expected to reap a rich harvest, the demand was met by a prompt refusal.

This was the signal for a row; and had not a battalion of infantry been marched into the arena, it would be difficult to surmise to what extent the infuriated anger of the mob might have been carried. As it was, however, the circumstance of the soldiers deliberately loading with ball, caused a sudden and complete revulsion of feeling, for, in brief space, the "plaza de toros" was as silent and forsaken as is the case in the very depth of winter.

Thus terminated this curious and revolting exhibition. Being anxious to see how the bull which had slain the men would acquit himself in the evening, I attended the fight, but, from some cause or other, the animal was inert and sluggish, and, apparently, had lost all the ferocity which, in the morning, had been so ostentatiously displayed.

As to the true cause of so sudden and surprising a change, I cannot speak with confidence, though it is generally believed that, in most instances, prior to the bull being let loose, a heavy shutter is dropped upon his loins, thereby depriving him of a considerable portion of his power, and, consequently, rendering him a far less formidable antagonist than he proves himself when first driven in from the country.

Cadiz, 1st November, 1839.

THE MODERN ARAB RACER.

MUCH less is generally known of the comparative speed of the British and Arab race-horse, than the interest of the question, and the facility for its solution, seem to justify. Our possessions in India exhibit the native Arab in the character of a racer, probably, in the highest form in which the animal has ever been brought to the post. The following extract from the "Bengal Sporting Magazine," for April last, furnishes some useful data upon that interesting inquiry. "From Cuttack we come to the first Calcutta Meeting, and I have little fear of contradiction in proclaiming it the first in rank that has ever taken place on that course, whether we look to the number of the subscribers, to the various cups and stakes, the number of first-rate horses that appeared, or the time in which the several races were run. The first day was looked for with great anxiety, as a probable test of the best Arab in Bengal. The trial did take place, and though the gallant little Pirate ran as well as he had ever done, he had no chance with Fieschi or Corriemonie, who accomplished two miles in three minutes fifty-one seconds and a half, or some six or eight seconds less than was formerly considered excellent performance." (Unfortunately the weights do not accompany this account.) "A question arises to me of difficult solution :-Whence comes this year's apparent superiority? By reference to the Calendars, the timing of even the second-rate horses surpasses what we have ever witnessed: two miles in three minutes fifty-seven or fifty-eight seconds, is now looked upon

as nothing:-are the horses better, or are the owners more skilful? Perhaps the Arabs, finding a market, at high prices, for racing-like horses, pay more attention to breeding than they did twenty or thirty years ago; this is my idea, for I can scarcely think there are better trainers now on the course, than Gilbert, Treeves, Barwell, the Hunters, and Gwatkin; or that even the owner of Fieschi is so very much improved from the time his character, as a trainer, was drawn in these words: Mr. B.'s system of training is considered too severe; he is fond of being ready at the commencement of the racing season, and will get the most out of his horse: it must be remembered, also, that he never brings a horse to the post that is not fit to go.' I should like to see the opinions of some of your sporting correspondents on this undoubted excellence over former years, in point of timing." In addition to this extract, we give the following notice of a handicap run on the 15th of February last, at the Bombay Meeting. "A Forced Handicap for all horses that have won public money during the meeting; optional to losers. Rupees 600 from the fund, with a Sweepstakes of 100 rupees each: two miles." This was won by Mr. Ettrick's grey Arab horse, Exile, carrying 9 st. 9 lb., in three minutes fifty-six seconds, and is thus spoken of in the "Bengal Racing Calendar:"-" Won easy by Exile, in the best time ever run on this course at the weight; and proving himself, if not the very best, one of the best Arabs in India, at all weights and distances." Now, without offering any opinion upon the "comparative merits" to which we have above alluded, we will only suppose the course at Bombay, over which this race was run, as bad as was that of Goodwood, on Thursday, the 1st of August last (and worse it could not have been), and putting a case before the reader, leave the issue with him. Exile, the best Arab in India, as his best performance, has done two miles in three minutes fifty-six seconds, at 9 st. 9 lb. Harkaway, an English thorough-bred horse, has done two miles and three-quarters in four minutes fifty-eight seconds, at 9 st. 4 lb., winning his race in a canter. It is well that such facts as these should be preserved the time will come when such knowledge will be as valuable as would now be any authentic records of the running of Childers and Eclipse.

