pulling, as hard as they could lay to their oars, towards

him.

It need scarcely be added that, regardless of the overwhelming heat of the sun, the gallant fellows succeeded in conveying their commanding officer on their shoulders to the barracks, where he lay for some months in great pain and danger.

However, in due time, the paralysed muscles of his back recovered their tone, and eventually, without even being lame, he became completely restored to the health, activity, and energy that had always characterised him.

For a considerable time portions of his saddle, strips of the hide and the broken bones of his horse, which, lacerated by the branches of the trees through which the poor animal had fallen, was literally smashed to atoms, were collected by people, who amassed a considerable amount of money by exhibiting and selling them as relics in evidence of one of the most extraordinary accidents that, under the superintending direction of Divine Providence, has ever been survived by man.

MODE OF RIDING AT TIMBER.

In getting rapidly across a difficult country there are two sorts of fences, each of which has to be jumped in a manner the very opposite of that required by the other. A young hunter will leap almost any ordinary fence, particularly if it be broad, as well, and, from his impetuosity, often better than an old one. But there is one description of barrier, called by hunting men " timber" (that is to say stiles, gates, and rails, that cannot be broken), which requires, in both rider and horse, a great deal more discretion than valour: indeed of timber" it may truly be said that it is the most dangerous and, on the other hand, the safest fence a man can ride at.

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If a young horse, highly excited, be ridden fast for the first time in his life at a gate, it is very likely he will clear it; on the other hand, it is quite certain that if, despising bars through which he can see daylight, he resolves to break the top one, the penalty attached to his mistake will be a very heavy one: indeed nothing can be more disagreeable to a rider and frightful to look at than the result. Now, of course, the obvious way of preventing this catastrophe is simply to teach a horse -firstly, that he cannot break timber, and secondly,

so.

that he will have to suffer acute pain if he attempts to do Accordingly, away from hounds and under no excitement, he should be slowly ridden over two or three low rails that will not break, with an unexpected little twitch at his rein sufficient to make them severely strike his hind legs. The moment this is effected the rider should jump off, to allay anything like excitement, and to allow the animal, who will probably stand lifting up the injured leg, to feel, appreciate, and reflect on the whole amount of the pain he has incurred. As soon as it has subsided, he should be again quietly ridden two or three times over the offending rails, which, it will then be found, nothing can induce him to touch; and having thus, at a small cost, purchased for himself very valuable experience, he may afterwards in the huntingfield be carefully made to jump any ordinary amount of timber.

A sportsman can hardly ride too slowly at high timber; for as height and width (that is to say to jump upwards or forwards) require different efforts, it is a waste of the poor animal's powers to make him do both when one only is required. In slowly trotting up to timber of any height or description, the rider should carefully abstain from attempting, by the bridle, to give his horse the smallest assistance. On the contrary, the moment the animal begins to rise, his reins should be

loosened, to be drawn up and tightened only as he descends. With the single exception we shall soon notice, this principle of self-management applies to jumps of all sorts and sizes; for although, by a firm management of his bridle, a hunter ought to be made to feel as he approaches a fence that it is utterly impossible for him to swerve from it, yet the instant he is on the brink of taking it, his reins, as if by paralysis, should suddenly cease to afford him the smallest help, or to interfere with the mode in which (with only half a second to think) he may determine to deal with it. If he expects assistance, it may come a little sooner or a little later than his patience or impatience approves of, and thus between two stools (his own will and that of his rider) both come to the ground; whereas, if he knows that he has nothing to rely on but himself, he rises at his timber in the best and safest possible manner-namely, in his own way.

If we should have succeeded in satisfying our readers that they cannot ride too slowly at timber, we trust they will pardon us if we now endeavour to enforce upon them as an equally immutable axiom, that it is impossible for them to ride too fast at water.

WATER JUMPING.

Throughout England, and especially in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, there are two descriptions of brooks. In one the water is about a foot or two below the level of the green fields through which it peacefully meanders. In the other, though deep enough to drown a man, it flows and occasionally rushes ten or twelve feet below the surface, between two loamy banks as perpendicular as the wall of a house. If a red, brown, or black coat, attended by a pair of leather, kersey, or corduroy breeches, ending in boots, plunge together into the first, they simply go in dry and come out wet. But, if a horse fails to clear the chasm, he is liable not only to fall backwards upon these articles of apparel, but afterwards, quite unintentionally, to strike their owner during the awkward struggles of both animals to swim.

Now, although to some of our readers it may possibly appear that the act of riding over "a bit of water" of the latter description has no legal claim to be inIcluded in the schedule headed "the pleasures and amusements of man," yet it may most truly be said that in a good run, or even in a bad one, there exists nothing that gives an ordinary rider more intense pleasure than the sight, say a quarter of a mile before him, of those well-known willows that indicate to him the line of beauty of the brook he is shortly to have the enjoy