TANDEM DRIVING 117 



certainly as the whip of the tandem-driver. It 

 may, and will, unless used deftly, catch in all 

 sorts of places in the harness or even wind 

 itself round the axle. Therefore it is necessary 

 to handle the whip lightly and quickly, and 

 above all to catch it neatly, or some such 

 humiliating- accident may happen as occurred 

 to the writer. I have already told how I used 

 a tandem as a means of conveyance along the 

 frontier roads. There was one part of the 

 road leading to a large village where the going- 

 was not bad, save for the fact that the native 

 farmers had built right across it little bunds or 

 banks about two feet in height, and w^th water- 

 channels on the top. The object of these was 

 to irrigate the fields on the other side of the 

 road to that on which the wells were situated. 

 Thus at every hundred yards for about half a 

 mile before the village was reached, there 

 was one of these banks. It was plain that the 

 best way to take them was to go fast and keep 

 straight, especially as my w^heeler was a mare 

 somewhat given to jibbing If checked suddenly 

 Accordingly I straightened my team, hit my 

 wheeler with the double thong, and let out 

 the lash so as to catch the leader under the 

 bar and make him tighten his traces at the 

 critical moment. 



Once this happened, and we flew the little 



