As a friend of mine was passing this point for the second time his pony tried to bolt down the steps with the intention of returning to stable. A violent pull at the near rein brought the brute's head round, but without stopping him, so that he passed sideways from the steps on to the roof of one of the houses, and together with his rider instantly disappeared through it, amidst a cloud of dust, a crashing of timbers and the rattle of falling tiles. Emerging from the _debris_, and smothered with dust, my friend led his pony through the front door into the street, where a crowd had already collected, neither apparently any the worse for their remarkable feat. An old woman who was in the building at the time had a narrow escape from being crushed by the falling animal, but she soon recovered from the shock, and a liberal sum in dollars with which to repair the roof probably caused her to regret that similar accidents did not more frequently befall. At Peking, where for a time I was clerk of the course, a most remarkable incident occurred, for the accuracy of which I had irrefutable proof. A pony named "Chalk," which I had purchased from a Chinese soldier for twenty-five dollars, had carried all before him at the previous autumn meeting, for which reason I was naturally greatly attached to him, and he, although an extremely vicious animal towards others, tolerated me with a forbearance but rarely met with in a China pony. At the succeeding spring meeting Chalk was a hot favourite for the principal events. The evening before the races I passed with several friends, when the chances of different ponies, and of Chalk in particular, were discussed till a late hour. That night I dreamed that after I had been riding Chalk, I was standing dismounted and holding the reins, on a plot of grass surrounded with trees, while the pony was lying on the ground. Raising his head and neck two or three times in attempts to get up he finally struggled into a sitting position, standing on his forelegs but with his haunches on the ground, and then sank back dead. The dream was so vivid and left such an impression on me, that by way of conversation, and without attaching the slightest importance to it, I related the circumstance in practically the same words as employed here, to a Russian friend, who accompanied me early next morning to the course. Again, on the grand-stand, a quarter of an hour or so before the races commenced, I laughingly told a son of the Dutch minister of my dream, explaining the circumstances and the scene in full. Looking in the pink of condition, Chalk came out for the first event, one mile, and won hands down by several lengths. After dismounting in the enclosure and weighing in, I was being convoyed by my friends to the bar in order to celebrate the victory in champagne, when I heard someone say, "Look at Chalk!"