to remedy the inconvenience. It will not, however, be a work to tread on the kibes of the proposition for its alteration. The Admiralty saw fit to grant to the Royal Yacht Squadron a set of signals whereby they might exclusively communicate with vessels of war. The too extensive enjoyment of this privilege would most likely lead to its abuse: perhaps I am not so warm an advocate for infusing the strong predominance of business with the system of our sports, which was the fashion of their administration. When I read the old scholiasts of the chase, I can't for the life of me avoid thinking that they must have set about beating for a fox as gravely as if they had been hunting for the philosopher's stone. Shades of Beckford, and Thornton, and Nimrod, and eke of all our defunct authorities on circumventing reynard, think not I would speak of your theories profanely; but when you were ignorant of the very first principle of the craft ye possessed-when none of you knew (neither do any of your successors know) whether scent be a thing of earth or air-what time I find you laying down the law for catching a fox as dogmatically as if you were propounding a mathematical problem, I cannot but regard it as over-stepping the modesty of nature. Fire will never burn the notion out of me, that The Noble Science has saved the lives of more foxes than all the money lavished on keepers that afford a find since the chase became one of our national sports. Yachting has been none the better for its scientific appliances: probably no human contrivance could so absolutely divest a regatta of all interest as that of handicapping the vessels. By this improvement the only piece of knowledge of the race the company obtains is, that they are never to look for the winner among the first to arrive at the goal. The prize is generally borne off by a craft which arrives some hours after they have gone home to dinner, or when they are snug in their virtuous beds.

At the head of our amateur marine is the Royal Yacht Squadron, a most aristocratic society, having its chief rendezvous at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight. In that "blest isle of the west," too, lately sprung up another national association called the "Royal Victoria Yacht Club," having its head quarters at Ryde, and the elements of a popular career in its constitution. This is the last born of the growing taste for yachting, and is likely to be the pet that such latest arrivals are said to be. But foremost in importance and in influence of all existing societies of the kind is the Royal Thames Yacht Club; and I will briefly give my reasons for this assertion. The log of that club is perused by thousands, where scarce a solitary individual sees in print the name of one of its contemporaries. The whole metropolitan press journalize its proceedings; you regularly see the report of its monthly meetings, and its sailing matches are attended by as strong a corps of reporters as the crack debates in parliament; and they are worthy of it. The R.T.Y.C. give the greatest amount of prizes to be sailed for, both in number and value, of any club in the kingdom. During the last season the cups won in its various matches were worth seven hundred guineas; and had any one of the leading owners of its wager boats won the Saye and Sele cup, its noble donor would have put a check for £100 into it. Nobody knows how

a cup or a draft ought to be treated better than his lordship. The progress of this popular society, too, is full of promise. At the last meeting it was all but carried by acclamation that in future the annual subscription should be two guineas, double its former amount; at all events but half a dozen members, or some such emphatic minority, were opposed to the motion to that effect. At no distant day its matches will extend to craft of 50 tons, a great step in advance; already some of the 25 ton clippers have got out of the hands of the regular go-ahead members. The Mystery now hails, I believe, from the Medway. In the event of the 50-ton craft sailing for matches, the course will be from Erith round the Nore-light and back. This much has come of the trials originating with the Royal Thames Club, that an indisputable test has been afforded of the relative properties of iron and wood in constructing vessels for speed. It has been shown that in light weather the former will scarce move at all, while with plenty of wind wood has beaten the best of the metal machines.

The question of building a club-house for the R.T.Y.C. is in abeyance for another year. A proposal has been made to them by the Blackwall Railway that, I think, might be advantageously adopted; it is to put at their disposal the great room, fronting the river, over the offices at the Blackwall terminus; or should any sum of money be paid for the use of it, to appropriate the whole to the sailing matches of the club. Whether any of its matches ought now to be started or finished higher up the river than Blackwall is a matter deserving consideration. Wager sailing is the order of the day with its members; Wanhill, of Pool, is building five new boats for that purpose, and he has refused more orders. Wallace, of Blackwall, has others on the stocks. Racing is their rage; surely it should have ample range and scope enough? The noble Vice-Commodore has a 50-ton cutter to launch in the spring-sea-going vessels will anon become general. Where are you to find berths for craft of that class, wherein a dozen of them could swing from their moorings and get under way without fouling, abreast of Greenwich Hospital?

