CH. XV GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON DRIVING 359 



little near the horses' heads until the horses are 

 fairly started, but out of the way and without inter- 

 fering, merely so as to be at hand, should their as- 

 sistance be absolutely required ; for instance, in 

 leaving a race-course, where there is a crowd, and 

 perhaps a narrow passage or gate, and when the 

 horses are excited, by waiting, and by the people 

 around them ; but, as a rule, when three persons 

 are required to manage four horses, something is 

 wrong. 



A helpless-looking man seated on the driving 

 cushion, with his whip in the socket, his reins all of 

 different degrees of tightness, with a man at each 

 leader's head, endeavouring to make way through 

 an admiring crowd, is not an edifying spectacle. 



A little quick thought will sometimes get a coach- 

 man out of a difficulty. 



On a certain occasion, as ..-' T ^ 



f 



I was driving a coach to { 

 a private race-meeting, I 

 noticed, in approaching 

 the course, that the en- 

 trance to it had been 

 made by pulling down 

 two panels of fence at a 

 corner, making a sharp 

 turn in, as shown in Fig. 155, the full black line 

 being- the track which the vehicles were expected 

 to follow. A friend asserting that it would be im- 

 possible to drive in there with a coach, I offered to 



^.. 



Fig. 155. 



