Horse and Man. 
349 
shattered hopes. To the free inhabitants of air we 
can only liken the mounted Arab, vanishing, hawk- 
like, over the boundless desert. 
In riding there is always exhilarating motion ; 
yet, if the scenery encountered be charming, you 
are apparently sitting still, while, river-like, it flows 
toward and past you, ever giving place to fresh 
visions of beauty. Above all, the mind is free, as 
when one lies idly on the grass gazing up into the 
sky. And, speaking of myself, there is even more 
than this immunity from any tax on the under- 
standing such as we require in walking; the 
rhythmic motion, the sensation as of flight, acting 
on the brain like a stimulus. That anyone should 
be able to think better lying, sitting, or standing, 
than when speeding along on horseback, is to 
me incomprehensible. This is doubtless due to 
early training and long use ; for on those great 
pampas where I first saw the light and was taught 
at a tender age to ride, we come to look on man as 
a parasitical creature, fitted by nature to occupy 
the back of a horse, in which position only he has 
full and free use of all his faculties. Possibly the 
gaucho — the horseman of the pampas — is born 
with this idea in his brain ; if so, it would only be 
reasonable to suppose that its correlative exists in a 
modification of structure. Certain it is that an 
intoxicated gaucho lifted on to the back of his 
horse is perfectly safe in his seat. The horse may 
do his best to rid himself of his burden ; the rider’s 
legs — or posterior arms as they might appropriately 
be called — retain their iron grip, notwithstanding 
the fuddled brain. 
