single file at their favourite crossing-place. We count our select few, and find but five. On the right is a well-known grey, followed by a lady on a rat-tailed bay. On the left, Mr. Bulteel, Major Morris, on a chestnut, and Mr. Arthur White, on his wonderful bay mare. Almost a stranger in Dartmoor, I look with wonder on the expanse of brown heath, bounded by still browner hills in the horizon, without a sign of a covert, and speculate in my ignorance on what can be the point of the fox, as there is no apparent resting-place as far as the eye can reach. But there is no time for inquiry. My horse gives two great sobs and a heave of his flanks, catches his wind after such a hill, and, pulling him together, we bowl merrily along for some ten minutes, pointing for Huntingdon Warren. The hounds carry a good head over lovely ground, and respond gaily to the cheers bestowed on them. But this is too good to last, and we soon find ourselves in deep ground; the water splashing up at every step wets my boots through. Another five minutes and we are among the turf ties. "Mouchoir" strides away, with his smooth, sweeping action; the grey takes no notice of them whatever, and carries his head up and his ears pricked, as if he viewed the fox. My horse, slightly blown, blunders into one, and receives a gentle reminder not to do that again. Forward sweep the hounds as eagerly as ever, and as straight as a line; no happy turn to let in the field. "Do you know where you are?" I meekly inquire of my next door neighbour. "No, I don't" is shouted back over his shoulder; and again--but for the music of the hounds-all are silent. A curious motion of my horse's flanks, and an unwonted elongation of his neck, warn me that the pace is beginning to tell, and I speculate-should I be obliged to stop-how I should ever find my way home, there being no stragglers to fall back I know now that "the Abbots' Way," used in olden times by the jolly old monks as a communication between the monasteries of Buckfastleigh and Tavistock, lay parallel to the line we were running. What a relief it would have been at that moment to have found one's horse's feet on so sound a path ! Even a sheep track is hailed with delight, and our horses catch their wind as we gallop down it. The hounds bend slightly to the right, and we are again on soft ground; but the sight of our hunted fox, not two hundred yards ahead, revives our spirits, although he looks so big and brave; he may be good for another half hour at least. Here we evidently cross the line of a fresh fox, but only three hounds take it up; the rest swing round to the left under "Mouchoir's" very feet, pointing straight for the River Erme, turning to the left over

on.

Stony Bottom and Brown Heath, nearly to Pyles; but the fox, changing his mind, bears again to the left over Three Burrows to Ruddybrook, disdaining the earths, across the river, pointing for Woolholes. Here at last the scnet fails. Mr. Bulteel, with his hat off, cheers on the hounds without much success, and as we turn our horses' heads to the wind and look round us, we find our select company is still limited to the five I counted on the top of Zeal Tor, after as fine a forty minutes, without the slightest check, as any one could wish to see. The hounds have got their heads up, and take no notice of our well-meant efforts, when, to our great relief, Boxall and some more hounds appear, pick out the line to Woolholes, bolt our fox out of the clitter of rocks there, and run to earth in Bloody Pool Brake, where he is left, at the request of Sir Walter Carew, to enjoy his well-earned repose. We have plenty to talk about as we wend our way slowly homewards, and I frankly confess that my "up-country" prejudices are scattered to the winds. I can only say to those of my readers who have gone with me to the end, if you have a good, fast horse, with nerve to ride him, and an eye for country, come to Dartmoor, where you be received with much courtesy and kindness by Mr. Trelawny and his field, and will never regret the day when you followed the advice of

"BLACK Moss."

will

THE ASCOT GOLD CUP.

A SPORTING SKETCH.

FTER the turmoil of the Derby, the great national carnival at Epsom, it is delightful to contemplate the complacency of aristocratic Ascot, or the attractions of glorious Goodwood. However imposing may have been the spectacle of the Olympic games, with the war or chariot horse in the vast amphitheatres, and great as must have been the excitement and passion for equestrian distinction in those early days, still it has been left for England in these latter days to display the great speed and stamina of the horse. Ascot Heath is situate on the confines of Windsor Park and the Beech Groves of Sunning Hill. The course is flat, with a slight ascent towards the Grand Stand; but we lose the grandeur of the scenery of the Derby course, which is on the summit of Banstead Downs. The Derby course is the most trying course in the kingdom; it forms a kind of horse shoe, commencing with the hill; it then sweeps round the New Course and the furzes, on a beautiful incline towards Tattenham Corner, where the struggle commences on the straight ascent towards the Grand Stand. The Great Cup Race at Ascot commences just below the Grand Stand, on a two-and-a-half mile course of a circular form, diverging into the Swinley Mile and the Straight Mile Hunt Cup Course, at the extremity of which, towards Windsor, Royalty generally enters with its accustomed pageantry and retinue. The Grand Stand, like that at Epsom, is comparatively a new building, light and elegant in design and structure, supported by Corinthian pillars, with a superb balcony and lawn for ladies, as at Goodwood. The ladies, with enchanting parti-coloured dresses and trains and dazzling toilettes, change the vast Heath into a paradise of Eastern splendour. To the admirers of rank, fashion, and beauty, Ascot and Goodwood bear away the palm from Epsom. Here we see Royalty at home, condescending to grace the scene of its forefathers. Charles II. was a racing man at Newmarket (where he had a Palace), and so also was George IV., when he lived at Brighton; but owing to Her Majesty's severe domestic afflictionwhich, unfortunately, she has never forgotten-we miss the chronicles of the Castle hospitality, at the grand banquet in St. George's Hall

