How to Eat and Drink for Hunting.
When a young man "too tall for school," that is to say, who has just concluded his studies, is on the point of what is called embarking in life, it would be well for him if he would but pause for a few moments, on the brink of his earthly career, to determine, not how he can avoid, but on the contrary, which, out of the many alluring pleasures standing in array before him, will afford him, when selected, the greatest and most enduring enjoyments.
Now these pleasures, sensual, literary, and religious, may be compared to the different qualifications in a large stud of horses, which, as we all know, may be divided into three classes, namely—
1. Those that will carry their rider brilliantly for a short time, and then, gradually failing, bring him early in the day to what, in the hunting field, is termed "grief."
2. Those that will carry him well through three quarters of a good run, and then give in.
3. Those which will not only carry him through any run, however severe it may be, but end a happy day by bringing him gloriously to his long home.
If this classification of the pleasures of this world be correct, there can exist no doubt that it is the interest of every young person to select from them those which, in intensity, increase instead of diminish the longer they are enjoyed, and which in duration are eternal, instead of being shorter than life.
Yet, supposing this wise selection to be made, it does not follow, because one set of pleasures rank infinitely higher than others, that the former should be exclusively pursued, and the latter wholly abandoned.
On the contrary, as rest restores the strength of the body after hard labour, so do pleasures of a lower order, if judiciously administered, recruit the exhaustion caused by mental exertion.
Now, of all sensual pleasures, those of eating and drinking produce, as we either use or abuse them, the most opposite results.
When a young man commences his career, the engine which is to propel him throughout his life, is, his stomach.
If he preserves it, it will in return render him good service. If he inconsiderately wears it out, whatever abilities he may possess become to him of no avail. Indeed the Spanish proverb truly says that in man's progress in the army, navy, law, church, or state, in short in every profession, "it is the belly that lifts the feet."
But the same remark is applicable, not only to every profession, but to all our amusements and recreations. A young horseman, therefore, who wishes to enjoy the greatest possible amount of hunting, should ensure it by taking the greatest possible care, not of his neck—not even of his life, for, as has been shown, the less he interferes with his horse in jumping, the safer he will go—but of his stomach, or in other words, of his health. To attain this object he has no penance whatever to perform, for, as he is undergoing strong exercise, his system requires, is entitled to, and ought to be allowed ample support, say a capital breakfast; a crust of sweet bread in the middle of the day; and after hunting is over, a glass of pure cold water to bring him home to a good, wholesome dinner, with three or four glasses of super-excellent wine. Now if a young rider were to resolve to rough it on, or as many of his companions would call it, to "stint himself" to, the diet above described, he would sit down to every meal with an appetite that nothing but healthy hunger can create; and thus, even from the sensual gratification of eating and drinking, he would derive the maximum of enjoyment, which would not only on the following day exhilarate his spirits, and strengthen his body, but which, by invigorating his nerves as well as his stomach, would maintain for him, to old age, the best possible recreation to his intellectual occupations, the manly exercise of hunting.
Instead, however, of subsisting on the healthy diet just described, the ordinary practice of many hunting men is to add to what may be called "Nature's prescription for the enjoyment of good health" the following ingredients:—
1. After breakfast, before mounting the spiry covert hack—a cigar.
2. On arriving at a hand-gallop at the meet; again on reaching the covert—a cigar.
3. At two o'clock some cold grouse, a long suck from a flat flask full of sherry, or brandy and water, and—a cigar.
4. After the run, another suck at the flat flask—a cigar. Refreshment at the nearest inn, for man and horse, and—a cigar.
5. While riding home, per hour—a cigar.
6. On reaching home, a heavy dinner, a superstratum of wine, an astronomical peep at the new moon, and—a cigar.
For a short time, a stout system is exhilarated, and a strong stomach may be invigorated, by a series of gifts so munificently bestowed upon them by the right hand of their lord and master.
But as Death eventually levels all distinctions, so do a constant slight intoxication produced by tobacco, vinous and spirituous liquors, with a superabundance of rich food, sooner or later first weaken the stomach, and then gradually debilitate the system, of the strong man as well as of the puny one.
The first symptom of premature decay is announced by the nerves, which, to the astonishment of the young rider, sometimes fail so rapidly, that while the whole of the rest of his system appears to him and to everybody to be as blooming and as vigorous as ever, he is compelled, under the best excuse he can invent, to sell his stud, and abandon for the rest of his life the favourite recreation he has himself destroyed.
Again, although the delicate network of the nervous system may continue uninjured, the stomach, from being continually over-excited, overwhelmed, and over-burdened by a heavy, conglomerated mixture which it has not power to digest, begins to become unable to execute, not its natural functions, but the unnatural amount of work it is called upon to perform. The blood becomes impure, secretions are vitiated, the liver gets disordered, the oppressed lungs are ready for inflammation, the brain is heated, the pulse irregular; in fact, the whole mechanism of the system becomes so deranged that the rider eventually experiences, to his vast regret, that he enjoys rest more than exercise, and accordingly in due, or rather in undue time, he retires from his saddle to an elbow chair.
But he is hardly seated therein when the sudden change in his habits, from an active to a sedentary life, rapidly produces the usual effects. Did his big toe, unknown to him, receive yesterday any little blow? Can he have sprained it in his sleep? What can possibly have swelled it so? How shiny and scarlet it looks! How burning hot it is getting! Gracious heavens, what a twitch that was!! something must be in it. That something, oh! seems to be a red-hot file in the hands of a demon who is rasping a hole in the bone. Ah! Ai! O O O OH!!
But this little mischievous demon is only one of a legion; for besides the eating complaint, commonly called gout, diseases, all more or less painful, produced by intemperate habits, or, in other words, by giving to the poor willing stomach more food and liquor than it could digest, are so innumerable, that it would require, and does require, a library of books to describe them, with regiments of medicine-men to prescribe for them—in vain.
"India, my boy," said an Irishman to a friend on his arrival at Calcutta, "is jist the finest climate under the sun. But a lot of young fellows come out here, and they dhrink and they ate, and they ate and they dhrink, and they die. And thin, they write home to their friends a pack o' lies, and say, it's the climate as has killed 'em!"
But to return to the saddle. Instead of preaching from it abstinence to hunting-men, they ought, on the contrary, to be urged to enjoy the greatest amount of gratification that can possibly be derived from eating and drinking, not for a single day, week, month, or year, but throughout their whole lives.
To enable themselves, however, to ascertain this amount, it is necessary for them to put into a pair of scales, to be accurately weighed against each other, the enjoyments of temperance, and the sorrows and anguish of intemperance. If, on doing so, they ascertain that the balance is in favour of eating, drinking, and tobacco-smoking ad libitum, they will act wisely in indulging in all three to the utmost possible extent. If, on the contrary, they ascertain that some of these pleasures last only for a few seconds, some for a few minutes, and none for more than one or two hours, while, on the other hand, the afflictions caused by intemperance endure for months and years;—that "felo-de-se" they put an end to hunting, spoil cricket, stop shooting, and last, but not least, ruin not only bodily but intellectual enjoyments, they will act wisely by resolving to befriend themselves as they befriend their horses, namely, by prescribing for all and each an ample quantity of food of the very best description, and, if more be required by a greedy stomach—the muzzle.