The Royal Western Yacht Club has its rendezvous in the picturesque port of Plymouth. It was formed in 1833, and has its present clubhouse at Millbay, Stonehouse. Lord Mount Edgecumbe is commander, and Captain Bulkely vice. It numbers 333 members, and a fleet of 74 yachts. The Royal Southern Yacht Club hails from Southampton, where a noble club-house is being built for its head quarters. It was established in 1838 as the Royal Southampton Yacht Club. It is indebted for its present prosperity to the exertions of the Secretary, Mr. James Knight, already spoken of, and to the universal popularity of its Commodore, the Marquis of Conyngham, than whom a more courteous or kind gentleman does not navigate blue water when afloat, or grace society when in harbour. The Royal Harwich and Royal Mersey Clubs are of very recent date, but both going the pace to prosperity. I saw several of the clippers belonging to the latter at the Douglas-bay Regatta last summer, and a more ship-shape lot need not have been sought out. Beside the clubs enumerated in Mr. Knight's list, there is the Arun

del hailing from the Thames, the Royal Eastern hailing from the Frith of Forth, the Royal Northern from the Clyde, and others of minor account in Great Britain, and in Ireland the Royal Kingstown Yacht Club, counting considerably more than five hundred members, the Royal Cork, exclusive of the Royal Western, which hails from the Shannon, and many little bands of amateur sailors destined soon to take a "local habitation and a name."

Such is an outline of the pleasure navy of Great Britain, a community standing alone in the history of nations. Within our own memories yachting has become one of the national sports of our country. It is no time now to inquire how these popular recreations stand in relation to our popular character. Do not fear that I am going here to plunge into the subtleties of cause and effect. I have sojourned in the especial homes of the fine arts; I have dwelt where song is born and music bred-where sculpture, painting, poetry are natives; but on no spot of earth have I yet set foot where the true refinement of life is practised, where the whole social scheme is simplex munditiis, as in this island-the fosterland of robust physical exertion-of manly games and exercises. I mean no disparagement to the pleasing of a Ïute, because more to my taste is the horn of chase. Let eau sucré still glad the heart of France, and instigate her heels to the polka ; free be the fair Rhineland to waltz, upon thin potations; but ever leave the sons of lusty Albion their born sports "by flood and field," their cakes and ale; and never turn up the whites of your eyes when some laudator temporis acti sighs for the good old times-the days when we had our "blaspheming bishops."

ENCOUNTER WITH A BEAR:

BY L. LLOYD, ESQ.

(Author of "Northern Field Sports.")

On Saturday, the 29th of March, 1844, in company with my faithful follower, Elg, the individual of whom I have spoken elsewhere, and two others, I was in search, in the northern parts of Wermerland, of a large bear that had for several preceding years committed much havoc amongst the horses and cattle thereabouts. He was not ringed, or marked down, as we would say in England; but his tracks had been seen in the early part of the winter; and we had, therefore, a suspicion he was in the vicinity.

The snow was fully two feet in depth; but at the time, owing to a bright sun, it was thawing, and in consequence, in a very bad state for our skidor or snow-skates.

As our little party was proceeding through the forest in line, of which I was about the centre, and from one hundred to one hundred and fifty paces apart, one of my dogs challenged at some fifty paces

a head of me, and in a manner that convinced me it was the bear he had fallen in with.

From the advanced period of the season, the very unfavourable state of the snow, &c., I feared that if the animal was once fairly on foot, we might have great difficulty in killing him. I therefore pushed forward in silence, as fast as I could, in the hopes of being able to get a shot at him, prior to his leaving his winter retreat. On the way, I divested myself of my skidor, as well for the reason that some fallen trees obstructed my progress, as that I might advance with less noise.

The bear was lying near to the summit of a little knoll, at the edge of a thick brake; but, on the side I approached him, there was an opening in the forest, so that my view was nearly unobstructed. But, owing to his having formed a sort of arbour over him, a circumstance I never remember to have seen before, which he had effected by tearing down with his fangs and claws several of the adjacent young pines, I was not aware of him until I had approached to within some eight or ten paces of his lair; and then little more than his head, which was, obliquely towards me, was visible; and though my dog_stood baying immediately near to him, and though fully awake, as I saw by the rolling of his eye, he had not, as yet, at all changed his position; but, from the motions of his head, he was evidently on the point of moving off.

