoo is not 

 found except at the thoroughbred sales on the large 

 farms, and I fear my friend of the restaurant did not 

 tempt the knowing ones who livi in that country. 



A mint julep is where a man pours whisky in a glass 

 of ice, and pokes green mint into the glass' with three 

 straws. I saw the fellows do that. 



When you ride up to the gate of one of the big stock 

 farms, there is a little nigger boy standing to open the 

 gate for you. You pitch him a quarter. When you drive 

 out there is another nigger boy waiting to shut'the gate. 

 You pitch him another quarter. They both say "Thank 



through all the streets of Lexington, taking especial care j ye, boss," and look happy. They say all our best negro 

 to double through all the shaky district^ of the aforesaid waiters come from Kentucky. I am inclined to think all 



constituents, and winding up the trail on Mr. Redd's 

 front dooistep. Presently, just as Lexington was falling 

 asleep, and ' in light- winged dreams ascending up to 

 Heaven," there burst out in the shady, silent streets the 

 full-voiced music of a pack in full cry. Round and 

 round they went, till every wall and spire was alive with 

 echoes. It was too much. Doors and windows flew open, 

 and out came men half clad and buckling on their spurs, 

 while halloas sounded on every hand. All Lexington 

 turned out and joined the hunt, which, of course, wound 

 up at Mr. Redd's house, where the dogs had the fox 

 killed. Then there was a little speech, in which Mr. 

 Redd modestly alluded to himself as a child of destiny. 

 He was more than that; he was a genius ! The people 

 placed the seal of approval upon the man who could 

 afford the whole town a fox hunt. Mr. Redd was elected 

 assessor without a dissenting vote, and he is assessor 

 to-day, and always will be as long as he lives. That is 

 the only drag hunt 1 ever heard of that was of any ac- 

 count, and I think that was a pretty good one. 



The Iroquois Hunting and Riding Club see this thing 

 with perfect clearness. When they want to hunt foxes, 

 they hunt; and when they want simply to ride, they 

 ride. They very oi'ten form riding parties and go out to 

 points of interest, their little cavalcade of fifty bang-tail 

 thoroughbreds with well-dressed riders making a pleas- 

 ant commotion along the quiet country lane. Russell's 

 Cave, about five miles out from the city, not far from 

 Major Thomas's farm, Dixiana, is one of the points often 

 thus visited. This is a very considerable cavern, whose 

 entrance we could plainly see from the road. The family 

 house is built directly above. There is a pleasant rivulet 

 of cold water running out of the cave, upon whose banks 

 grows abundance of that peculiar herb which lends 

 flavor to mint juleps. Just within the cave entrance is 

 a little chalet, and here, doubtless, the equestrian pic- 

 nickers partake of the refreshments, which on an occa- 

 sion of this kind are always sent out in advance by ser- 

 vants. This summer the club will take a riding tour 

 across country to Crab Orchard, stopping there and 

 visiting points about there for ten days or so. It is a 

 part of Blue Grass religion to go somewhere in the sum- 

 mer. The famous White Sulphur is much visited by 

 Lexington people. I found many whom I met very well 

 acquainted with notables in Wa&hington and New York. 

 There seems to be no intermediate step between Lexing- 

 ton and those points. 



The Iroquois Club members all own their thorough- 

 breds, and every year they hold a midsummer racing 

 meet on the Kentucky Association track. Only mem- 

 bers are allowed to compete, and it is customary for each 

 member to ride his own horse, no jockey being allowed 

 to mount. At these meets some remarkably fast time has 

 been made. 



Not satisfied with fox hunting and riding and racing, 

 the Iroquois Club very often go out with the greyhounds 

 after a little sport, the peculiar nature of the country 

 making the coursing of the local cottontails or woods 

 rabbits a thing quite difficult enough for greyhounds and 

 horsemen. 



