give his fields as much riding as they can desire, and generally a finish with blood.

This detail I have mentioned to show that the ruling passion was strong under difficulties; that the will was there but not the means; and in order to give our old friends a peep into a new country, I had a picture taken of the kennel-some of the leading hounds, with the master, huntsman, and whip mounted-as well as another of a meet at the Dry Creek. This has, until lately, been a favourite fixture; but the fox has gradually retreated, as his enemies, the settlers, have pressed him on all sides. I must, however, give you a history of a smart thing from this cover, but we will just walk down t♪ the kennel, and have a look at it and the racing stables-all under the management of the huntsman, William Malcom. They are situated about three miles from Adelaide, on the river Torrens, within a mile of the sea; and have a very pretty little homestead, with a nice farm attached. They grow everything they can require for training purposes; have good exercising grounds; and the additional advantage of the sands, added to which a dip in the sea is, in a hot country, as good for hounds as for huntsmen.

In kennel there were only about sixteen couple of hounds, dogs, and bitches together. It would not be fair to criticise their appearance, as I was told that there was no opportunity of exchanging, and consequently few could be drafted. To import them is very expensive, and many of them die on so long a passage. Their condition was, however, strong and healthy; and though they are not very even in appearance or pace, yet a fox, fairly found, rarely or ever lives to tell tales of their prowess.

Mr. William Vansittart was good enough to walk through the stables with us. This gentleman was getting himself into condition to steer his own horse Kieta for the coming hurdle-race, he having successfully piloted him to the winning-post in the last steeple-chase. There were besides this horse, which is a powerful, varmint, Irish-looking nag, twelve others: these include five used with hounds; the rest were for the coming Adelaide meet, which takes place (or did last year) immediately at the close of hunting. Two of the lot particularly took my attention-Abd-el-Kader and Lucifer, and I ought not to omit Minna; but I shall have occasion to speak of their performances hereafter, and will only add that in-doors they looked as healthy as they well could, and do every credit to the care and the quiet even temper of William, and those under him. It is quite a pleasure to watch the effect of the system pursued here-no noise! no bustle! but all civility and order.

I have said that I would tell you something about a run from the Dry Creek. It was the first I saw, and like first love it made a deep impression on me. Sixteen thousand miles away from home, in the deserts of Australia, where I expected to see nothing but cattle-hunters, I found men as neatly turned-out, and as well mounted, as they are in most of the provinces at home; and as I looked upon the cordiality with which they greeted one another, as man after man drew up to the meet, I quite longed to be a South Australian.

The morning was such as you can rarely see in any other part of the world-so fresh! so bright! and the air balmy, light, and elastic There were a couple of Indian officers down on furlough, who told me

they felt wild with spirits. But let us get to work. On the side of a hill we uncoupled, and drew the stony gullies for some time without a challenge or a flourish. I suppose we must have travelled seven or eight miles, looking into every Wambat earth, when a shepherd at length came up and told us that a brace of foxes had been seen early in the morning at the back of the Bull and Mouth Inn. Thither we trotted; and for once the yokel was right, as he said, a brace had been there, and were now not far off. But such a place to find a fox in 1 never saw-up the side of a hill covered with loose stones, and as steep as the side of a house. This, they told me, was in our favour, as found in so bad a place they co ldn't go to a worse. We found on the top of the ridge, and went away on good terms with the pair, running the bitch fox, after a short burst of ten or twelve minutes, over a precipice into a lime-kiln, and breaking her up. After a Welchman's bait, we tried for the dog, who had been seen to cross the Para River, about a mile a-head. We hit him off on this side the river, and found our way up the bank on the other side, a pull which pumped the wind out of most, and brought the whole to walking: to have attempted any other pace would have been to lose all chance of ever catching hounds again. On topping the hill, I saw the pack a full mile a-head; and should in all probability have seen no more, had Pug not, for a wonder, tried to alter his line A thicket of furze had tempted him from the straight path, but only for an instant: out he jumped, before a hound entered it, and went away a view (but a long one) for Longbottom and the enclosures. We had nothing to do now but ride and hope that we might see him again. Down went their sterns; up went their heads; noiseless was the run. The pace was too good for much music, for after the first four miles neither man nor hound had any breath, to throw away. I have never in my life gone faster; and so said two who had ridden in the last steeple-chase. If there was tailing amongst hounds, there was also amongst horses: three only lived to see him die. He had never changed his line since he peeped into the furze bushes, having taken us through two rivers, the Little Para and the Gawler, and sinking at last in the open, close to Gawler Town, twelve miles from the place where he was unkenneled. A gamer bit of stuff I never saw killed. In size he was as near a wolf as fox. Being handy to the sheep-station of Messrs. Grant and Butler, we went on, and reported to them the death of two of their worst enemies. We staid here to lunch, and never did I enjoy bottled porter so much I think. A twenty-four mile trot home finished my first day.

