At this moment I was forcing my way through some tangled cover, when my attention was eagerly called on, by Major Keppel, to observe a particular hound. Palatine was drawing the bog myrtle about twenty yards from the stream, when suddenly he raised his head, winded high in the air, sprung over the bushes, winded again, then leaped again, still drawing to the stream, and at once I saw that he had found an otter. Two more springs over the bushes brought him to the brink of the stream; he paused an instant, stood on his hindlegs to catch the airs from the opposite bank, and then, with an expression of the utmost excitement, dashed into the water, and gained the opposite side. While this was going on, I gently encouraged him: old Harrogate heard the applause, which years before he had been used to, and ere Palatine was across the stream, he joined him. On reaching the holt in which the otter was, Palatine hesitated as to speaking to it; but Harrogate's well-known tongue made the thicket ring; and the cheer, with which I greeted that which I knew was never false, changed the face of affairs, and put some life into the lounging gentlemen. In a moment, all was bustle and inconsiderate haste; hounds and terriers yelled, and tore at the holt, spears were brandished, men ran to and fro, looking for an animal they had never seen before, while I ran to see if my orders, as to a watch upon a shallow above and below the find, was kept up by rational creatures. Tucker, one of the forestkeepers on whom I could rely, was above me, as I had directed, and Primmer, another of the keepers, had charge of a shallow below, leaving me about fifty yards of the stream in which to rule the chase. The spade was soon unslung from the shoulders of my man; but, ere it had struck the ground, the scratching and baying of the hounds had put the otter down, and he was viewed and turned back at the shallow above me. The moment that the 'holloa' was given, all my aids and brother-sportsmen, with the exception of Major Keppel and Colonel Thornhill, flew to the spot where the view was given, quitting their own posts, and forgetting that the view they heard, put the otter down again, and that, of necessity, his next appearance would be at one or the other of the places they had quitted. At last, by dint of requests when the gentlemen were concerned, and of more positive declarations to others, I got the field into some order; when the otter, finding that the stream was too hot to hold her, as hound and terrier worked as if they had been used to it all their lives, broke from the deeper water over the shallows, making for another part of the river, and was caught and killed by the hounds. Having worried the otter, Colonel Thornhill, whose opinion on all sporting subjects may be relied on, declared he thought there was another otter in the same holts. I had some doubt of it; so, not wishing to divest the mind of my hounds of any portion of the knowledge of complete triumph, I sent the terriers only, to test the matter. Colonel Thornhill's opinion was then brought me, strengthened by the work of the terriers, and I again repaired to the spot with the hounds. Colonel Thornhill was right; we put the second otter down, a fine old dog, and, after about twenty minutes' work, my man's 'holloa' told me the otter had gone away; and sure enough he had set his head straight over the heather, and for one of the forest farms (I conclude for some drain he had been wont to use), and in five minutes the hounds ran into, and killed him in the middle of a grass-field." The district of the British Lakes, so celebrated for natural beauties, is also remarkable for the picturesque character of its otter-hunting. The sedgy borders of the great Cumberland and Northumberland waters, abound with the sleek-coated amphibii. When the quarry is put up from the luxuriant shelter that fringes their green margins, he boldly faces the swelling hills that encompass them, and straightway a chase ensues, as animating, if not as orthodox, as ever swept the velvet vale of Belvoir, or woke the echoes of the classic Coplow. True, no coursers of price race neck and neck, to charge the living rampart, or clear the swollen torrent, but stout yeomen meet in generous contest; breasting the mountain side with lungs that exercise has made elastic as the air itself; thews and sinews that health and labour have taught to scoff at toil. The philosopher may look with contempt on the joys of field and forest, the money-changer hold frivolous all business of the flood, save that relating to the freighted argosy -I pin not my faith on their creeds. "Merrie 66 England!" I would not bate one iota of thy hereditary privileges. Art, Science, Letters, Commerce-all these I would fain see prosper; but of thy rural pleasures, not one must depart from thy plains; we could better spare a better thing. SPORTING RECOLLECTIONS OF THE BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX. "How divine, The liberty, for frail, for mortal man, To roam at large among unpeopled glens, WORDSWORTH. HAVING provided ourselves with a small tent, some camp equipage, buffalo skins, which we used as bedding, a store of dried provisions, kegs of brandy and whisky, rifles, guns, with some beads and buttons as presents to the Indians, we left Montreal for La Chine, where our bateau awaited us. The situation of this village is most picturesque; in sight of it, on the opposite side of the St. Lawrence, stands the settlement of the Cachenonaga Indians, a race now sadly degenerated from their original state, by their intercourse with the white population. On the following day, at sunrise, we set out on our voyage: our crew consisted of four boatmen, and a steerer. oars, and sails, are used in ascending the stream. the current is very strong, the bateau is kept as close as possible to the shore, in order to avoid the current, and to have the advantage of shallow water to pole in. The men set their poles altogether at the same moment, and all work at the same side; the steersman, however, shifts Poles, Where his pole from side to side, in order to keep the vessel in its proper course. On coming to a deep bay, the men abandon their poles and take to their oars; but, in many places, the current proves so strong that it is absolutely impossible to stem it, and they are obliged to pole entirely round the bay. The exertion required to counteract the force of the stream is so great that the men are obliged to stop very frequently. Each of these resting-places, the boatmen, who are all French Canadians, denominate une pipe," because they are allowed to stop and fill their pipes. A French Canadian is scarcely ever without a pipe in his mouth; indeed, so much addicted are they to the nicotian weed, that, by their pipes, they commonly ascertain the distance of one place to another. Such a place, they say, is two pipes off; that is, it is so far off that you may smoke two pipes whilst you go thither. According to our calculation, a pipe, and three quarters of an English mile, seemed to be synonymous. 66 At daybreak, on the second morning, crossing the Utawas river, we gained the mouth of the south-west branch of the St. Lawrence, and a tremendous scene presented itself to our view: each river comes rushing down into the lake, over immense rocks, with an impetuosity which, seemingly, nothing can resist. Tremendous and dangerous, however, as the rapids are at this spot, they are much less so than some of those we met with, higher up the St. Lawrence. We now entered Les Cascades, Le Saut de Buisson, and other rapids, and, quitting the bateau, took our guns, and proceeded on foot. As we passed along, we had excellent sport in shooting pigeons, several large flights of which we met in the woods. The wild pigeons of Canada are F |