346 Among Men and Horses. 



equally wayward. For nearly four weeks my wife and I rode 

 every day, except Sunday, for a couple of hours in the Thier- 

 garten, and although we met on each occasion a large 

 number of riders, we never once saw a horse pulling hard or 

 playing up in any way. A very bad place, you, my readers, 

 will observe, for a horsebreaker to go to. That is quite true ; 

 although, had I been given a chance, I cannot help thinking 

 that the plan of doing in a month what it takes German 

 breakers two or three years to accomplish, would have been 

 appreciated. The credit of the good manners displayed by 

 the horses in the Thiergarten was due to the excellence of 

 their training, for the ordinary Berliner would as soon think 

 of mounting a tiger, as one of the hard-mouthed brutes which 

 we are accustomed to see in the Row. Hence, to sell well in 

 Berlin, a saddle horse must be absolutely ' confidential.' I 

 must say that in this respect Germans display a large amount 

 of sense which is uncommon in England. On the day we 

 arrived at Berlin, we met Herr Freitag, who is a German 

 horse dealer. On the following morning, when he saw my 

 wife ride and jump Gustave in the manege, he conceived a 

 great respect for us, and as he had five or six Irish horses which 

 he had lately imported, he placed them at our disposal. He 

 even offered to pay half our expenses if we would stay in 

 Berlin and ride his horses every morning ; but as we were 

 staying only a short time in the place, w r e told him we would 

 be glad to do the work without payment, as long as we re- 

 mained in Berlin. The people of the stable were greatly 

 surprised to see us ride these comparatively raw horses in 

 the open, without their having had any school training. We 

 had a lot of pleasant rides with Korn, Freitag's rough-rider, in 

 the Thiergarten, and we three always made a point of taking 

 the youngsters over the jumps in the Hippodrome. In this 

 we had our amusement and exercise ; and Freitag was able 

 to sell a couple of the animals by reason of my wife having 

 been seen on their back. The purchaser would not have con- 

 sidered this a guarantee of docility, if he only knew the class 



