enough to discover that a plentiful and varied
supply of hunting facilities is one of the most safe, certain, and
profitable attractions they can provide. Cheltenham and Bath has each
its stag-hounds; Brighton does better, less expensively, and pleases
more people, with two packs of harriers, hunting four days (and, by
recent arrangements, a pack of fox-hounds filling up the other two days)
of the week; so that now it may be considered about the best place in
the country for making sure of a daily constitutional gallop from
October to March at short notice, and with no particular attention to
costume and a very moderate stud, or no stud at all.

With these and a few other floating notions of air, exercise, and change
of scene in my head--having decided that, however tempting to the
caricaturist, the amusement of hundreds was not to be despised--I took
my place at eight o'clock, at London-bridge station, in a railway
carriage--the best of hacks for a long distance--on a bright October
morning, with no other change from ordinary road-riding costume than one
of Callow's long-lashed, instead of a straight-cutting, whips, so saving
all the impediments of baggage. By ten o'clock I was wondering what the
"sad sea waves" were saying to the strange costumes in which it pleases
the fair denizens of Brighton to deck themselves. My horse, a little,
wiry, well-bred chestnut, had been secured beforehand at a dealer's,
well known in the Surrey country.

The meet was the race-course, a good three miles from the Parade. The
Brighton meets are stereotyped. The Race-course, Telscombe Tye, the
Devil's Dyke, and Thunders Barrow are repeated weekly. But of the way
along the green-topped chalk cliffs, beside the far-spreading sea, or up
and down the moorland hills and valleys, who can ever weary? Who can
weary of hill and dale and the eternal sea?

To those accustomed to an inclosed country there is something extremely
curious in mile after mile of open undulating downs lost in the distant
horizon. My day was bright. About eleven o'clock the horsemen and
_amazones_ arrived in rapidly-succeeding parties, and gathered on the
high ground. Pleasure visitors, out for the first time--distinguished
by their correct costume and unmistakably hired animals--caps and white
breeches, spotless tops and shining Napoleons--were mounted on hacks
battered about the legs, and rather rough in the coat, though hard and
full of go; but trousers were the prevail