IFOREST AND STREAM. 
69 

: 

GENERAL GRANT AND HIS FOUR-IN- 
HAND. 
eae Ss 
T Long Branch, in the season, there is often to be wit- 
ot nessed a very fine display of ‘‘ turnouts” upon what 
is known asthe Ocean avenue. It is a source of pleas- 
ure to see the women in their little dog-carts, and fancy 
calashes, handling the reins ; they are so earnest and so 
full of enjoyment. The men do not always please us ; they 
too frequently appear nervous in their seats ; there is also a 
lack Of responsive mental sympathy playing along the 
reins, between the horses and their master. A high-spirit- 
ed horse and a brave, dashing woman understand each 
other on sight; but a man must show his common-sense 
and magnanimity to a horse, before he can command his 
sympathy. To manage a spirited team well, the members 
ofit should be intimately acquainted with the driver, not 
only bear his society—for they cannot help that—but they 
must entertain for him a solid respect. 
The equine show at the Branch came to an end with the 
disappearance of the sun ; the butterflies left the moment 
the cool sea air chilled their wings. Only the solid estab- 
lishments remained to the last. When we were turning 
away, the unexpected sight of a ‘ four-in-hand” came 
down the road, moving silently in the twilight, as if from 
the spirit land. The heavy vehicle was almost quaint in 
its fashion, the horses were in fine condition, but evidently 
aged, and in form and color they did not match; but they 
moved together with the precision of a perfect piece of ma- 
chinery. On the seat was a gentleman of most modest ap- 
pearance, so immovable that, but for the wreath of the fra- 
grant Havana which come from his firmly set mouth, he 
might have béen of stone. But the reins he held seemed 
to be the heart-strings of the noble animals which, with such 
dignified action, sped on their way. In another instant 
the vehicle, the fluttering of a costly shawl, together with 
horses and driver, were lost in the gathering darkness down 
the road. Presently this four-in-hand returned, the horses 
more spirited—they were now homeward bound. That 
unpretentious turnout, those well cared for and obedient 
horses, that firm hand, that silent movement, that delicate 
wreathing cloud of smoke, could represent the personal pe- 
culiarities and surroundings, as the reader must anticipate, 
of no other person than General Grant. wey 
In common with our fellow-countrymen at large, we had | 
heard of General Grant’s fondness for horses. Close as he 
keeps his mouth, and as reticent as he is regarding his likes 
and dislikes, he has betrayed himself as an ardent lover 
of horse-flesh. Here we have at least one opening into his 
heart, through which to study his real nature. We never 
heard it to be else than noble to admire the horse ; it’s a 
royal failing, it’s a manly weakness. General Grant may in 
charity, therefore, be pardoned for his foible, it has been in 
such good company through all times ; but as a Republican 
Chief-Magistrate, he should, we thought, not affect extrav- 
agance in keeping up a stud, nor waste money on equipages 
which, from costliness, are offensive to public taste, and an 
outrage upon the simplicity of our political institutions ! 
General Grant was brought up in the country, where it 
was convenient and useful to be always riding. At West 
Point, as a cadet, without any pretention, he was, for all 
practical purposes, the best rider in the school. This was, 
in his case, a most fortunate predilection, for as com- 
mander of our armies, he was always in the field. While other 
officers used ambulancés to relieve themselves of the se- 
verity of constant horseback exercise, General Grant per- 
tinaciously stuck to his saddle. From Petersburgh to Appo- 
matox Court-house, his ‘‘ official residence” was only the 
“fly” of a common tent. His table was literally “ soldiers’ 
fare;” one substantial dish was only demanded ; even with 
this simple food he ate sparingly ; no stimulants were ever 
used. ‘There was one time when not one of his generals or 
subordinate officers on his staff had any liquor for an entire 
year and two months. He never used it himself nor offered 
it to others. 
Passionately fond of riding, and with the physical ability 
to perform it, for he possesses an iron constitution, as well 
as an iron will, he was enabled to personally inspect his mil- 
itary lines. While engaged in this important duty, he 
often rode from forty to fifty miles a day. In the excite- 
ment of the hour he frequently left his staff in the rear, 
and his whereabouts to its members, after hours of solici- 
tude, was made known by discharges of shot and shell 
from the observing enemy. To accomplish this herculean 
labor, he took a horse in the morning, sending forward the 
reliefs with the ‘‘head-quarters,” so that when he ‘‘ tired 
out” one animal another was at hand; for himself he had 
no relief, and apparently never needed one. 
He made it his practice while in the field, to personally 
look after his horses, while in care of the groom, and 
he keeps up this humane practice (which Mr. Bergh should 
notice ) since he has been President. He has no recreation 
which he thoroughly enjoys, except riding or driving ; if 
not thus engaged he is hard at work. 
Soon after the fall of Vicksburg certain citizens of Indi- 
ana determined to present General Grant a horse. A sub- 
scription was at once set on foot, the highest amount given 
toward the object, by one person, was limited to one dol- 
lar. The committee entrusted with the purchase heard 
that there wasa very fine animal for sale at a fair in Ken- 
tucky, that land of fine stock, and made an especial trip to 
purchase, if the horse answered the demand. The ‘ phe- 
nomenon” turned out to be lame, and wholly unservice- 
able. By a happy accident, a horse, quite modestly exhib- 
ited under the name of ‘‘ Egypt,” was noticed, approved of 
by the committee, purchased, and presented to the General, 
is a cheerful heart. 
poor beast, the body, breaks down the first mile. 
the heaviest thing in the world is a heavy heart. 