It has been said that there are 50 members of the Iro- 

 quois Club. I recall the following among the names: 

 Mr. and Mrs. Roger Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Mc- 

 Dowell, Mr. and Mrs. Suydam Scott, Mr. and Mrs. Ham- 

 ilton Scott, Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Berry man, Mr. and 

 Mrs. J. Will Payne, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Moore, and 

 Mrs. William Bright; Misses Hettie McDowell, Ida Bar- 

 ker, Linda Payne, Jennie Jeffrey, Mary Payne, Anna 

 McClellan, Lucy Shelby and Misses Gibson and Gratz; 

 Messrs. E. L. Hutchinson, Percy Talbert. Garland Barr, 

 G. W. Williams, W. K. Massie, Ed. L. Graves, John Pat- 

 terson, John Payne, Will McDowell, Winslow Dudley, 

 Henry McDowell, Will Talbert, Albert France, Robt. 

 Swigert, Lee Stedman. Wm. Ford, Percy Walker, Hart 

 Gibson, Will Shelby, Geo. B. Kinkead, Chas. Berryman. 



The club has a board of six governors, three ladies and 

 three gentlemen. Its present executive officers are R. D. 

 Williams, president, and Miss McDowell, vice-president. 

 The latter is a granddaughter of Henry Clay, and lives 

 at the old place, Ashland. She is famed as a beautiful 

 and skilled horsewoman. 



I think this little club is entitled to notice as a genuine 

 sporting organization of a superior sort, and the little 



our Pullman car porters do also. There is one negro to 

 every white man in the Blue Grass country, and two 

 negroes to every horse. One negro cannot take care of a 

 horse. The colored people are far more deferential in 

 that country than they are in the North. 



There is no real hospitality in the North. We are too 

 busy, too selfish, and too ignorant of how that is done. 

 In the Blue Grass country hospitality is princely, because 

 it is simple, sincere, spontaneous and unstudied. You 

 are simply temjiorary owner of the establishment and 

 circumjacent earth; and things are run to suit your 

 notions. These old Southern customs are admirable, and 

 I pray they may never change. They are almost all 

 that is left to us of a pure American life. They are not 

 conventionalities, but have root in the gentle and gener- 

 ous part of human nature, all too much obscured to-day. 

 It is this breath of a kindlier life which makes the linger- 

 ing charm of a visit to this country, and which inakes 

 you feel the force of the Blue Grass farewell, laughing as 

 it is — "Good-bye, We will see you again whether you 

 come soon or not. You will have to pass through here, 

 you know, on your way to heaven." E. Hough. 



THE VETERAN OF PANTHER LEON. 



There died in Chester, a few miles from Fernaudina, several 

 days since, the oldest person pronab.y in thy United States. He 

 claimed to remfmtier perfectly incidents of tue revolution, ant 

 was brought from Africa seven years before that period, and 



as at that time nearly twenty. The nearest estimate of his age 

 is 130 years. — Jacksonville (Pla.) Times-Union. 



I^HE above clipping "reminds me." On Panther Leon 

 . Inland, seven miles from Capa Romano, lives an old 

 Frenchman, John Gomez. I met him first some three 

 years ago, when he told me he was over one hundred 

 years old. On my canoe cruise round the cape last year 

 I called there and had a long conversation with the old 

 man. He told me he was born on the island of Mauri- 

 tius, and that his parents soon removed to Bordeaux, 

 where he lived until 1814 or 1815, when he came to the 

 United States. He followed the sea around Florida and 

 the West Indies until the first Seminole war, when he 

 joined the forces under Col. Taylor, and served through 

 the w T ar. 



He told me of one experience he had on the Caloosa- 

 hatchee. Col. Taylor arrived at the mouth of the Caloo- 

 sahatchee with troops and provisions. Col. Smith was in 

 charge of Fort Demon up the river. Col. Taylor sent 

 Gomez with a letter to Col. Smith for boats to carry stores 

 up river. Gomez missed his way and wandered through 

 the woods five weeks, subsisting on roots and berries. 