As I was perfectly prepared, and my gun on the full cock, as soon as I caught sight of the beast, I levelled at the centre of his skull; but some small pines at the very entrance of his lair intervening, which ĺ was fearful might intercept my ball, caused me to desist from firing. The next instant, however, I took rather a snap-shot at the outer side of his forehead, beyond the trees in question, of which my view was unobstructed. But the momentary delay caused by my thus shifting my sight was very unfortunate, for in the interval the animal had seen me, and, as I pulled the trigger, was in the very act of bolting from his den, and my aim in consequence was very uncertain; indeed, I am inclined to think I missed him altogether.

Be that as it may, on the discharge of my gun, the brute at once rushed towards me. I had still, however, my second barrel with which I ought no doubt to have destroyed him; but, owing to his undulatory motions, as he came end on at me, I could not, though I more than once attempted it, catch a satisfactory aim; and it was not until he was within two or three paces of me that I fired, and then somewhat at random. Though my ball in this or the former instance, for it subsequently appeared that one or the other missed him altogether, wounded him very desperately, it having entered his neck near the shoulder, and passed into his body; yet, unfortunately, not sufficiently so as to stay his course, for in a second or two he was upon me, not on his hind legs, the way in which it is commonly supposed with us the bear makes his attacks, but on all-fours, like a dog; and in spite of a blow I gave him on the head with the muzzle of my gun, for I had no time to apply the butt, he at once laid me prostrate.

Had not the beast been so very near me when I fired my second

barrel, it is probable, from his wounded state, I might have got out of his way; but flight, from his proximity, was then too late; and once in his clutches, and now that my gun was discharged, totally unarmed, the only expedient left me was to turn my face to the snow, that my features might not be mutilated, and to lie motionless, it being a generally received opinion in Scandinavia, that if the bear supposes his antagonist to be dead, he the sooner desists from his attacks.

In my case, however, though I played the defunct as well as I was able, the beast mauled me somewhat severely, about the head in particular; my person also suffered a good deal from his ferocious attacks, which extended from my neck and shoulder downwards to my hip, &c.

But he did not attempt in any manner to hug or embrace me, as we in England seem to imagine his custom to be when carrying on offensive operations; nor did he in any way molest me with his claws. All my wounds were, to the best of my belief, inflicted with his fangs.

This goes somewhat to corroborate the commonly received opinion in Sweden, that in attacking man, and beyond holding him fast with his claws, the bear never, in the manner of the lion or tiger, strikes with his paw, which they say is his usual habit when making his onset on horses and cattle.* If this be true, it is well; as otherwise, from the very great muscular power of his arm, annihilation would probably quickly follow the blow.

But, after all, no inference can fairly be drawn from my case, as the beast's forbearance towards me might have arisen simply from my remaining quite passive: had I, on the contrary, been on my feet, and offered resistance, I might probably have felt, not only the weight of his paws, but the pressure of his embraces.

Neither at the time of receiving my first fire, nor whilst making his rush, did the bear, as is commonly the case with him when irritated, utter his usual half-roar, half-growl. Even when I was lying prostrate at his mercy, no other noise than a sort of subdued growl or snarl, similar to that of a dog when disturbed whilst gnawing a bone, was made by the brute; and so far from coming at me with open jaws, as one would suppose a wild beast to make his onset, his mouth at the time was altogether closed.

The pain I suffered from the brute's long continued attacks on my person, was bearable; when he had my limbs in his jaws, it more resembled their being stuck in a vice than any thing else I can conceive. But when his jaws grasped, as they did, the whole crown of my head, during which I distinctly felt the fleshy part of his mouth to overlap my forehead, and very deliberately scored my head with his fangs, my sufferings were intense. The sensation of his fangs slowly grating over my bare skull was not at all that of a sharp blow, as is often the case when wounds are inflicted, but rather, though very much more protracted, the craunch one feels during the extraction of a tooth.

Many of the peasants entertain the notion, that the bear's abstaining from using his paws towards the human race is owing to a special interdiction of Providence.