accomplishes it is desirous of all the glory that may flow from the deed.  Poor Jabal, when he heard the words, rushed out of the tent and gave the alarm, then mounting his brother’s mare, accompanied by some of his tribe, he pursued the robber for four hours.  The brother’s mare was of the same stock as Jabal’s but was not equal to her; nevertheless, he outstripped those of all the other pursuers, and was even on the point of overtaking the robber, when Jabal shouted to him:  “Pinch her right ear and give her a touch of the heel.”  Gafar did so, and away went the mare like lightning, speedily rendering further pursuit hopeless.  The pinch in the ear and the touch with the heel were the secret signs by which Jabal had been used to urge his mare to her utmost speed.  Jabal’s companions were amazed and indignant at his strange conduct.  “O thou father of a jackass!” they cried, “thou hast helped the thief to rob thee of thy jewel.”  But he silenced their upbraidings by saying:  “I would rather lose her than sully her reputation.  Would you have me suffer it to be said among the tribes that another mare had proved fleeter than mine?  I have at least this comfort left me, that I can say she never met with her match.”

Different countries have their different modes of horsemanship, but amongst all of them its first practice was carried on in but a rude and indifferent way, being hardly a stepping stone to the comfort and delight gained from the use of the horse at the present day.  The polished Greeks as well as the ruder nations of Northern Africa, for a long while rode without either saddle or bridle, guiding their horses, with the voice or the hand, or with a light switch with which they touched the animal on the side of the face to make him turn in the opposite direction.  They urged him forward by a touch of the heel, and stopped him by catching him by the muzzle.  Bridles and bits were at length introduced, but many centuries elapsed before anything that could be called a saddle was used.  Instead of these, cloths, single or padded, and skins of wild beasts, often richly adorned, were placed beneath the rider, but always without stirrups; and it is given as an extraordinary fact, that the Romans even in the times when luxury was carried to excess amongst them, never desired so simple an expedient for assisting the horseman to mount, to lessen his fatigue and aid him in sitting more securely in his saddle.  Ancient sculptors prove that the horsemen of almost every country were accustomed to mount their horses from the right side of the animal, that they might the better grasp the mane, which hangs on that side, a practice universally changed in modern times.  The ancients generally leaped on their horse’s backs, though they sometimes carried a spear, with a loop or projection about two feet from the bottom which served them as a step.  In Greece and Rome, the local magistracy were bound to see that blocks for mounting (what the Scotch call loupin-on-stanes)