HARK FORRARD! 59 



the Capitol, where the American Parliament 

 sits. This is one of the most beautiful build- 

 ings on earth, and was immensely admired by 

 the whole party. 



The course, or as it is always called in 

 America, the ^ track,' was reached in ample 

 time for the first race. The track was an oval 

 with the best possible turns, and like all courses 

 in the States, was perfectly level, and instead 

 of grass, as we have in England, was simply 

 soil harrowed repeatedly till it was first-rate 

 going. As most of our readers are doubtless 

 aware, the time test is implicitly believed in by 

 our American cousins, and, under the circum- 

 stances, rightly too. The gradients, which on 

 our courses are of infinite variety, do not exist 

 there, and their absence, coupled with the fact 

 that the atmosphere in America is much more 

 rarefied than at home, is undoubtedly the cause 

 of the marvellously fast times that are made 

 there. It is, at all events, an indisputable fact 

 that American horses cannot and do not make 

 such fast time in England as they do in their 



