SEAT ON A HORSE. 31 



seen hopping high into the air, on and off his saddle, 

 as his horse, at apparently a different rate, trots beneath 

 him, forms as ridiculous a caricature of the art of 

 riding as the pencil of our Punch's " Leech " could pos- 

 sibly delineate. 



2. Throughout the United Kingdom, civilians of all 

 classes, gentlemen, farmers, and yeomen, especially those 

 who occasionally follow the hounds, adopt what is com- 

 monly called " the hunting seat," in which, instead of 

 "the fork," the knees form the pivot, or rather hinge, 

 the legs beneath them the grasp, while the thighs, like 

 the pastern of a horse, enable the body above to rise and 

 fall as lightly as a carriage on its springs. 



In this attitude the rider cannot turn his body to 

 the right or left, or look behind him as easily as he could 

 revolve upon his "fork." 



For rough riding, however, of every description, the 

 hunting seat, though infinitely less graceful, is superior 

 to that of the cavalry of Europe, for the following 

 reasons : 



One of the most usual devices by which a horse endea- 

 vours to, and but too often succeeds in dislodging his 

 rider, is by giving to his back, by a sudden kick, a jerk 

 upwards, which, of course, forces in the same direction 

 towards the sky that nameless portion of humanity which 



