42 Among Men and Horses. 



I have been lucky in escaping from accidents with horses. 

 Of course I have often got hurt when there has been a good 

 deal of * bone ' in the ground, as there usually is in India ; 

 'but I have never been more seriously injured than getting my 

 elbow dislocated from a fall off a buckjumping Australian. 

 The theory that a good horseman should never get a fall 

 except with a horse, does not stand the test of practice. 

 There are many different kinds of fine horsemanship. In 

 racing, chasing and hunting, the capable rider adopts the seat 

 which, while having a sufficiency of adhesiveness for the 

 object in view, is the best possible one for enabling the horse 

 to exert his powers to the greatest advantage. In rough- 

 riding, on the contrary, the main consideration is ability to 

 stick on. I have seen some of the finest riders in England 

 shot off a horse's back from the slight provocation of a mere 

 ' pig's jump/ which is a mishap that should cause no adverse 

 reflection to be cast on the deposed one's capacity to ride 

 brilliantly on the flat or over a country. As Colonial horses 

 for ordinary riding work are, as a rule, allowed to run wild 

 until they are about four years old, they are at first very 

 difficult to ride, and often retain during the remainder of their 

 lives, a tendency to ' put their backs up ' and buck, especially 

 after having had a few days' rest. Although horses in the 

 Antipodes, year by year, receive greater attention and earlier 

 handling; still the proportion of 'difficult' ones remains so 

 large, that young Colonials, almost all of whom ride, dili- 

 gently cultivate the art of sticking on, and are inclined to 

 ridicule the pretensions to horsemanship of any ' new chum ' 

 who may have less ' gum ' in the saddle than they. Such a 

 claim to superiority is not altogether valid ; for Australian 

 jockeys are quite as indifferent rough-riders as are English 

 ones. In fact, the former would be as little inclined as the 

 latter to, knowingly, get on the back of a buckjumper. I may 

 here explain that although I have never been in Australia, I 

 have met and intimately known for years so many scores of 

 Colonial jockeys, rough-riders and dealers, and have owned, 



