2-969-841 - /Heritage Images

Paper Hunt - the Find - before Sebastopol - sketched by J. A. Crowe, 1856. Off duty during the Crimean War: British soldiers make their own amusement. '...the meet took place at the head-quarter house of General Codrington. General Barnard, General Garrett, and a host of officers, had gathered together, to hunt the country between the monastery and Sebastopol. At a quarter before two Captain Blane was observed scampering over the hills towards the former place, carrying an ammunition-bag full of paper shavings...A knowing tracker is Blundell, late master of the drag hounds at Oxford. Can the trail be there? It is. He has found it, and leads. He is soon followed, and the pace becomes terrific. Over hill and dale they go, over stone walls and small ditches, through mud and stones...the hunt is over...What is the reward?...The fox gives up his brush, but here is no fox'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.