Having expressed a wish to see a kangaroo hunted, I was told that the next meet but one would be in a country where we were certain to find one, and accordingly I laid myself out to be there. In the course of a few evenings I received a note from Mr. Philcox, telling me that I could join him and two other friends to the Horse-shoe Noorlunga, where the hounds were going to draw for a kangaroo on the following morning, and offering to send me a mount. Of this I gladly availed myself, and was taken down accordingly in a good sort of travellingtrap, and four as good posters as it has ever fallen to my lot to sit behind. I have often heard of horses going till they drop, and at the end of the eleventh mile the leader carrying the boy choked in his collar and fell for the moment as dead as a stone. I should say we had done

the distance within the hour, over roads that in England would hardly be deemed passable. We got down to a comfortable dinner at the Horse-shoe, and had some fish and teal served in a way that would not have disgraced Soyer himself.

The meet, as usual, was early; and Douglas' Scrub the covert to be drawn. I may fairly say covert here, as it is nothing else for nearly ten miles, and almost the only defined one that can be hunted. I rode to it in company with Mr. W. Gilbert, who, like myself, a fresh arrival in Adelaide, had never seen a kangaroo hunted, but had for the last twenty years been a three-days-a-week man with Mr. Assheton Smith. We of course talked the pack over. "They are," said he, "to look at, uneven; but then how is this to be remedied, there being no packs to exchange drafts with? Again, they don't draw well, but money won't buy others; and if you import, half of them die, and the cost of the living ones would be, if purchased at home, from £12 to £15 a-piece. There is at times, too, a good deal of tailing, from the same cause: and now," said he, “I have done, for you will find pace enough in the leading hounds to keep you both amused and hard at work."

We uncoupled at the back of Mr. Douglas's farm, and soon viewed a flyer, as it is called, viz., a flying doe, going at a slapping rate over a sand-ridge. In a few minutes we were settled to her, when to my great surprise I saw the huntsman pull up, and jump off his horse. The master roared to him that they were right; but William had seen the doe take from her pouch a Joey (young one), and place it under a bush. He took it up, and carried it through the run, in which the mother stood before us for more than half-an-hour, bringing us to a check in a creek. She had not gone straight like a fox, but had ringed a part of the cover twice- all the while, though, going at score. Her pace down hill was wonderful, as the leaps of these animals, when the country is with them, are something like twenty-four feet. Through deep ground or up-hill they cannot make way so well. Two or three minutes had hardly passed before "Gone away!" was again heard from the other side of the ravine, and we were beginning to speculate upon the time she had to live, when I was told we had changed; and this proved too true. Another doe was up, and a merry doe she was, and cunning withal. She went away for the edge of the scrub, but being pressed, set up in some gum scrub, and we ran literally over her. Up went their heads, of course; and back over her own line she headed, having jumped so closely between two horsemen, that either could have touched her with his hunting-crop. The try-back soon made close friends of us again, but when within a stone's-throw of the leading hound, she disappeared as if by magic. An unsuccessfr! cast made some look rather blue, and puzzled all." Yoick! try her again, good Dangerous !" cried the huntsman; and once more, as if by magic, from a water-hole in which she had buried herself, all save the tip of the nose and ears, sprang this water-nymph, much refreshed it would seem by her bath. From this time it became apparent that it was necessary to make the most of one's nag. The country was sandy and full of fallen timber, and consequently very heavy. To our great joy she made up her mind to leave the scrub and face the open. This enabled me to see her jumping powers, as we drove her through and brought her back over a piece of young wheat, enclosed by a post-and-rail fence 4ft. 6in. high. The first

time she took it in her stride, but the ploughed land quieted her, and in returning she jumped, or rather crept through, the top rails. For a few minutes we then lost her; but still nothing but close hunting was required, as the gallop had now come down to a trot. She was soon viewed crawling up the side of a hill, and being hit off again, was observed also to catch a Joey from her pouch, and throw it in the air. After this she made one great effort to gain the top, but was run into before she could reach it. The castaway was picked up, but found too young to live. The difference in the behaviour of these two mothers was very striking and touching. The first had a child that could provide for itself, and to save herself she hid it carefully, no doubt intending to return-not being able to go with such a load. The other parted with her offspring only with her life, and then, and not till then, apparently knowing that it could not support itself, cast it to the winds. The tail of this good mother, weighing 14 lbs., was sent to Government House, being the last of the season, as it was evidently too late in the year to meddle further with kangaroo. The young ones were both taken home, but died. When successful in rearing them they soon become domesticated, and will follow you about the house.

