had acquired the character of a thoroughly good public servant.

The time went very pleasantly. Some adventures I had;--two of
which I told in the Tales of All Countries, under the names of The
O'Conors of Castle Conor, and Father Giles of Ballymoy. I will not
swear to every detail in these stories, but the main purport of
each is true. I could tell many others of the same nature, were
this the place for them. I found that the surveyor to whom I had
been sent kept a pack of hounds, and therefore I bought a hunter.
I do not think he liked it, but he could not well complain. He never
rode to hounds himself, but I did; and then and thus began one of
the great joys of my life. I have ever since been constant to the
sport, having learned to love it with an affection which I cannot
myself fathom or understand. Surely no man has laboured at it as I
have done, or hunted under such drawbacks as to distances, money, and
natural disadvantages. I am very heavy, very blind, have been--in
reference to hunting--a poor man, and am now an old man. I have
often had to travel all night outside a mail-coach, in order that
I might hunt the next day. Nor have I ever been in truth a good
horseman. And I have passed the greater part of my hunting life
under the discipline of the Civil Service. But it has been for
more than thirty years a duty to me to ride to hounds; and I have
performed that duty with a persistent energy. Nothing has ever
been allowed to stand in the way of hunting,--neither the writing
of books, nor the work of the Post Office, nor other pleasures.
As regarded the Post Office, it soon seemed to be understood that
I was to hunt; and when my services were re-transferred to England,
no word of difficulty ever reached me about it. I have written on
very many subjects, and on most of them with pleasure, but on no
subject with such delight as that on hunting. I have dragged it