62 HORSE, FOOT, AND DRAGOONS. 



cricket, foot-ball, and other out-door games. Different branches 

 of the service frequently meet in friendly rivalry, and many a 

 match is played on the grounds of the oflficers' club between 

 teams of various regiments or corps selected from among the 

 officers and men, irrespective of their military rank. It is not 

 an unusual sight to see a game among the officers " umpired " 

 by some veteran non - commissioned officer skilled in all the 

 intricacies of the national game of cricket. 



The most interesting of the purely martial sports — if I can 

 use the word in reference to what forms part of the drill of the 

 cavalry and mounted artillery — are the exciting contests of 

 sabre versus sabre or sabre versus lance, and the like, when 

 some rival " rough-riders " are pitted against one another. One 

 can easily imagine how the tournaments of old appeared, to see 

 these active fellows, mounted on their fine horses, which seem 

 to sympathize wuth and enter into the spirit of their riders, as, 

 clad in stout leather tunics, their heads protected with strong 

 wire masks, they charge down on one another, cutting, thrust- 

 ing, and parrying, retreating and pursuing. Hard knocks are 

 given and received with apparent good-humor, though I doubt 

 not that long habits of discipline restrain many an honest 

 fellow's temper when his blood is up. It is rough but manly 

 work, and one does not wonder, on seeing what training they 

 go through, that the British horsemen are renowned for their 

 courage and dexterity. Another sport, in which the nerve and 

 coolness that go so far towards making a good cavalier are 

 displayed to great advantage, is tent -pegging, introduced, I 

 believe, into the British army by the native cavalrymen of the 

 Indian service. The player, armed with a light bamboo lance, 

 puts his horse at full gallop over the course, and strikes with his 

 lance-head a tent-peg protruding a few inches out of the ground, 

 into which one end has been tightly driven. See how firmly 



