CHAP. X.] METHODS OF CARRYING THEM ON HORSEBACK. 301 



and confidently recommend it. As to can-jdng guns 

 on horseback, nobody that I am aware of, except a 

 Hottentot, and occasionally a Dutchman, knows how 

 to do it. 



Theirs is a most simple and effectual plan, which, 

 strangely enough, has never been adopted or perhaps 

 even proposed for our mounted troops, and which is 

 incomparably superior in practice to any of the usual 

 plans, with all of which I am pretty well familiar. 



Carrying a gun with a belt across the shoulders is 

 objectionable in every way ; the gun jogs excessively 

 about, and its weight is wearisome to a degi'ee ; the 

 rider has to go through a vast deal of struggling before 

 he can sUp it over liis head and get it in hand; 

 and, lastly, in case of a fall, it mig]>t injure him 

 severely. 



The next plan — that of carrying the gun muzzle 

 downwards ia a bucket in the position that a sports- 

 man would carry his gun o-ver his arm — is most unsafe; 

 the bullet is perpetually liable to be dislodged, and if 

 dislodged the gun is pretty sure to burst; besides 

 this, a complication of straps are requisite to secure 

 the gun to the belt of the rider, which I find in 

 practice a great inconvenience. Another method is, 

 to sHng the gun, which in this case must be a short 

 one, muzzle downward to the back part of the saddle ; 

 so that when the rider is on his seat the stock of the 

 gun is behind him, and the muzzle in a bucket below 

 his feet. In this plan, as in the last, the bullet is 

 liable to be dislodged, and also the projecting stock 

 of the gun, over which the leg has to be thrown when 



