There is something almost mysterious in the manner in which the horse contrives to pick his way in safety through dangerous and deceitful ground, and to discover and avoid perils of which his master is quite unsuspicious. In all doubtful cases the animal’s head should be left free, that he may put his nose to the ground, and examine it by touch, as well as by sight and hearing (the muzzle is the peculiar organ of touch in the horse), and he will then seldom fail to judge promptly and unerringly whether or not he may venture to proceed. But even when the animal is confined in harness and restrained from the free use of all his faculties, he sometimes exercises his wonderful instinct in the happiest manner. In the very month in which we are writing (January, 1846), several hundred feet of the viaduct of Barentin over the Rouen and Havre railway came down with a sudden crash. Just before the fall, Monsieur Lorgery, flour merchant of Pavilly, was about to cross one of the arches in his cabriolet, when the horse stopped short and refused to pass. M. Lorgery struck the animal with his whip, but all in vain—he refused to stir. At the moment while his unsuspecting driver was still urging him on, the fall took place. It is partly owing to the faculty of discerning the obscurest traces of a frequented, or at least a practicable road, and partly to that tenacious power of memory which enables a horse to recognise a road he has once traversed, that bewildered travellers, from the days of knight-errantry downwards, have found it good policy to throw the reins on their steed’s neck, and trust themselves implicitly to his guidance. Along with this retentive memory the horse combines a very business-like observance of habit and routine. The author of “The Menageries” knew a horse which, being accustomed to make a journey once a week with the newsman of a provincial paper, always stopped at the houses of the several customers, although they were sixty or seventy in number. But further, there were two persons in the route who took one paper between them, and each claimed the privilege of receiving it first on the alternate Sunday. The horse soon became accustomed to this regulation; although the parties lived two miles asunder, he stopped once a fortnight at the door of the half-customer at Thorpe, and once a fortnight at that of the half-customer at Chertsey; and never did he forget this arrangement, which lasted several years, or stop unnecessarily after he had once thoroughly understood the rule.