 Once during that time he saw what he took to be a mule 

 lying by the side of a large log. Gomez thought, "Here 

 is my chance; 111 creep up and catch him, and he'll carry 

 me somewhere where I can get something to eat." He 

 says, "I started to crawl up as close as possible to make a 

 rush and catch him. When I got within a rod or so— 

 Boof! Up jumped a big black bear, and as he tore away 

 through the woods my heart fell again." 



On the last day he went staggering through the bush, 

 regardless whether there were Indians about or not. 

 Near night he came in sight of a man carrying a gun. 

 The man raised his gun, but Gomez said, "tor God's sake 

 don't shoot, I'm hungry," staggered forward and fell in a 

 faint. He knew no more until he found himself in Fort 

 Thompson, where all care and kindness were shown to 

 bring him back from death's door. As he had an excel- 

 lent constitution he soon recovered and was in active 

 service again. 



Hi3 experience during the last war would fill a book. 

 He was on the west Florida coast, dodging the blockaders, 

 running cotton out and provisions in, always with small 

 craft that could work through the inland channels and 

 among the keys. 



Since I saw Gomez last I have met with a French 

 naturalist from Bordeaux. He told me he had become 

 interested in old John, and had written to Bordeaux to 

 find out his age if possible. He told me that the records 

 in Bordeaux show that a family named Gomez came 

 from Mauritius to that place iu 178.5, that the family con- 

 sisted of the father, mother and a five-year-old boy 

 named John. This, if correct, would place his birth in 

 1777, making him 112 years old. 



The old man ia bright and active, and makes his own 



living by fishing. He has a wife much younger than 

 himself, perhaps fifty years old, but the old man is the 

 smartest of the two. On the morning I left the island 

 the old man was going off fishing. He remarked to us 

 that he would like a boy to go with him. His wife said, 

 "Why don't you take Clement? Clement was a man 

 living on an adjoining island, and was apparently some 

 thirty or forty years of age. "Oh!" said John, "he's too 

 slow." 



The old man has a little garden on the island; he raises 

 a few vegetables, but his main dependence is the water 

 and what it brings him. Fish, turtle and turtle eggs, 

 with a little coffee, sugar and meal, make up the sum of 

 their subsistence. 



It looked like a lonely, sad life, but I don't know as in 

 all my wanderings I ever saw a happier couple than old 

 John Gomez and his wife on Panther Leon. Tarpon. 

 Tarpon Springs, Fla. 



MAINE FISH AND GAME. 



THE "Kineo Club got back to Boston the other day from 

 Moosehead well pleased with the trip. This club is 

 made up of Boston merchants and professional men, and 

 the trip is made annually to Kineo. A steamer is hired, 

 and the club mid its invited guests, with guides and 

 boats, goes to some part of the lake each for fishing. The 

 party is much pleased with the fishing this season. Trout 

 of 31bs. and over were caught with the fly. The mem- 

 bers of the club are chiefly fly-fishermen, some of them 

 never fishing in any other way, though others will deign 

 to take a trout with bait, if a trout is to be had no other 

 way. The party is "well browned up" this time, though 

 the story is that it could hardly have been the sun, for it 

 rained about every day that the club was at the lake. 



The people of Maine themselves are giving more and 

 more attention each year to sporting matters. The early 

 fishing at the lakes is pretty thoroughly followed up by 

 her prominent business and professional men, and later 

 in the season other methods of sport are adopted. Grouse 

 hunting is very popular. The streams are thoroughly 

 fished. A party, made up of Hon. H. M. Bearce, Free- 

 land Howe, F. H. Noyes, F. W. Sanborn, editor of the 

 Oxford County Advertiser, S. D. Andrews, E-iq., and H. 

