THE NECK, THE HEAD, ETC. 125 



with the requisite degree of stability, affords a pull in 

 the desired direction, and coupled with the weight of 

 the rider, meets directly the action of the hind legs, the 

 source of all propelling power. 



Nor is this mere theory, for every one that has 

 mounted a. great variety of horses, and paid even a 

 moderate degree of attention to their different styles of 

 action, will at once recognise here the true reason of the 

 star-gazer appearing to have his fore legs nailed to the 

 ground by the lightest pull on the rein, whilst the croup 

 and the hind legs are flung wildly about, no pressure 

 of the rider's leg being capable of steadying them and 

 keeping the brute straight, either at rest or in motion. 

 Again, who that ever rode one of those long thin- 

 necked, unstable, rainbow quadrupeds that are so apt 

 to dazzle the eye of the uninitiated, can ever forget the 

 slipperiness of all its movements, and the painful sen- 

 sation of being mounted on a machine composed of 

 gutta-percha and glass? all of which, making due 

 allowance for the irritable tempers of such horses, is a 

 necessary consequence of the pull of the reins being in 

 a wrong direction. 



Let us look at cavalry horses. The soldier has one 

 hand for the reins and the other for his weapon : his 

 efficiency depends altogether on his being able to use 

 the latter with precision and rapidity ; and this is an 

 impossibility, unless, to use Sir Charles Napier's words, 

 " the steed watches, the edge of the weapon " that is 

 to say, follows the lightest movement of hand and heel 

 instantaneously, as it were intuitively. The Minister of 

 War of a certain German State once represented to his 

 sovereign that it would be necessary to give the whole 

 of the cavalry sabres of a new pattern, the existing ones 



