74 RIDING FOR LADIES. 



system will never come into vogue or meet the approval 

 of the finer sense of women. The riding-masters are 

 against it to a man, and so are the saddlers, who argue that 

 the change would somewhat militate against their business. 

 We are very conservative in our ideas, and perhaps it is 

 asking too much of women, who have ridden and hunted 

 in a habit on a side-saddle for years, to all at once, or at 

 all, accept and patronize the innovation. 



Travellers notice the fact that women never ride sideways, 

 as with us, but astride, like men. It has generally been 

 supposed that the custom now prevailing in Europe and 

 North America dates back only to the Middle Ages. As 

 a fact, the side-saddle was first introduced here by 

 Anne of Luxembourg, Richard II. 's queen, and so far back 

 as 1 34 1, according to Knighton, it had become general 

 among ladies of first rank at tournaments and in public. 

 But the system must have prevailed to some extent in far 

 earlier times, for Rawlinson discovered a picture of two 

 Assyrian women riding sideways on a mule, and on Etruscan 

 vases, older than the founding of Rome, are several repre- 

 sentations of women so seated. 



There were no horses in Mexico prior to the advent of 

 the Spaniards ; indeed, from the progeny of one Andalusian 

 horse and mare, shipped to Paraguay in 1535, were bred 

 those countless mobs which have since spread over the 

 whole southern part of the new Western world, and, passing 

 the Isthmus of Darien or Panama, have wandered into 

 North America. In the great plains of South America, 

 where the inhabitants, all more or less with Spanish blood 

 pulsing through their veins, may be said to live on horse- 

 back, it is strange that, without some good cause, the side- 

 saddle should have been discarded for the " Pisana" fashion 

 — the lady riding in front of her cavalier. In Edward I.'s 