“he returned home at half-past five. 


This horse, and Cincinnati, ‘‘a full-blooded Lexington,” 
also a gift from friends, General Grant took with him from 
the fall of Vicksburg, and they were active participants in 
every subsequent engagement. 
The Jeff. Davis mare, as she is called, picked up on the 
banks of the Mississippi, being first-rate under the saddle, 
did a great deal of hard work. General Grant was riding 
this generous creature outside the Union lines, when Gen- 
eral Lee sent his message, expressing a desire for a meeting, 
on Sunday morning, the memorable 9th of April. When 
Mr. Lincoln paid a visit to the ‘‘head-quarters,”” of the 
army, heselected Cincinnati for his steed. 
These three horses of historic importance, except two 
others, are all General Grant has possessed since his advent 
as General and Chief-Magistrate. All were presented to 
him by friends while holding the place of a Commanding 
General. When he drives ‘“‘ four-in-hand” his “‘ drag” is 
the heavy wagon we have alluded to, which ‘‘ he owned 
before the war.” Egypt and Cincinnati, both seventeen 
or eighteen years old, are in the lead. Such is the ‘‘ im- 
perial carriage” and such the ‘costly stud,” about which 
so much is written, and published in the columns of the 
‘* Argus-eyed press.” 
Soldiers are passionately fond of their war horses. Wel- 
lington, for years kept the one he rode at Waterloo under 
his personal care, and when it died he erected a tablet over 
its burying-place. General Taylor treated ‘‘ Old Whitey ” 
as a companion and friend. What is General Grant to do 
with Egypt and Cincinnati else than nurse them to their 
end ? and what better horses can he have in the lead than 
these equine veterans, who, through their long career of 
military service, were trained to keep the front ? 
Const. Be THORPE, 
Che Magazines. 
A PLEA FOR PEDESTRIANS. 




