LEAPING. 95 



rushed at a strong gate or a stiff post and rails, he will 

 probably either take off too soon or too late, in either case 

 lieavily striking the top rail, which, failing to give way, will 

 turn both over a regular crumpler. As height and width 

 require different efforts, it is needless waste of muscular 

 power to make him exert both when one will suffice. Of 

 all animals the deer tribe are the biggest and best fencers ; 

 and a hunted deer, when about to charge park palings or 

 some unusually high obstacle, will almost invariably slow down 

 to a trot. I call to mind an exemplification of this. The 

 Indian antelope, once it has made up its mind to make a 

 certain point, cannot be turned from that resolve. At the 

 grey dawn of a December morning we, a long column of 

 cavalry in file, were on the line of march, crossing, in pursuit 

 of the rebel, Tantia Topee, one of the extensive black 

 cotton plains of the Central Provinces. A tola of antelope 

 came galloping down on our right flank, evidently bent on 

 crossing the rough country road along which we were riding. 

 The men shouted at the deer as they came speeding on, but 

 they would take no denial, and jumped through the line 

 wherever an interval or opening presented itself. One 

 corps, the Aden Horse (Major-General Henry Moore, C.B., 

 was then, as a lieutenant, in command of the troop) was 

 marching in good order, well " locked up," and a black buck, 

 finding no opening, dropped into a trot, and then with one 

 mighty bound flew clean over two of the sowars' heads. 



Men who go out (f^/^-hunting with the Queen's must have 

 observed how the mutilated half-tame bucks always slacken 

 speed when about to jump a very high fence. The late 

 Thomas Assheton Smith, the possessor of the most bull-dog 

 nerve in the saddle and out of it, one of the few, the very 

 few, who occasionally rode for a fall, going at places which 

 he well knew no horse could leap over, never rode fast at 