 D. Smith, cashier of the Norway National Bank, all 

 prominent citizens of Paris and Norway, or formerly 

 citizens, have been making a fishing trip through Sumner 

 and vicinity, and camping in tents on the ponds and 

 streams. They also went with two-horse wagons, gypsy- 

 like. 



One has only to take up the Maine papers to become 

 convinced that there are still some game and fish left in 

 the State. Bears are getting to be numerous and rather 

 free, so far as the farmers' sheep are concerned. The 

 barn of Albert Parsons, of Pittsfield, was entered the 

 other night by a very large bruin, and three sheep and 

 one lamb were killed and partly eaten. The beast en- 

 tered through a manure window, some four feet from the 

 ground. Hunters have since tried to capture the fellow, 

 aut without success; though several bears have been 

 trapped in that section this summer. In Washington 

 county bears are reported to be very numerous, and the 

 farmers are losing sheep and lambs from their depreda- 

 tions. Here is a field for the hunters. Why is it that no 



more attention is given to bear hunting in Maine? The 

 hunters of the State scarcely know of any other way to 

 capture black bruin than by the heavy steel trap, and 

 even in that way not many are taken. The farmers would 

 welcome sportsmen from the cities who desire to hunt 

 the bear, and would render them all the aid in their 

 power. 



Deer are certainly more plenty than ever before in the 

 Pine Tree State. It is easy to talk by the book, and one 

 can write on deer all the better for having seen them. I 

 was favored with a sight, on May 29 of this year, that 

 well repaid me for many an excursion into the woods, 

 We had been fishing the stream that joins the two ponds. 

 (I would say exactly what ponds, did I not fear that 

 those two deer would fall unlawfully to'some poacher's 

 shotgun before Oct. 1.) I had come clown to the first 

 pond before the others of the party. We had seen fresh 

 tracks, and I happened to look a little way over the water 

 to the east shore, not more than 100yds., and there was a 

 deer, though it was about midday. I kept perfectly 

 quiet, in order to watch the motions of the handsome 

 animal. It would feed along the rushes and wade into 

 the water for a minute, and then bound back into the 

 thicket. This lasted for several minutes, when behold 

 there were two of them! They would turn and butt each 

 other, like lambs at play, and then would bound into the 

 water and jump into the air. Such grace I have never 

 seen in any animal. The bounds would sometimes be 

 straight up into the air several feet. They would whirl 

 and whisk their "cotton," all in play, in a manner that 

 would make any sportsman long for his rifle. But for 

 me the sight was too grand for shooting, even if I had 

 been armed with any other weapon than a ten-ounce 

 fishing-rod. My only desire was that the beautiful crea- 

 tures should remain till the others of the party came up, 

 but they did not. They evidently satisfied their desire 

 for the fresh grass of the shore of the pond, and disap- 

 peared into the forest. From all parts of the State come 

 the stories of deer, and prospects for shooting in the fall 

 are excellent, if the poaching is kept down through the 

 close season. In Washington county the farmers are 

 again complaining of the depredation of deer in their 

 grain fields, if we may believe the papers. "Last week 

 several farms at the Ledge wre raided by deer and a 

 good deal of damage done." But it must be remembered 

 that this story comes from the section where the two 

 wardens were shot while trying to enforce game laws a 

 few years ago, and where the people have but little love 

 for the deer that the State tries to protect during the 

 breeding and helpless seasons. 



The Aroostook Republican tells a rather bad story, if- 

 .t is true, on this subject. That paper bays that the game 

 laws are not enforced m that county, and hints that the 

 game wardens are not doing their duty. "Trout are 

 being netted and killed by dynamite in the Madawaska 

 lakes by the thousands, and in the region of Woodland 

 and Perham yards of deer were broken up, nearly evcy 

 •animal being slaughtered. Thi3 is a matter for the people 

 of Aroostook county to attend to. If the game and fish 

 are slaughtered wantonly by poachers there will be no 

 inducement for tourists to travel that region in the spring 

 and fall." 



I do not echo this because I know it is true, neither 



