i8o CAVALRY OFFICERS' RIDING SCHOOL 



Colonel let the metaphorical cat out of the bag so completely, 

 that I ceased asking him for any more concessions. Had 

 the horse been a trooper, good care would of course have 

 been taken to have brought him back to me a worse refuser 

 than before. But the officer to whom he belonged would 

 naturally object to the benefit of my lesson being nullified, 

 even for the gratification of the Colonel. It goes without 

 saying that the Colonel had full power to prevent the horse 

 being brought to me a second time, even if the owner had 

 desired to do so. For obvious reasons, I was unable to find 

 out who the owner was. 



One day I tried to teach my class how to go up to a horse 

 and handle him. After showing a neat method cf lifting up 

 an animal's fore leg, I asked one of the officers to follow my 

 example. He shook his head and said that he would not do 

 so, because he would dirty his hands. The next officer also 

 objected on the ground that he was not a groom. When I 

 showed them the best way to open a horse's mouth, they 

 became so disgusted that they all walked out of the manege. 

 As I could get no sense out of the young officers and no 

 support from their immediate superiors, I called on General 

 Palitzyne, and told him that it was simply a farce my trying 

 to teach people who would not learn. He merely smiled and 

 said that he hoped I would not mind the child's play (Kinder- 

 spiel was the word he used while talking to me in German) 

 of these youngsters. After that, I could only let matters slide 

 a bit. 



Before coming out to Russia this time, I had my book on 

 horse-breaking translated into French by M. Roubaud for 

 the benefit of my Russian pupils, very few of whom took 

 enough interest in the subject to read this manuscript trans- 

 lation, so I might have spared myself the trouble and 

 expense. M. Roubaud is the editor of Cassell's French and 

 English Dictionary, and is a Crimean veteran. 



