NEVER rORSx\KE SHIP, HORSE, OR CARRIAGE. 373 



voiirite beneath the windows, to assure the ladies of 

 his safety ; but either through cold, or a strain in 

 his back and loins, he was ever after more or less 

 affected. 



Evei^y animal can swim, of course, more or less ; 

 and many a life would have been saved from drown- 

 ing if men, in moments of danger, had but remem- 

 bered this fact, and, instead of parting company with 

 then* horse, held fast on to his mane. " Never desert 

 the ship" is one of the most useful sayings on record, 

 extending from the ship to the carriage when the 

 horses are running away or restive, and to the horse 

 in the water. The loss of the head, or rather of the 

 use of the functions of the brain, in hours of peril, 

 has proved as fatal as the cannon-ball ; while, at the 

 same time, the art of swimming has drowned as many 

 people, perhaps, as it has saved. Still, every man 

 should he able to swim, and should reserve that power 

 as one to save from danger, and not exert it as an 

 acquired amusement ; for it is in the incautious use 

 of it in dangerous places, and in fresh water where 

 there are cold springs, inducing cramp, that the art 

 and amusement of swimming leads to death. In the 

 ornamental piece of water at Stoke Park, the keeper's 

 son seized on a gentleman's horse, and rode it into 

 the water, in an attempt to save one of my deer from 

 the hounds. He was soon out of his depth, and not 

 understanding horsemanship, he held fast on to the 

 curb ; the result of this "was, that the horse began to 

 get upright in the water, to paw in the same place, 

 and would very soon have been backwards, when I 

 cried out " to let his head go." The man's head was 

 gone, and understanding nothing but the advice " to 

 let go," he parted altogether with the horse, and, to 



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