92 
ANIMALS 
horse of the knight, until approaching danger, being 
usually led by an attendant; the knight himself “ quietly 
rode a pad or palfrey of a more easy pace.” 
Cowper, in “ Retirement,” says— 
“ To cross his ambling pony day by day, 
Seems at the best but dreaming life away.” 
Sir Walter Scott—a most accomplished rider, and 
thoroughly versed in all the gaits of the horse—scarcely 
wrote a poem or a romance without alluding to this 
motion. In “Red Gauntlet,” Letter I., we find: “The 
black . . . ambled as easily with Sam and the portmanteau 
as with you and your load of law-learning.” And in the 
same work, Letter XII. : “ Better the nag that ambles a’ the 
day, than him that makes a brattle for a mile, and then’s 
dune wi’ the road.” 
The characteristics of the gait are well described in the 
“Fortunes of Nigel,” v. : “He again turned his mule's 
head westwards, and crossed Temple-Bar at that slow and 
decent amble which at once became his rank, and civic 
importance.” 
Washington Irving, in “ Bracebridge Hall,” says, “ Lady 
Lillicraft . . . rode her sleek ambling pony, whose motion 
was as easy as a rocking chair.” 
Cooper, in “ The Last of the Mohicans,” ii., specifically 
describes the motion as “ a pace between a trot and a 
walk, and at a rate which kept the sure-footed and peculiar 
animals they [the ladies] rode, at a fast yet easy amble.” 
MOTION. 
Tennyson, in “The Lady of Shalott,” recognizes the 
suitability of the gait to— 
“ An abbot on an ambling pad.” 
Macaulay, “ History of England,” iv. 25, records the 
third William as “ambling on a favorite horse named Sorrel” 
when he met with the accident that cost him his life. 
Charles Dickens, in “ Barnaby Rudge,” xiv., mentions 
“ the grey mare, who breaking from her sober amble into a 
gentle trot emulated the pace of Edward Chester’s horse.” 
We find in Lord Lytton’s “ My Novel,” iv. 11 : “ The 
pad . . . giving a petulant whisk of her tail, quickened her 
amble into a short trot.” 
Captain Burnaby, in “ Horse-back through Asia Minor, 
xv., testifies that “ the pace of a Rahvan, or ambling 
horse, is an easy one for the rider.” 
The writer has selected these quotations, from a large 
number which he has accumulated, for the purpose of 
clearly illustrating the distinguishing features of a most 
enjoyable method of riding, which is regrettably so little 
practised at the present time, except in those parts of the 
world—Spain, Spanish America, California, and Kentucky, 
for example—where the gait is better known and its 
advantages more generally appreciated ; and he can 
emphatically endorse the opinions of the authors quoted, 
especially those of Cervantes and Irving. 1 ravelling in 
Central America he has slept for hours at a time while 
riding—like Prior Aymer—“ upon a well-fed ambling mule. 