HE human body is a steed that goes freest and long- 
est under a light rider, and the lightest of all riders 
Your sad, or morose, or embittered, or 
and the 
Indeed, 
Next to 
that, the most burdensome to the walker is a heart not in 
sympathy and accord with the body. The horse and rider 
must both be willing to go the same way. This is no doubt 
our trouble, and the main reason of the decay of the noble 
art in this country. As a people we are not so positively 
gad, or taciturn, or misanthropical, as we are vacant of that 
sportiveness and surplusage of animal spirits that charac- 
terized our ancestors, and that springs from full and har- 
monious life—a sound heart in accord with a sound body. 
A man must invest himself near at hand and in common 
things, and be content with a steady and moderate return, 
if he would know the blessedness of a cheerful heart and 
the sweetness of a walk over the round earth. This isa 
lesson the American has yet to learn—capability of amuse- 
ment ona low key. He would make the very elemental 
laws pay usury. He has nothing to invest in a walk; it is 
too slow; too cheap. We crave the astonishing, the excit- 
ing, the far away, and do not know the highways of the 
ods when we see them—always a sign of the decay of the 
aith and simplicity of man. 
Tf I were to say to my neighbor, ‘‘Come, let us go walk 
amid the heavenly bodies,” he would prick up his ears and 
come forthwith; but if I were to take him out On the hills 
under the full blaze of the sun, or along the country road, 
our footsteps lighted by the moon and stars, and say to 
him, ‘Behold, these are the heavenly bodies, this we now 
tread is a morning star,” he would feel defrauded, as if I 
had played.him a trick. And yet nothing less than dilata- 
tion and enthusiasm like this is the badge of the master 
walker. 
Tf we are not sad we are careworn, hurried, discontented, 
mortgaging the present for the promise of the future. If 
we take a walk, it is as we take a prescription, with about 
the same relish and with about the same purpose; and the 
more the fatigue the greater our faith in the virtue of the 
medicine. . 
Of those gleesome saunters over the hills in spring, or 
those sallies of the bey in winter, those excursions into 
space when the foot strikes fire at every step, when the air 
tastes like a new and finer mixture, when we accumulate 
force and gladness as we go along, when the sight of ob- 
jects by the roadside and of the fields and woods pleases 
more than pictures or than all the art in the world—those 
ten or twelve mile dashes that are but the wit and effluence 
of the corporeal powers—of such diversion and open road 
entertainment, I say most of us know very little. 
I notice with astonishment that at our fashionable water- 
ing-places nobody walks; that of all those vast crowds of 
health-seekers and lovers of country air, you can never 
catch one in the fields or woods, or guilty of trudging 
along the country road with dust on his shoes and sun-tan 
on his hands and face. The sole amusement seems to be 
pre-occupied heart settles heavily into the saddle, 
-to eat and dress and sit about. the hotels and glare at each 
other. The men look bored, the women look tired, and 
all seem to sigh, “‘Oh Lord! what shall we do to be happy 
and not be vulgar?” Quite different from our British 
cousins across the water, who have plenty of amusement 
and hilarity, spending most of their time at their watering- 
places in the open air, strolling, pic-nicking, boating, 
climbing, briskly walking, apparently with little fear of 
sun-tan or of compromising their ‘‘gentility.”’—‘‘Hahilira. 
tion of the Road,” by John Burroughs, in Galary. 
oe or 
Dumas Pers.—When Dumas was a young man, he lived 
with his mother in the Rue del’ Ouest, and they had a cat, 
called Mysouff, which ought to have been a dog. 
Every morning, Dumas left home at half-past nine—it 
was half an hour’s walk from the Rue de l’Ouest to the 
office in the Rue St. Honore, No. 216—and every afternoon 
Every morning My- 
souff accompanied his master as far as the Rue de Vaugir- 
ard; and every afternoon he went and waited for him at 
the Rue de Vaugirard. Those were his limits; he never 













































































