His first visit in the morning was to the stables; the next to the kennels to inspect and criticise the hounds, also methodically registered and described, so that we can read the names of Vulcan and Ringwood, Singer and Truelove, Music and Sweetlips, to which the Virginian woods once echoed nearly a century and a half ago.
His hounds were the subject of much thought, and were so constantly and critically drafted as to speed, keenness, and bottom, that when in full cry they ran so closely bunched that tradition says, in classic phrase, they could have been covered with a blanket.

The hounds met three times a week in the season, usually at Mount Vernon, sometimes at Belvoir.

They would get off at daybreak, Washington in the midst of his hounds, splendidly mounted, generally on his favorite Blueskin, a powerful iron-gray horse of great speed and endurance.

He wore a blue coat, scarlet waistcoat, buckskin breeches, and a velvet cap.

Closely followed by his huntsman and the neighboring gentlemen, with the ladies, headed, very likely, by Mrs.Washington in a scarlet habit, he would ride to the appointed covert and throw in.