I repeat, then, Be always on your guard in crossing deep water with a horse, or in fording a stream where the current is rapid. In India and other tropical countries the necessity for being able to swim a horse occurs more frequently than at home; and, in the monsoon time especially, it behoves everybody who is going a journey on horseback to be extremely careful how they attempt to cross a swollen stream, as the freshets come down with such rapidity that I have frequently seen a horse carried off his legs by the force of the current when the water has not been more than knee-deep, and, when once the foothold is gone in such places, it is extremely difficult frequently to find a place at which to get out again, on account of the precipitous formation of most of the banks. In any case, however, the above-named directions will be found effectual, and the horse, if left to himself, will find a landing place, even if he swims a considerable distance to gain it. A point of considerable importance as regards hunting also is for ladies to avoid riding home in open carriages, no matter how fine the weather may be, or how well they may be wrapped up. Riding _to_ the meet on wheels is all very well, particularly if the distance is great and by a cross-country road, and the time short. But, after galloping about during the greater part of the day, no conveyance home other than her horse is fit for a lady, except the inside of a close carriage on rail or road, and a good foot warmer at the bottom of the carriage; and if there has been much rain, riding home on horseback is by far the safest plan. I have frequently ridden home sixteen and eighteen miles after dark with a lady whom I had the honour of escorting on her hunting excursions, sometimes in very bad weather, and I can safely say that, rain, snow, or sleet, she never took cold. After leaving the hounds my first care was always to make for some hospitable farmhouse near the road, or in default thereof, some decent roadside inn, where we could have the horse's legs well washed, and the lady's waterproof carefully put on if there was rain about. I always carried for her a second pair of dry knee boots, carefully folded up in a waterproof havresack. These boots were made with cork soles within and without, and, as such boots are easily carried by any man who pilots a lady (of course I don't mean the pilot who rides in scarlet), I specially recommend them to consideration. The most difficult thing after riding a long day's hunting, in which, now and again, a good deal of it will be in wet weather, is to keep the feet warm. Throughout all the rest of the system the circulation may be kept going by the exercise even of slow steady trotting; but the wet, clammy boot, thoroughly saturated, it may be, by more than one dash through a swollen rivulet, strikes cold and uncomfortable in the stirrup iron even to a man, who has a better opportunity of counteracting it by the use of alcoholic or vinous stimulants.