THE MILITARY SEAT. 99 



supporting his leg as the latter falls. Such a jDOsition 

 is not maintainable for any length of time, or in sharp 

 movement. In trot, for instance, the s )ldier, not being 

 permitted to rise in his saddle, must seek a support 

 which the stirrups cannot afford otherwise than by as- 

 suming an angle at the other side of the perpendicular 

 — that is to §ay, the tread in the stirrup comes to be in 

 the direction of the point of the horse's shoulder, "tongs 

 across a wall," and the counter-action is then upwards 

 in the line of the man's thigh, against which the intes- 

 tines descend, and produce, if there is the slightest 

 natural weakness in the individual, rupture. The stir- 

 rups being far forward in the hunting or civilian sad- 

 dle are not so injurious in this way, because the rider 

 evades the shock by rising in the saddle — and this is 

 just what led to the English way of riding; but the 

 cavalry soldier cannot do so. 



It is all very well to say the man must retain the 

 position prescribed for him ; if he is constantly on the 

 strain to do so, he simply cannot; besides which, the 

 stirrup is actually of very little, if any, use to him. 

 Two-thirds of the time and the whole of the talk ex- 

 pended in endeavouring to make a man retain an in- 

 convenient seat can be saved, and devoted to the much 

 more necessary objects of teaching him how to manage 

 his horse and use his weapons^ if you *make the pre- 

 scribed seat inevitable, and every deviation from it 

 uncomfortable ; and this can be easily done. 



With the light cavalry (or Hungarian) saddle, it will 

 not do to put a man into it as it comes out of the 

 saddler's hands, and order him to sit in a particular 

 manner ; it is just as necessary, or more so, to make 

 the saddle fit the man's seat, as to make his coat or 

 boots fit his body or feet ; and this is done, after careful 



H 2 



