30 LADIES ON HOKSEBACK. 



if you go for the hiring of a horse to any 

 London livery-stable you will be sent a good- 

 looking beast enough, but he will not be able 

 to trot a yard. Canter, canter, is all that he 

 can do. And why ? He is kept for the ex- 

 press purpose of carrying young ladies in the 

 Kow, and these young ladies have never learnt 

 to trot. They can dress themselves as vanity 

 suggests in fashionably-cut habits, suffer them- 

 selves to be lifted to the saddle, and sit there, 

 looking elegant and pretty, whilst their horse 

 canters gaily down the long ride ; but were the 

 animal to break into a trot (which he is far too 

 well tutored to attempt to do), they would 

 soon present the same shaken, dilapidated, 

 dishevelled, and utterly miserable appearance 

 which you yourself do after your first experi- 

 ence of the difficulties which a learner has to 

 encounter. 



The art of rising in the saddle is said to 

 have been invented by one Dan Seffert, a 

 very famous steeplechase jockey, who had, I 

 beheve, been a riding-master in the days oi 

 his youth. If this be true — which there is no 

 reason to doubt — we have certainly to thank 



