THE SADDLE. 57 



critical moment. The power of turning rapidly to 

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

 ously impaired if the stiiTups be placed forward, aiid 

 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 tine 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 barer 

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

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

 be found that ivith stirrups, especially when the latter j 

 are 'oery far forward and very short, the catastrophe' 

 generally supeiwenes right ahead, the performer being 

 pjMJected, ia-trajectories not yet described in ballistic 

 jKd^ks, 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 

 Continental cavalries. 



