variety of weapons, or implements, which are carried for him by his caddie—­a youth or old man, who is, as it were, his esquire, who sympathizes with him in defeat, rejoices in his success, and aids him with such advice as his superior knowledge of the ground suggests.  The class of human beings known as caddies are the offspring of golf, and have peculiar traits which distinguish them from the professional cricketer, the waterman, the keeper, the gillie, and all other professionals.  It is not very easy to account for their little peculiarities.  One thing is certain—­that when golf was introduced by Scotchmen into France, and found a home at Pau, in the shadow of the Pyrenees, the French caddie sprang, so to speak, from the ground, the perfect likeness of his Scottish brother.  He was just as sly, just as importunate in his demands to be employed, just as fond of “putting at short holes,” more profane, and every bit as contemptuous of all non-golf-playing humanity as the boyish Scotch caddie, in whom contempt has reversed the usual process, and bred familiarity with all beginners.

The professional cricketer can instruct an unskilled amateur, can take his ill-guarded wicket, and make him “give chances” all over the field, without bursting into yells of unseemly laughter.  But the little caddie cannot restrain his joy when the tyro at golf, after missing his ball some six times, ultimately dashes off the head of his club against the ground.  Nor is he less exuberant when his patron’s ball is deep in a “bunker,” or sand-pit, where the wretch stands digging at it with an iron, hot, helpless, and wrathful.  And yet golf is a sport not learned in a day, and caddies might be more considerate.  The object of the game is to strike a small gutta-percha ball into a hole about five inches wide, distant from the striker about three hundred yards, and separated from him by rough grass and smooth sand-pits, furze bushes, and perhaps a road or a brook.  He who, of two players, gets his ball into the hole in the smallest number of strokes is the winner of that hole, and the party then play towards the next hole.  All sorts of skill are needed—­strength and adroitness, and a certain supple “swing” of the body, are wanted to send the ball “sure and far” in the “driving” part of the game.  Nothing is so pleasant as a clean “drive.”  The sensation is like that of hitting a ball to square-leg, fair and full, at cricket.  Then the golfer must have the knack to lift his ball out of deep sand with the “iron,” and to strike it deftly “a half-shot” up to the hole with the “cleek;” and, lastly, coolness and a good eye when he “putts” or hits his ball actually up to the very hole.