ge THE HORSE. 



The road-horse should be hig-h m the forehand; round in the barrel; 

 and deep in the chest : the saddle will not then press too forward, but the 

 girths will remain, without crupper, firmly fixed in their proper place. 



A hackney is far more valuable for the pleasantness of his paces, and 

 his safety, good temper, and endurance, than for his speed. We rarely 

 want to go more than eight or ten miles in an hour; and, on a journey, not 

 more than six or seven. The fast horses, and especially the fast trotters, 

 are not often easy in their paces, and although they may perform very 

 extraordinary feats, are disabled and worthless when the slower horse is 

 in his prime. 



Most of our readers probably are horsemen. Their memories will 

 supply them with many an instance of intelligence and fidelity in the horse, 

 and particularly in the hackney — the every-day companion of man. A friend 

 of ours rode thirty miles from home on a young horse which he had bred, 

 and which had never before been in that part of the country. The road 

 was difficult to find, but by dint of inquiry he at length reached the place he 

 sought. Two years passed over, and he had again occasion to take the same 

 journey. No one rode this horse but himself, and he was perfectly assured 

 that the animal had not since been in that direction. Three or four miles 

 before he reached his journey's end he was benighted. — He had to traverse 

 moor and common, and he could scarcely see his horse's head. — The rain 

 began to pelt. " Well," thought he, " here I am, far from any house, and 

 know not, nor can I see an inch of my road. I have heard much of the 

 memory of the horse, — it is my only hope now, — so my fine fellow," throw- 

 ing the reins on his horse's neck, " go on." In half an hour he was safe 

 at his friend's gate. 



The following anecdote, given on the authority of Professor Kruger of 

 Halle, proves both the sagacity and fidelity of the horse. — A friend of his, 

 riding home through a v/ood in a dark night, struck his head against the 

 branch of a tree, and fell from his horse stunned. The steed immediately 

 returned to the house which they had lately left, and which was now closed, 

 and the family in bed, and pawed at the door until some one rose and 

 opened it. He turned about, and the man wondering at the affair, fol- 

 lowed him : the faithful and intelligent animal led him to the place where 

 his master lay senseless on the ground. 



Cunningham, in his valuable account of New South Wales, vol. i. p. 298, 

 says, "A iriend of mine in the habit of riding a good deal, found that when- 

 ever he approached a gully, his sagacious horse invariably opposed his 

 wishes to cross at the particular spot he had been accustomed to, always 

 endeavouring to lead off to another part of the gully, where no passage 

 was known to exist by his rider. Resolving to see whither the cunning 

 rogue would go, he gave him the rein, and soon found himself carried 

 over the gully by a route he had never before followed. Still, however, 

 thinking that the former way was the nearest, he was curious enough to 

 have both measured, when he found the horse's judgment correct ; that 

 way being the nearest by several hundred yards." 



Of the paces of the hackney, and of horses generally, and the principle 

 of the walk, the trot, the canter, and the gallop, we shall be better able to 

 speak, when the structure of the horse, varying in different breeds, has 

 been explained. 



