62 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



wliich it was not his habit to be much ridden. 

 These horses used to put me in mind of frogs with 

 a duck behind them, for they crossed considerable 

 enclosures in a wild succession of frantic hops, and 

 then stood still. 



To set a horse at a full or half gallop at a mere 

 ditch or grip is madness ; it teaches him to rush at 

 all other fences, it courts violent and very bad falls, 

 and endangers the life of man, horse, or hound that 

 chances to be unhappily in the way. 



At double fences, a rotten bank perhaps, and a 

 ditch on cither side, if a horse is sent or ^^ put " at 

 full sj)eed at such places, he can only get over them 

 by one of three ways: he must either cover a 

 wide space at random as far as the second ditch, 

 which he cannot see, is concerned, or he must clear 

 the first ditch and land on the k)p of the bank, and 

 tlien jump the other ditch, wliich, be it wide or 

 small, is fully within the power of a second spring. 

 The third way of getting over the second ditch, if 

 the horse sees it in time, is to stretch out his 

 shoulders and fore logs, and to drop his hinder ones 

 to catcli the bank, and send him on. Now these 

 three ways are, in very many instances, completely 

 successful, but in some instances they are not so. 



