THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 39 



the moment while his unsuspecting driver was still 

 urging him on, the fall took place. 



It is partly owing to the faculty of discerning the 

 obscurest traces of a frequented, or at least a prac- 

 ticable road, and partly to that tenacious power of 

 memory which enables a horse to recognise a road he 

 has once traversed, that bewildered travellers, from 

 the days of knight-errantry downwards, have found it 

 good policy to throw the reins on their steed's neck, 

 and trust themselves implicitly to his guidance. Along 

 with this retentive memory the horse combines a very 

 business-like observance of habit and routine. The 

 author of "The Menageries" knew a horse which, 

 being accustomed to make a journey once a week 

 with the newsman of a provincial paper, always 

 stopped at the houses of the several customers, 

 although they were sixty or seventy in number. But 

 further, there were two persons in the route who took 

 one paper between them, and each claimed the privi- 

 lege of receiving it first on the alternate Sunday. 

 The horse soon became accustomed to this 'regulation ; 

 although the parties lived two miles asunder, he 

 stopped once a fortnight at the door of the half- 

 customer at Thorpe, and once a fortnight at that of 

 the half-customer at Chertsey; and never did he 

 forget this arrangement, which lasted several years, 



