At two o'clock we sat down to a most capital dinner,--a joint of roast-beef, fine fish, and Canvass-backs, that had been on the wing within a couple of hours, together with the Red-head, Teal, and two or three other specimens; all excellent in their way, but not comparable for delicacy, fat, or flavour with that inimitable work of nature the right Canvass-back duck of these waters, where the wild celery on which they love to feed abounds, and to which they owe the delicate aromatic flavour so prized by the _gourmand_. At five o'clock P.M., after witnessing some sport, S----r gave the word to mount, and off we set for Mr. Oliver's. An hour's ride brought us within his domain, where lofty deer-fences, blackthorn hedge-rows, well-made drives, and carefully cultivated land, formed a striking change from the wild but beautiful forest-country through which we had ridden. We first came upon the farm-yard and offices of the estate, all well-arranged and in good order: here we left our horses, and walked on to the house,--a plain sporting-lodge, without any outward appearance or pretension. It is well situated upon a gentle eminence overlooking a couple of fine reaches of the Gunpowder river; on the land side the deer-park spreads away to the forest, being divided from the lawn by an invisible fence. Himself an ardent lover of the sports of the field, Mr. Oliver, for a time, took infinite pains to cultivate a legitimate taste for it; but, I believe, without much success, although he pursued his plans on a scale and at a cost not often imitated in this country. Indeed, to say truth, men of fortune have little encouragement here to be liberal in this way; since, when a gentleman has surrounded himself with all the appliances to sporting, it is next to impossible to bring them fairly into play; or, however social his own spirit may be, yet harder to find persons possessing the time and taste for their enjoyment. The worthy old sportsman gave me a grievous list of difficulties which he had encountered from a desire to promote on this fine estate the breed of certain animals and birds. Keepers were provided from Europe with first-rate characters; but they found all their ancient habits were to be unlearned here, and were soon completely at fault. The foxes killed his pheasants; the neighbouring farmers, or boatmen from the rivers, had decoyed his dogs and shot down his deer; and, after a hopeless struggle, he had given up his hounds: the deer alone he managed to domesticate and increase, his stock at present amounting to four hundred head.