30 THE ART OF TAMINa HORSES. 



horsemanship, but amongst all of them its first practice 

 was carried on in but a rude and indifferent way, being 

 hai'dly a stepping-stone to the comfort and delight 

 gained from the use of the horse at the present day. 

 The polished Greeks,^-' as well as the ruder nations of 

 Northern Africa, for a long while rode without either 

 saddle or bridle, guiding their horses with the voice or 

 the hand, or with a light switch with which they touched 

 the animal on the side of the face to make him turn in 

 the opposite direction. They urged him forward by a 

 touch of the heel, and stopped him by catching him by 

 the muzzle. Bridles and bits were at length introduced, 

 but many centuries elapsed before anything that could 

 be called a saddle was used. Instead of these, cloths, 

 single or padded, and skins of wild beasts, often richly 

 adorned, were placed beneath the rider, but always 

 without stirrups ; and it is given as an extraordinary 

 fact, that the Romans, even in the times when luxury 

 was carried to excess amongst them, never desired so 

 simple an expedient for assisting the horseman to 

 mount, to lessen his fatigue, and aid him in sitting more 



* The statement a"bout the polished Greeks riding without bridles is 

 a mistake ; for the best evidence we have, the Elgin marbles, shows us 

 Greeks a thousand years ago, mounted bare-backed, with an admirable 

 seat, guiding the horse with reins held in both hands, in a form 

 recommended for imitation by a great authority on horsemanship, a 

 Colonel of the Life Guards. Homer describes the reins with which 

 the fiery coursers of the war-chai'iots were driven, and it is in the 

 highest degree improbable that those who mounted horses dispensed 

 with the driving reins. The seat and hands of the Greek hoi'semen, 

 as modelled in the Elgin marbles, have been recommended by the 

 highest authorities to the attentive study of young horsemen. The 

 bas-reliefs from Nineveh show us Arab horses led and driven with 

 reins a hundred years before the Elgin mai-bles were carved : we must 

 therefore dismiss this story about hand -guided horses. — Editor. 



