THE SADDLE. 57 



critical moment. The power of turning rapidly to ad- 

 minister or avoid a sword-cut or lance-thrust is seri- 

 ously impaired if the stirrups be placed forward, and 

 the whole concern makes a heavy pitch into the trough 

 of the sea, just at the moment it should " run up into 

 the wind's eye." The late Sir Charles Napier relates 

 in one of his books a lamentable story of a fine gallant 

 English sergeant who lost both his arms in this way; 

 and officers who have served in India or Algiers often 

 complain that there is no preventing the native horse- 

 men getting behind their people's backs, where, of 

 course, they have it all their own way, like a bull in a 

 china shop. Sir Charles throws the blame altogether 

 on the enormous pack the regulars are compelled to 

 put on their horses' backs. This has, no doubt, its own 

 special influence; but any one who has seen cavalry 

 skirmishing, and understands the mechanism we are 

 labouring to explain, must have also seen that the 

 position of the stirrup acting on the rider's seat has 

 a great deal to do with it. 



We mentioned above that the man riding bare- 

 backed, or on a saddle without stirrups, most fre- 

 quently tumbles off to the right or left ; well, it will 

 be found that with stirrups, especially when the latter 

 are very far forward and very short, the catastrophe 

 generally supervenes right ahead, the performer being 

 projected in trajectories, not yet described in ballistic 

 works, away over his steed's neck, to the great damage 

 of collar-bones. It is like having one's hand pierced by 



* Almost all " rider nations " place their stirrups exactly under 

 their seat. This will be evident from an inspection of some of our 

 Plates, as also that the example has been followed in the best Con- 

 tinental cavalries. 



