CHAP. XXVI. 



HORSES FOR THIS SEASON MUST BE ABLE TO SWIM. 



ANECDOTE PROVING THE NECESSITY OF IT. 



MANNER OF GUIDING HORSES. ANECDOTES OF 



CROSSING THE GANGES. 



FOR hunting hogs at the time I have just 

 described, it is necessary that every hosre should 

 be accustomed to swim, and that their riders 

 should know how to manage them when swim- 

 ming. It frequently happens, in pursuing a hog, 

 that they have to cross small rivers which are not 

 fordable, or to ride through lakes where the water 

 in some places is so deep as to require the horse to 

 swim ; and sometimes when the country is nearly 

 all overflown, they ride into rivers without know- 

 ing it, which happened to myself in the Poon- 

 poon river, and, if I had not been able to swim, 

 I must have been drowned. When the horse 

 first entered the river, he sunk to a considerable 

 depth, and remained under water some seconds, 

 which obliged me to quit him ; he was an excel- 

 lent swimmer, and was caught several miles below 

 where he entered, and was brought to me three 

 days after by a villager. When horses go sud- 