went an inch further, As soon as he caught sight of his 
mnaster, he swept the pavement with his tail; at his nearer 
approach. he yose on ali-fours, with arching back and tail 
erect. Whea Dumas set foot in the Rue de l'Ouest, the 
cat jumped .o his knees as a dog would have done; then, 
turning round every ten paces, he led the way to the house, 
At twenty paces from the house, he set off at a gallop, and 
two seconds afterwards, the expectant mother appeared at 
the doow. 
The most curious circumstance was, that whenever by 
chance any temptation caused Dumas to neglect hismother’s 
dinner houi, it was useless for her to open the door; Mysouff 
would not stir from his cushion. But on the day when 
Dumas was a punctual good boy, if she forgot to open the 
door, Mysouff scratched it till she let him out. Conse- 
quently, she called Mysouff her barometer; it was Set Fair 
when Dumes came home to dinner, Rain or Wind when he 
was absent.—All The Year Round. , 
~~ - 
MOSS GATHERING. 
pe ives sas 
ae the articles of commerce furnished by nature in 
~\ this semi-tropical climate of ours, says the New Orleans 
Times, is moss. This long, luxuriant parasite clothes and 
festoons the trees, with its dull drapery all over the woods 
and swamps of lower Louisiana. The same humidity and 
warmth in the atmosphere which deprives man of the will 
to work, foster and nourish the growth of this strange 
plant, andthus affords him, if he would avail himself of 
the opportunities, an easy way of making a living. The 
supply of moss in our forests is simply inexhaustible. 
There are trees loaded down with it standing on thousands 
of square miles in this State. and even when the tree is 
denuded of this weird-like garb, in less than a year it comes 
out in a dress as ample as that of which it had been stripped. 
The waters of all our swamps are filled with it, where it 
has dropped from the trees, and lies rotting, ungathered 
and uncared for. The whole country where this moss 
grows is accessible to any one desirous of turning it to ac- 
count. -Bayous and streams navigable for large boats inter- 
sect the woods and swamps where it grows, in every direc- 
tion. But strange to say, this moss interest, which might 
be made so great here, is neglected, although it presents so 
many inducments to those who are desirous of gaining an 
honest livelihood. 
Most of them, with that prodigality and wastefulness 
which are part of the nature of our people, cut the trees 
down to gather the moss on them, and thus kill the goose 
which lays the golden eggs, without even eating the goose 
for they leave the the tree to rot. where it lies, after strip- 
ping it of its sombre covering. But some of them are more* 
economical, and, having an eye to future wants, more 
properly climb the trees among the moss, which they gather 
off the limbs and throw tothe ground ina pile. These 
heaps are left standing for sometime, and the rain, with the 
dews, thoroughly saturating them, they undergo a species 
of ‘‘ sweating,” like tobacco, which rots off the gray eover- 
ing and leaves the black, fibrous horse-hair like material 
which is the moss of commerce. This is usually trans- 
ported to market in flats and boats of the swamps. It is 
packed up near the place of curing in rude bales with rope 
ties. When it arrives in New Orleans it passes under- the 
manipulation of moss pickeries and through the machinery 
of gins, after which it is pressed into bales under steam pres- 
sure, bound with neat iron ties and is then ready for shipment. 
The men who gather this moss usually live on the banks 
and islands of the bayous which lead through the swamps. 
Most of those at present engaged init are Germans and 
Creoles, who live very comfortably on the spots of high 
land which are found almost everywhere in the swamp 
country of Louisiana. They prepare their moss in rather a 
rough manner to be sold advantageously in the New Or- 
leans market, but, there the ‘‘country moss,” is nearly al- 
ways rehandled and refined as it were by the exporters of 
Louisiana moss. After the necessary preparation is made 
with the rough material these parties find no difficulty in 
selling their moss in the northern markets. 
—> 6 
A WHALE KILLED By A SUBMARINE CABLE.—A break in 
the submarine calbe between Kurrachee and Gwadioer 
British India, has developed the most surprising and veri- 
table ‘‘fish story” of recent date. On the 4th of July the 
cable suddenly failed, and the interruption was,discovered 
to be at a point 118 miles from Kurrachee, where the cable 
passes over a very uneven and rocky bottom, and a steamer 
with the telegraph repairing staff on board was despatched 
thither. The cable was grappled at once, but on wind- 
ing it in, unusual resistance was experienced, as if it was 
foul of the rocks. After persevering sometime, the body 
of an immense whale was brought to the surface, the fish 
being entangled in the cable, two turns of which passed 
round its body immediately above the tail. The whale had 
evidently struggled long and hard to release itself, and, 
dying in the effort, had become a prey to sharks and other 
fish, which had devoured a large portion of it. The 
strain, in course of hauling the cable, caused it to cut 
through the monster, and the carcass sunk in deep water. 
The size of the fish may be judged from the fact that its 
tail measured twelve feet across. It is supposed that the 
whale had found a festoon of the cable stretching from a 
submarine precipice, and had been endeavoring to wipe 
the barnacles from its sides by rubbing against the rope, 
when the tail became entangled. The first part of the op- 
eration was fully illustrated to those on board the tele- 
graph ship, for as they lay at anchor a number of whales 
played around, and rubbed themselves against the hawser 
by which the vessel was secured. This incident, so sur- 
prising in every way, shows how liable the means of cable 
communication are to be cut off any moment by the gam- 
bols of the monsters of the great deep. 



—&s 
A PrERsIsn JoxE.—‘‘ One day Hafiz was in the baths at Pa- 
breez, when he met astranger, who entered into conver- 
sation with him, and presently began to ‘ chaff him on his 
baldness.’ (Now, though Mohammedans shave their 
heads, they ordinarily leave a small tuft of hair, or fore- 
lock, in front and, of course, the hair quickly grows again, 
except where there is natural baldness, as in this case.) 
The stranger took hold of one of the round tin shaving 
vessels used in the bath, and holding it out to Hafiz, ex- 
claimed : ‘ How comes it that all you Shiranzees have the 
top of your heads like this’ ‘And how happens it,’ re- 
torted Hafiz, turning the bowl with its cavity upwards, 
‘that all you Tabreezes have the inside of your heads like 
that ?” 