In a late number of the "Times," there appeared a paragraph, properly authenticated, with name, time, and place, to the effect that a gamekeeper, having fired both his barrels at a couple of rabbits, killed them right and left. At the instant a woodcock rose before him; and, in his agony, he discharged his piece, literally-stock and barrel-at the "foreigner," and brought it as cleverly to bag as if an ounce of No. 7. had been lodged in its cerebellum.

MY HORSES.

BY NIMROD.

(Continued from page 457, vol. ii.)

My next residence was in Shropshire, a few miles from Ludlowa good part of England for horses, but very so-so for fox-hunting. I, however, seldom hunted there after November commenced, removing my stud to Stratford-on-Avon, having been elected a member of the Stratford Hunt Club, where everything that was agreeable prevailed, and where, as John Warde said of the Pytchley, "everything was pleasant but the reckoning." But even Warwickshire did not content me. I had generally horses at Chapel House, for the Duke of Beaufort's, and at Middleton Stoney, near Bicester, for Sir Thomas Mostyn's packs; and many were the dark and blowing nights in which I turned out, after dinner, to ride twenty miles, for the purpose of getting within reach of the favourite fixtures of these hunts, in which my horses were planted. From Stratford to Banbury, for example (at that time twenty miles of the worst turnpike-road in England), to meet Mostyn in his Chipping-Warden country, which I delighted in, was often my midnight task; but no gay Lothario, on the wings of maiden love, ever travelled more blithely than I cantered along, on not the best hacks in the world, to meet hounds on the morrow. "How far have you come this morning?" used to be Gryff Lloyd's usual salutation by the cover's side.

But I am wandering from my subject-the horses, for picking up which I was now in the right country, the second best to Yorkshire, if not, as respects hunters, its equal. By way of shewing, then, the value of fox-hunting to owners and occupiers of land, I will commence with stating that I gave Mr. Harper, of Stoke Castle, near Ludlow, a large farmer and grazier, 260 guineas for two four-year-old colts, then in the breaker's hands. What other stock, may I ask, would have paid for the food consumed, which these colts paid? One was got by Black Sultan, and the other by General, by Saltram out of a Highflyer mare; but both (purchased in consecutive years) were out of a capital hunting mare, ridden many seasons by the late Sir John Hill, of Hawkestone, the father of all the Hills. I sold the first for 200 guineas; and he was well known as Emperor, a winner of hunters' stakes, and afterwards as a good hunter in Northamptonshire, -I think in Mr. Davy's stud. He was perfect, all but his shoulders, which were rather short for his height. I sold the half-brother to him to Mr. Benson, for £180, in six weeks after I bought him; and he was also a winner of hunters' stakes, by the name of Conkeybeau, and making a very good hunter afterwards.*

I purchased another young horse near Ludlow, from a tenant of

*The purchase of this horse by Mr. Benson was accidental, and I only mention the manner in which it was accidental, to shew how I treated young horses in those days. My house was twelve miles distant from Lutwyche (Mr. Benson's seat), where I was going to dine. "What horse is to carry the saddle bags to Lutwyche ?" said my groom. The General colt," I replied. He will not carry them," said the man. "Then longe him till he will," was my finale; and, after having been longed for half an hour, he carried them very quietly; and the next morning Mr. Benson purchased him.

Mr. Lechmere Charlton (Mr. Benbow), which turned out a capital hunter; and I mention him particularly, with a view of cautioning sportsmen not to reject a likely young horse, with good action, on account of some trifling imperfection in his form-other points, such as shoulders and hind legs, being all right. No one would purchase this horse (got by Admiral) with great bone, and otherwise in excellent form, because he had short and straight fetlocks. But he was foaled with this eye-sore; and, although I sold him to Mr. Adams, who then had the Ludlow hounds, to carry his huntsman, a light weight, he furnished so much in his frame, and went on so well under John's fine bridlehand, that Mr. Adams rode him several seasons himself, weighing full sixteen stone. I never heard of his legs failing from the cause I have stated; and my having given eighty guineas for him is a proof of my believing they would not fail. Where were worse fetlocks than those under Mr. Robert Canning's Conjurer, perhaps, one of the best hunters, under weight, ever produced by a mare? Let it not be supposed, however, that I think lightly of defective fetlocks; on the contrary, I consider the fetlock a most essential point, not only as regards action in deep ground, but in reference to the lasting of a horse in his work, be his work what it may.