on the evening of the Cup Day, the buffets of gold cups, vases, epergnes, and candelabra, and the long list of fashionable friends and patrons of the Turf. All this splendour seems to have passed away. Racing is now with us quite a science, just as much as banking or stockbroking; for we may say, with some truth, luck has very little to do with racing, and nothing but a good eye, judgment, and management, can command success; and even with these attributes a racing man has fearful odds to contend with, owing to the trickery of the Turf, which the Jockey Club, to their credit, are determined to put down if possible.

As a general rule, racehorses should be well bred, well reared, well engaged, well trained, and well ridden; these, we believe, are the great secrets of our best racing stables, and nothing else can succeed in the long run. Everything then depends on the propelling and locomotive power of the racehorse, and a nobleman who gives a thousand guineas for a yearling may at last only find himself on a par with the provincial squire of Salisbury Plain, the winner of the Oaks some years back with a horse which perhaps at first he only intended for a Bath Handicap. One of the most fortunate men of modern days was the Earl of Jersey; he won £10,000 with Bay Middleton on the Derby, and then disposed of his stud for fear of a counter-current in his declining years. Lord Eglinton won the same amount with the Flying Dutchman and Van Tromp, and, we believe, had the sense to keep it; and Sir Joseph Hawley won the Derby two years in succession with Beadsman and Musjid. These instances of good fortune are not to be met with every day. Perhaps the most chequered fate happened to Lord George Bentinck, who, after winning the Oaks with Crucifix, and when, some few years afterwards, the Blue Riband of the Turf was almost within his grasp, sold Surplice, her son, with his entire stud, to Mr. Mostyn, who afterwards disposed of it to Lord Clifden, Lord George yielding to the dictates of conscience, for the good of his country (protection to the British farmer), and finally breaking down entirely through mental exertion. It is a curious coincidence that his brother died similarly afflicted, at the end of last year.

During the race week at Ascot the pride of the old road is revived, and is as majestic as in days of yore. Changing horses is again the order of the day, and posters are ordered all along the road from London down to the sylvan scenery of Egham, Virginia Water, and Englefield Green, to the course, where the Four-in-Hand Club muster in considerable numbers, as at Hampton. Country seats and commercial hotels are crowded, while the South Western Railway deposits

the more timid in first-class style almost under the shadow of the Grand Stand. Unfortunately, this year ladies were wrapped up in furs and wrappers; capes and horse rugs were used on the drags to keep the darlings warm, owing to the strange inclemency of the weather. There is no noisy, roystering mob as at Epsom; still there are the usual concomitants of country races. Tents are pitched by swarthy gipsies on the roadside; carts with beer barrels are drawn up under hedges; card sellers shout, niggers dance and chaunt. Then on the Downs you encounter girls on stilts, the clever London monkey in crinoline, Ethiopians who are grinning and grimacing in the background, lined by the well-to-do farmers from Bracknell with their one-horse chaises, and the broad-shouldered, straw-hatted yokels from Warfield, with their lasses, as merry as sandboys.

By one o'clock the Grand Stand is crammed; at half-past one the Royal party, in six or eight carriages, slowly ascend the New Mile Course; Lord Cork, the Master of the Buckhounds, on Macduff, his celebrated hunter, leading the way, attended by the huntsman and whips, and grooms with led horses, in Royal liveries of scarlet and gold. As the day this year is cold and cheerless, there is not the usual warm enthusiasm, and the windows of the Royal Stand are closed, as the Princess of Wales is still, I am sorry to say, in delicate health. On the opposite side of the course are a countless number of carriages. The occupants are discussing the merits of Fortnum and Mason's Perigord and pâté de foie pies, or the delicacies of Véry, aided by sparkling burgundy, hock, and moselle; champagne being now as common as the gooseberry of my youth, and sometimes no better. Men in blue veils and white dust-expellers are showering sticks at cocoa-nuts and antiquated Aunt Sallys, whilst mountebanks, acrobats, and serenaders are plying for pence-by chance pounds-with wonderful agility and an enthusiasm worthy a nobler occupation. At length the bell rings for the start for the Gold Cup. The Cup horses are paraded in front of the Royal and Grand Stands, and expectation is on tip-toe as seven of the finest horses in England canter and career down towards the halfmile post at the bottom of the hill. Off they go, without a false start, as they know their business; on they come for the first time before the stands at a good steady pace, as they have two miles and a half to travel. One of Lord Falmouth's leads, to make the pace strong for Kingcraft, a Derby winner; Bothwell, the Two Thousand winner, with Mortemer and Verdure, a French mare, well up with Siderolite, who was out-paced throughout. Round the bend they run into the Siderolite is beaten, Kingcraft cries

Swinley Mile at a terrific pace.