In addition to this, however, hounds having to smell as they go, cannot
travel at the ultra steeple-chase pace, so opposed to 'looking before you
leap,' and so conducive to danger and difficulty, and as going even at a
fair pace depends upon the state of the atmosphere, and the scent the fox
leaves behind, it is evident that where mere daring hard riding is the
object, a fox-hunt cannot be depended upon for furnishing the necessary
accommodation. A drag-hunt is quite a different thing. The drag can be made
to any strength; enabling hounds to run as if they were tied to it, and can
be trailed so as to bring in all the dangerous places in the country with a
certain air of plausibility, enabling a man to look round and exclaim, as
he crams at a bullfinch or brook, 'he's leading us over a most desperate
country--never saw such fencing in all my life!' Drag-hunting, however, as
we said before, is not popular with sportsmen, certainly not with huntsmen,
and though our friends with their wounded feelings determined to have one,
they had yet to smooth over old Tom to get him to come into their views.
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