All these are perhaps the best mountain-horsemen in the world, though nothing can be more unfavourable to their firm seat and rapid evolutions than their whole equipment. Their saddles are heavy masses of wood, like pack-saddles, peaked before and behind, and seem to be the most awkward and uneasy in the way they use them. Their stirrups are very short, and their stirrup-irons very cumbrous, resembling the blades of fire-shovels, the angles of which they use to goad on the horse, as they have no spurs. This heavy and awkward apparatus is not secured on the horse by regular girths, but tied with thongs of leather, which are continually breaking and out of order. On this insecure seat the rider sits tottering, with his knees approaching to his chin; yet there never were more bold and dexterous horsemen, in the most difficult and dangerous places. When trooped together they observe little order, yet they act in concert with surprising regularity and effect, particularly on broken ground and mountain-passes, seemingly impracticable to European cavalry. They drive at full speed through beds of torrents, and up and down steep acclivities, and suddenly appear on the flanks or rear of their enemies, after passing rapidly through places where it was supposed impossible for a horseman to move. Such had been the general character of Turkish cavalry, but the Sultan, in his military reforms, obliterated the characteristic distinction of each corps, and amalgamated them all to an uniformity of European discipline. He one day saw a restive horse baffle all the attempts of his rider to reduce him to obedience, and finally throw him to the ground. There happened to be standing near, an Italian adventurer, named Calosso, who had come to Constantinople in search of fortune, with many of his countrymen. He seized the unruly animal by the bridle, disencumbered him of his awkward ponderous saddle, mounted him bare-backed, and presently reclaimed him to a state of perfect discipline. His dexterity attracted the notice of the sovereign, who at once availed himself of his abilities. He first put himself under his care, and learned the art of European manège, at considerable personal risk. He cast away the wooden pack-saddle, and set his cavalry an example by mounting himself on a bare-backed horse. The sudden transition from a lofty seat, where the limbs were confined and fixed to the horse by a wooden frame, and the legs supported by firm pressure on a broad stirrup, to the sharp spine of a beast without either saddle or stirrup, was scarcely tolerable; and the imperial recruit would have been often precipitated to the ground, but for the aid of his Italian instructor, who was always at hand to support him. Yet he persevered with his usual determination, and he became in a short time an accomplished European horseman, and induced his subjects to follow his example. There was no European usage which a Turk found it more difficult to adopt than this.