A SUMMER EXCURSION AT HOME AND ABROAD.

"THE AMERICA," AND AMERICA.

BY SARON.

My last chapter concluded with a poetical effusion touching the consternation created at Cowes, by the arrival and subsequent performances of the America" schooner from New York. The newspapers have recorded her prowess in the match round the Island for the Cup, open to yachts of all nations, and in her single contest with the "Titania" iron schooner, and in both of which the transatlantic craft proved herself victorious. It is not generally known that Earl Fitzhardinge was the first person to come forward to test the sailing qualities of the "America": his lordship, who is a most liberal patron of every manly sport, whether on land or at sea, proposed to sail for two hundred guineas against this "miracle of art," provided Mr. Wild would lend him the "Alarm" cutter-he, Mr. Wild, to have the entire control and management of his vessel; or the noble owner of Berkeley Castle offered to give a cup of the value of one hundred sovereigns, provided any two yachts would enter against the "America." The veteran owner of Lulworth Castle felt the honour that had been conferred upon his yacht, but declined making the match, as the " Alarm" was not in trim. Subsequently that public-spirited and talented secretary to the "Industrial Exhibition," Mr. Scott Russell, the builder of the "Titania," came to Cowes, when he and Captain Claxton, of the Royal Navy, both practical men and intimate friends of Mr. Robert Stephenson, M.P., at once agreed to recall the yacht, which was cruising off the

Yorkshire coast, and held out every hope that the challenge would be accepted. Mr. Stephenson at once consented to the proposition, and placed himself in the hands of the Earl of Wilton, Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, of which he is so distinguished a member. The result is known to all our sporting readers.

I must now return to my own adventures. Having shipped myself on board a friend's yacht, I had an opportunity of personally judging of the powers of the "America." Upon the first morning we sailed in a bit of a gale, all reefs down, the far-famed clipper, at the request of a truly noble and gallant member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, came out to give us as the actors say-" a taste of her quality." We were a snug trio-the schooner; the "Forest Fly," a small cutter of twoand-thirty tons, admirably manned, and sailed by the "smart" captain already alluded to in this, and the last chapter; and the craft upon whose books I was rated, and to which, from the hospitality extended to myself and others, I shall give the fictitious name of the " Philoxenia." The America" had two reefs down in the mainsail, the bonnet off the jib, and the whole foresail. She stood up well, and beat us all to shivers. I noticed she did not use the boom to the jib; nor did she reef to the boom the mainsail. The day's sailing entirely confirmed the opinion I had previously formed of the schooner's superiority over all and any vessel of her tonnage. The season was now coming to an end many of the yachts were proceeding to foreign ports or home stations; others were laid up for the winter. September had set in; the blue jacket had been doffed for the heather-coloured one; the helm had been resigned for the gun; the "brambles" had been deserted for the turnip-fields-while ruminating how to employ the remaining five weeks of my holidays, and reviewing in my own mind the pros and cons as to a crusade against the partridges, an excursion to the Rhine, a trip to Paris, or a stroll in Switzerland, my attention was attracted to an advertisement in the Times newspaper. It ran as follows:

"UNITED STATES MAIL STEAMERS.-A vessel will sail alternate Wednesdays from Southampton for New York."

The transatlantic schooner had been the burthen of the song for the preceding fortnight, and anxious as I had always been to pay a visit to that thriving city of the New World, my desire was considerably increased from the friendly intercourse I had enjoyed in the society of some intelligent Americans during the London and Cowes season. After a short deliberation my mind was made up. To one devoted to the sea the voyage promised pleasure. I was within an hour of the point of embarkation, and no passport was required; all I had to do was to provide myself with a letter of credit, and ship myself and seachest on board the steamer. This was the work of a few hours; and in less than twelve from the time I had first entertained the question, we were going full twelve knots an hour off St. Alban's Head. Although there is not the same degree of interest in a steam-vessel that there is in a sailing one, the feeling that you are "going ahead" every moment compensates you, in a great measure, for the absence of the white sails set," and for that "full fair sight, the fresh breeze, as fair as breeze may be." We had more than a hundred-and-fifty passengers on board, and among them I met many agreeable companions, both

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