ro6 Seats and Saddles. 



and with it the chances of deranging the latter and caus- 

 ing it to turn round ; which leads to overtight girthing. 

 The Austrian " hulan," shown on the same Plate, 's 

 taken from a colored penny picture, the only thing we 

 can for the moment procure, and is, consequently, not 

 so correct as the hussar, who was photographed from 

 life ; still it serves to show what can be done in making 

 the pack flat, and adapting it closely to the horse's body. 

 The white cloak, it will be observed, is folded flat and 

 placed above the sheepskin, where it can be got at with- 

 out opening up the whole pack, and the valise is also 

 flat. Why these articles were ever rolled up into long 

 cylinders, the most intractable and inconvenient form 

 that can be devised, is utterly unaccountable, except on 

 the supposition of cavalry officers having been pecu- 

 liarly subject to softening of the brain, in consequence, 

 no doubt, of the solidity of the shakos and helmets worn 

 in those days. Thirdly, a mountain of pack in front of 

 the rider renders it utterly impossible to adopt a proper 

 system of bitting, or to make the pull on the reins act in 

 the proper direction ; even with the greatest care and 

 management, the bridle-hand of the cavalry soldier must 

 be necessarily placed at a greater distance from the 

 horse's withers than that of the civilian : we shall, how- 

 ever, have more to say on this point in the second part 

 of this little work. 



The old heavy cavalry leather saddle is gradually dis- 

 appearing in almost all services, because it can neither 

 be adapted to each individual horse nor rider. There is 

 only one seat possible with it, the chair-seat, which 

 thiows the weight all to one end, and produces sore 

 backs much more frequently than a well-arranged 

 wooden or Hungarian saddle with a proper seat. Sev- 

 eral modifications of the Hungarian saddle have been 

 adopted — amongst others, a Danish model ; but it is 

 quite absurd to attempt to retain, as has been done in 



