The bringing in of the fences was in itself stirring. White-wigged postilions of the old style, rode in pairs of grey horses harnessed to capacious wagons, and in a few minutes all was complete. Decidedly the drama of the exhibition was the jumping, while the riding of the foreign cavalry officers, who had not before been seen in England, was one of the sensations, for there are no finer horsemen in the world, unless from among the Cossacks and the cowboys, and their talents are especially distinguished in taking the banks and big, stiff fences at full speed. Through the heavy wooden and iron doors there trotted in one by one, French, Belgian, American, and Spanish horsemen, who were to teach the English how to high-jump, over forty coming to the post, their brilliant uniforms adding the last touch of colour to the scene. The first horse touched the triple bar, but otherwise did a perfect course, though at the five feet bank which finishes the latter, he slid along the platform prone, and on all fours, and, like many of the English horses, could scarcely recover his legs. It was a remarkable sight to see the string of horses take the gates, bars, bushes, and fences in the glare of thousands of electric lights; the row of wooden posts was an ugly jump always. The terrible triple-bar, most risky of all the Continental jumps, now introduced to English horsemen for the first time, was constantly crashing down, amid half-sustained shrieks from the women in the audience, as the riders were thrown, or jerked on the necks of their steeds, and it was here that all the British officers came to grief, though they took their fences with the abandon and dash of a quick burst in the shires. Indeed their riding was remarkably clever and plucky, considering that they had never before been through such a performance, and were all riding green horses. The latter broke into a gallop as they approached the sloping bank, with a deep and abrupt fall on the far side, swinging sharply to the left, and took at tremendous speed the circle of jumps, each distinct from the rest, then finished down the middle, taking this time, not the slope, but the wall of the bank, and so disappeared through the gates into the stables. All the other obstacles fell when the horse collided with them, but, as one of the competitors remarked, "There's no give in that bank," and it was here that nearly all of the mishaps occurred. A Lifeguardsman went at the bank as if he were charging an army, but the horse sprang short, and his rider was shot high over his head. He turned a complete somersault, and fell on his back on the top of the bank; the horse followed, and appeared to jump on the prostrate rider. Ring attendants and judges ran towards him, but the lieutenant picked himself up smartly--he had not released his hold of the reins--and mounting the hunter on the top of the bank, rode it down the slope, and out of the arena, amid enthusiastic plaudits for his pluck.