Then, here comes another cautionary lesson to over-fastidious judges. My brother, residing in Herefordshire, requested me to purchase for him a young horse likely to carry him with hounds. Having seen a thrusting young farmer, in my neighbourhood, ride a five-year-old gelding, by Transit (son of Lord Egremont's Mercury), well up to hounds, over the Titterstone Clee Hills-a rascally country for horses-I bought him for seventy guineas, and sent him to him. The following day I went to visit him myself, to meet a party of friends, all-in their own opinion at least-judges of horse-flesh (but one very difficult to please), and this was the result of their criticism:“Calf-kneed," said A. "No bone below the knee," exclaimed B. "He'll be broken-winded," believed C. "I would not give twenty pounds for him," cried D. "Then I'll keep him myself," said I; and this calf-kneed (as he was), small boned (as he was), broken-winded (which he was not, but he had a cold), worthless brute, after having been ridden one season by myself, and two by Green, huntsman to the late Lord Foley, became his Lordship's favourite hunter, and one which no price would, at that time, have purchased of him. So much for rash decisions. He was a brown gelding, fifteen hands three inches, with a snip of white on his nose, and went in a plain snaffle bridle; bred by a tenant of that worthy man, and good sportsman, the Rev. John Walcot, of Bitterley Court, brother-in-law to Sir John Dashwood King.

*

My next attempt to mount my brother is not beneath notice, because the purchase was effected in rather an odd, if not a laughable, manner. A neighbouring clergyman, but no great sportsman, came to visit me at my crib, at Bitterley, and brought with him not a bad sort of a five-year old black mare, of his own breeding; got by King John, as bad a stallion, I believe, as any at that time going. Despite of this, and of a heavy and regular mare's head, not very well put on, and

*This horse was one of old Transit's last get. He then covered near Tenbury, stone blind. Transit was a grandson of Eclipse.

66

a carcass worthy of an alderman, there was, I thought, something kind and like improvement about her, which, as her shoulders and hind legs were right, and there was substance, would, with good management, shew itself. Will you sell your mare ?" said I to him, the next day, as we were taking our morning ride. "Yes," he replied, "for forty-five guineas, as she is too big for me." "I'll give you forty," I said (rather dealer-like, I admit). The parson declined. Well, then,' continued I, " as you say she is a hunter, and, of course, a good leaper, if you will ride her over that stile, and she does not hit it, I'll give you all you ask for her." His reverence looked at the stile, and observed there was a ditch on the far side. "Never heed the ditch," I said, "if your mare clears the stile she will be sure to clear the ditch, if you put her manfully at it." He did so, and she would have cleared a very pretty brookling. She made a good hunter for a very rough country, in which temper is much wanting, and carried my brother to the end of the finest run Herefordshire had witnessed for many, many years, with Mr. Terrett's hounds, from West-ham Wood, enabling him to be one of the very few who saw anything like the finish of it. A few days after this, however, she was nearly finishing him; she gave him such a break-neck fall, that he declared, at the moment—although he thought better of it afterwards-that he would never hunt again; but I have reason to believe he had to thank himself for his fall, by having taken the mare to the field before she had recovered herself from the effects of the tremendous run in which she had gone so well.

I was, at this period of my life, much in the habit of sojourning, in the winter months, with Sir John Dashwood King, at his hunting seat at Bourton-on-the-Hill, half-way between Oxford and Worcester, and where his father had a hunting seat before him. I had carte blanche, and it just suited my book, for the following efficient reasons:-Sir John is a man after my own heart; the society was good; the tap unexceptionable (Raikes's best); and capital accommodation for the nags, at the training-stables on the Hill, where there is the best winter exercise-ground in the world-in short, where horses gallop and sweat with the thermometer at zero. It was also not very badly situated for foxhounds-at least, either the Duke's or the Warwickshire were generally within reach from it: Lord Segrave's always one day in the week, if not more; and Sir John's harriers, perhaps the best the world ever saw, hunted three days a week, and shewed most extraordinary sport. In fact, it required a good man, on a good horse, to see the end of a Cotswold hare, once driven out of her latitude by this beautiful pack.

The only amends I made, or had in my power to make, Sir John Dashwood, for all his kindness and good cheer, was purchasing for his eldest son—a most superior horseman, and then at Christ Churchtwo most superior hunters. One was a bay horse, which he classically called Achilles, because he was wounded in the heel-alias, fired in a hind fetlock. The other, a slapping black gelding, by Black Sultan, bred by Mr. Hickman,* near Ludlow, on which Mr. Dashwood (now M. P. for Bucks) so distinguished himself with hounds, as to refuse Lord Jersey's offer of 400 guineas for him-saying, if he were worth Father of that able practitioner, Mr. Hickman, veterinary surgeon, of Shrewsbury.