136 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 



and calves, for exercising an easy control over the 

 mouth, and favouring the efforts of the horse by the 

 motions of the rider's body. According to all the 

 varieties of the long or military system of riding, the 

 horse requires as much teaching as the rider; and 

 nearly every horse, of a vigorous and spirited breed, 

 is ruined by this course of teaching. " All equestrian 

 nations ride with the bended leg, or as it is commonly 

 termed, short, simply because experience has taught 

 them its advantages. The English jockies, fox- 

 hunters, and steeple-chasers, who get the utmost speed 

 out of their horse, who. teach him to traverse, and 

 assist him over the most tremendous leaps, all ride 

 short. The South American Indians men who live 

 and die, as it were, on the backs of their horses the 

 Moors of the coast of Barbary and the Bedouin 

 Arabs of the Desert, all ride short. The extinct 

 body of Mamelukes, who were Circassians, and the 

 tribes of Circassians now inhabiting the Caucasus the 

 most dextrous men in the universe, in the use of their 

 arms, and the management of their horses, for all the 

 purposes of combat ; who stop them in their wildest 

 gallop, who wheel them round a hat, and who, not 

 riding more than an average of eleven stone, can lift 

 from the saddle the most brawny and burly riding- 

 master as if he were a child these men not only use 



