io BEGINNING TO RIDE. 



lessons are much on the same lines, and it naturally follows 

 that our friend, having been actually taught from the first 

 time that he crossed a horse, that the use of the reins was 

 to keep himself in the saddle, continues to utilise them for 

 that purpose, more or less, during the remainder of his 

 natural life. 



" My idea probably many others think likewise is this. 

 For the first time I would put the pupil in a big, roomy, 

 well-padded and fairly soft saddle, one that he could stick 

 his legs into and feel safe. I should give him stirrups of 

 the correct length, and tell him to fall off as often as he 

 pleased. I would give him no reins. When he had gained 

 confidence in his grip, I would put him into a smaller saddle, 

 and by degrees, on a numnah with a surcingle round it. 

 When he could jump the bar thus, and not till then, would 

 I give him the use of reins, attached to a thick, unjointed 

 snaffle, and tell him how to use them. A man taught in this 

 way would be bound to have good hands for he would 

 always be independent of his reins to help him to keep his 

 seat, and I think he would have a good seat also, though the 

 latter would chiefly depend on the rider himself. 



" I should teach him also to be independent of his stirrups ; 

 for we must remember that riding was invented and practised 

 before saddles existed ; the first saddles, pads, or whatever 

 they were, had no stirrups, these things having been subse- 

 quently invented with the object of giving the rider further 

 aid than that derived from balance and friction. Even at 

 the present time the South- American Indians ride bare-back, 

 and are excellent horsemen. For that matter many a hunting 

 man could ride bare-back to hounds without stirrups, which 

 fact proves that stirrups are subordinate in value to balance 

 and friction, or grip, taken together, and that stirrup and rein 

 riding are things that the would-be horseman must be taught 

 to avoid. The Bedouins lide on a cotton pad fastened on 



