124 Among Men and Horses. 



methods and new principles in any art, is a slow and gradual 

 process ; and that, though very simple, the successful practice 

 of horsebreaking demands an amount of patience, tact and 

 firmness rarely united in one person. On the other hand, I 

 can, with some justifiable pride, point to the fact that a large 

 number of horse owners, especially officers in the army, in 

 in which I have a great following, break-in their animals 

 according to the doctrines I teach. 



One of the worst horses I ever handled, was an Australian 

 mare, called Britomarte, and owned by Mr ' Jimmy ' M'Leod, 

 a well-known indigo planter, who had promised to get me up 

 a large class if I would come up to his factory in Chumparum. 

 Mr M'Leod is one of the old style of princely planters, who 

 keeps open house and a stable of sixty or seventy horses for 

 the use of his friends as much as for himself. If you go to 

 stay with him, he will be certain to get up a * pigstick, 5 a 

 shooting party, or a race meeting for your entertainment. 

 Before he got too heavy, he was the finest steeplechase rider 

 in India, and is still uncommonly bad to beat either across 

 country or on the polo ground. When I arrived, I found a 

 class of fifty planters at ^5 a piece, and Britomarte awaiting 

 me. Her history during the two years Mr M'Leod had her, 

 was that she would neither be ridden nor driven. She was 

 so clever in the art of getting rid of her would-be riders, that 

 if she could not catapult them off by buck-jumping, she would 

 throw herself over on them. In harness she adopted the 

 policy of passive resistance, and refused to put one foot in 

 front of another, even after she had been put in as a wheeler 

 in a four-in-hand team, and had been dragged along the 

 ground by her three companions for several hundred yards, 

 and until she had been torn and cut so badly that her wounds 

 took months to heal. As Mr M'Leod had had immense ex- 

 perience in the breaking of rough horses, which was a special 

 hobby of his ; it can be imagined that all the ordinary 

 methods of discipline had been tried in vain on the bay 

 mare. At eight o'clock in the morning after my arrival, 



