I02 Seats and Saddles. 



saddle, whose upper surface should be so formed as not 

 to admit of any other one ; then the stirrup must be 

 under the seat, and not 8 to 12 inches in front of it. 

 The English hussar, Plate VII., is evidently expending 

 muscular action to keep his stirrup in a certain posi- 

 tion at an angle to its natural fall,, instead of the 

 stirrup supporti7ig his leg as the latter falls. Such a 

 position is not maintainable for any length of time, or 

 in sharp movement. In trot, for instance, the soldier, 

 not being permitted to rise In his saddle, must seek a 

 support which the stirrups cannot afford otherwise than 

 by assuming an angle at the other side of the perpen- 

 dicular — that is to say, the tread in the stirrup comes to 

 be in the direction of the poi?it of the horse's shoulder, 

 *' tongs across a wall," and the counter-action is then 

 upward in the line of the man's thigh, against which 

 the intestines descend, and produce, if there is the 

 slightest natural weakness in the individual, rupture. 

 The stirrups being far forward in the hunting or civilian 

 saddle is not so injurious in this way, because the rider 

 evades the shock by rising in the saddle, and this is just 

 what led to the English way of riding ; but the cavalry 

 soldier cannot do so. 



It is all very well to say the man mzist retain the po- 

 sition prescribed for him ; If he Is constantly on the 

 strain to do so, he simply cannot ; besides which, the 

 stirrup is actually of very little, if any, use to him. 

 Two-thirds of the time and the whole of the talk ex- 

 pended In endeavoring to make a man retain an incon- 

 venient seat can be saved, and devoted to the much 

 more necessary objects of teaching him hozv to manage 

 his horse and use his weapons,, if you make the pre- 

 scribed seat Inevitable, and every deviation from It 

 uncomfortable ; and this can be easily done. 



With the light cavalry (or Hungarian) saddle. It will 

 not do to put a man Into it as It comes out of the 



