198 THE BRITISH CAVALRY SEAT 



was narrowness, and yet the extremists were the men who 

 roused us to the efforts which cuhninated in freedom to 

 the slave. Too great breadth will not keep the world 

 a-moving. St. Paul makes a mistake in urging content- 

 ment at all seasons — at least, in the way his translators 

 have quoted him. Had he himself been one of your con- 

 tented men, he would scarcely have accomplished what 

 he did. And the Englishman's self-contentment and self- 

 assertiveness are coupled with a fine habit of putting in 

 big licks, hitting straight from the shoulder, in every part 

 of the world. Just what right, for example, he has to be 

 here in Egypt (where I happen to be penning these lines), 

 I fail to see, and yet what a change he has wrought for 

 the better! The poor fellahin to-day know that their 

 land will be irrigated in its due turn, and for the first 

 time since the Sphinx was hewn from its native rock can 

 gauge the tax they will have to pay. So works the 

 Briton everywhere and in most mundane affairs — but this 

 thing militates against just what produces the niceties of 

 equitation. 



The English army officer rides well, just because he 

 rides like an English gentleman. The British trooper rides 

 no worse, no better, than any other regular cavalryman. 

 Seat is larcjelv an individual habit. I have seen men in 

 the English cavalry, just as I have seen men in our own 

 regiments, ride extreme forked-radish style, sitting bolt up- 

 right on the crotch, while other men in the same troop 

 would have in the saddle a regular cross - country seat, 

 barring the fact that their toes were in the stirrups instead 

 of riding " home." 



The only difference I have ever been able to perceive 

 between our own and the British cavalry seat is, as be- 

 fore stated, that our men are wont to depress their heels 

 a trifle less, riding in a more natural, less (b-ill- stiffened 



