SMALL COUNTRY NEIGHBORS 417 



ing has destroyed our old cross-country rides. Fortu- 

 nately there are now many delightful bridle trails in 

 Rock Creek Park; and we have fixed up a number of 

 good jumps at suitable places a stone wall, a water 

 jump, a bank with a ditch, two or three posts-and-rails, 

 about four feet high, and some stiff brush hurdles, one 

 of five feet seven inches. The last, which is the only for- 

 midable jump was put up to please two sporting members 

 of the administration, Bacon and Meyer. Both of them 

 school their horses over it; and my two elder boys, and 

 Fitzhugh Lee, my cavalry aide, also school my horses 

 over it. On one of my horses, Roswell, I have gone over 

 it myself; and as I weigh two hundred pounds without 

 my saddle I think that the jump, with such a weight, in 

 cold blood, should be credited to Roswell for righteous- 

 ness. Roswell is a bay gelding; Audrey a black mare; 

 they are Virginia horses. In the spring of 1907 I had 

 photographs of them taken going over the various jumps. 

 Roswell is a fine jumper, and usually goes at his jumps 

 in a spirit of matter-of-fact enjoyment. But he now and 

 then shows queer kinks in his temper. On one of these 

 occasions he began by wishing to rush his jumps, and 

 by trying to go over the wings instead of the jumps them- 

 selves. He fought hard for his head ; and as it happened 

 that the best picture we got of him in the air was at this 

 particular time, it gives a wrong idea of his ordinary 

 behavior, and also, I sincerely trust, a wrong idea of my 

 hands. Generally he takes his jumps like a gentleman. 

 Many of the men with whom I hunted or with whom 

 I was brought in close contact when I lived on my ranch, 



