i 20 Among Men and Horses. 



O^ *j.f,w S 



During that year, I amused myself principally by going 

 to races. There being no wild horses in England to tame, 

 I did not attempt the farce of a public show, beyond giving, 

 at the invitation of Miss Lindo, a practical lecture on horse 

 control and on riding, in aid of the funds of the Home of 

 Rest for Horses. As a novelty, I demonstrated, with the 

 assistance of my wife, whose fine riding on that occasion 

 was praised in The Field and illustrated in The Grapliic, a 

 method for teaching ladies and men how to ride, especially 

 over fences, without having to hold on by the reins. 

 Although I was the first to put this method into practice, 

 I hardly like to say that I invented it ; because it gradually 

 evolved itself in my mind, during my horse-breaking work 

 with the long reins. At the performance in question, Miss 

 Reid and Miss Streeter also helped by some nice riding to 

 render the affair a success. 



By the kindness of Colonel ' Sam ' Lyons, who was in 



command of the Horse Artillery Riding Establishment at 



Woolwich, I held a class at the riding-school there. Colonel 



Lyons takes a great interest in the training of horses for 



military purposes. He did everything in his power to help 



me in my work and to render my visits to Woolwich pleasant. 



My time was occupied there chiefly in teaching refractory 



horses to ' passage,' rein back, jump, or to perform other 



ordinary evolutions at which they had previously rebelled. 



The only bit of taming I had was with a Commissariat mule, 



which, for the preceding four or five months, so I was told, 



would not allow anyone to handle him, and had consequently 



passed his time in his stall, eating, drinking, and sleeping, 



without doing any work. Having gone down to where he 



was stabled, I led him out of his stall and took him up to 



the riding-school, where within an hour, he became so quiet 



that he was handled, saddled, and ridden about without 



giving any trouble. My readers will naturally suppose that 



the Commissariat officers, whose ignorance of breaking had 



been the cause of the country having been deprived of the 



