To return to our fair pupil (having made such selection of riding dress as is most suitable to her style). Her first outdoor rides should be taken on some quiet and little frequented road until she becomes accustomed to control her horse; for there is a great difference in the form of going of the same animal in the riding school and on the road, as many horses that require considerable rousing in the school are all action and lightheartedness out of doors. On the road, especially when they are hard, walking and trotting should be the pace, the pupil riding equally on snaffle and curb reins; the pace free and active; the trot about eight to eight and a half the hour. Cantering should never be practised on hard ground, as it is certain, sooner or later, to cause mischief to the horse's legs. Where there is a good broad sward by the roadside, as in the Midland counties, a good stretching canter for miles may always be had where the ground is good going. But such places are not to be found in the neighbourhood of the metropolis; and it is necessary therefore to select some open common, such as Wimbledon or Wormwood Scrubs, for cantering at first. By degrees the pupil should be accustomed to ride through thoroughfares where there is considerable traffic, and may then make her _début_ in Rotten Row; and here I may remark that nobody, lady or gentleman, should ever attempt riding in this fashionable equestrian resort until they have thorough command of their horses, and, indeed, know scientifically what riding is. The place, strictly speaking, is a ride intended for royalty alone; and I believe I am correct in saying that the admission of the general public to it is by no means a matter of right. Great pains are bestowed to keep it in good order throughout the year; especially, it is always soft and good for a horse's legs. But as a great concourse of equestrians, male and female, is always in the Row in the London season, and as the horses are nearly all well bred and high couraged, there is considerable danger, both to themselves and others, in persons with indifferent seats and hands venturing to ride in the fashionable crowd, the danger being considerably enhanced by the fact that such people are altogether ignorant of the risk they are running. For my own part, after seeing some corpulent citizen rehearsing "John Gilpin" in Hyde Park, with his trousers half-way up to his knees, and his feet the wrong way in the stirrups, the wonder has always been to me not that accidents occur in Rotten Row, but that there are not a great many more.