Saturday's hunting fixture may have been a very good ride for the few who were always in the lead, but it was not a hunt: it was a steeplechase. The course was quite good one, but the paper, of which a considerable quantity must have been used, was laid like a carpet over the whole route, so that the hunt practically indulged in a 10 mile gallop, without once drawing rein. The natural result followed, in that riders having to wait their turn at various mudholes, wades, or scrambles, the hunt was stretched out into one continuous thin line of riders, with a distance of perhaps three miles between first and last.
Road, next to the Gun Club, whence The trail began off the Hungjao it traversed the Wilderness country, then passed by the Old Woman's} Monument to Middling Tree Platform, and thence Via Forth and round the Palmate Creek to the junction of Rubicon Creek with the Siccawei Creek where all waded the first named creek.
Then came a rather heavy stretch of land, over the dusty, powdery land bordering Siccawei Creek, and including the ancient jumps known as Faith, Hope, and Charity, all now battered and broken down, Charity, particularly, is so narrow in breadth that only one rider could pass at a time, and this, together with the scramble at the old broken chasm beyond The Twins and the Obstruction Wade beyond, at which all must wait their turn to pass in single file, did more than anything else to string out the hunt into that attenuated line of single horsemen, into which it had now degenerated.
The remainder of the run consist ed in a gallop along the Northwestern Road, and then down Miss Johnstone's line, where a small eveek had been dug into a very big jump, then through the Rubicon at a very soft place, and right-handed te Forth again. From Forth the trail passed by Dallas' Grave, Potter's Pride, Family Tree Platform and the Westward Ho jumps, to the finish at Suez.
There was not much incident to be seen on the run. If a man fell, he remounted or vanished in the country. There was no pause, no check, and just one long, long, string of wearied ponies and their riders, who plugged stolidly along the track till they reached the flags. Mr. H. S. Sweeting came in first on Giant Killer, and Mr. M. Springfreld was second. There was no heavyweight on the card, which reads as follows 1.—Mr. H. 8. Sweeting, Giant Killer.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.