This is as it is in other kinds of riding whether in the park, over the hurdles or in the hunting field. Instruction, imitation, and practice are what make a rider—the man who rides the most being apt to be the best. Even, however, when a man rides a great deal, unless he use intelligence he will never become either expert or graceful. I have known men who rode for many years without acquiring either grace or skill in the saddle. This was either from inaptitude or from a careless disregard of the principles of the art. I have known other men who had strong seats, which enabled them to acquit themselves well in the hunting field, but who never were graceful or seemed entirely at ease. They simply lacked the grace that usually is part and parcel of good horsemanship. It is generally supposed that at West Point Military Academy there is maintained the best riding school in the country. This is probably true. But I have seen comparatively few American army officers who looked “smart” in the saddle. Their idea is, no doubt, to be businesslike rather than finished. In this I believe they are quite wrong for “slouchiness” is out of harmony with the military seat just as it is in the park or the show ring. It finds its only appropriate place among the rough riders of the plain. “I saw young Harry, with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d,— Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury, And vaulted with such ease into his seat, As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds, To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus; And witch the world with noble horsemanship.” The Indian should probably be considered the real American type[11] of rider. There were no horses here when the whites came, but the Indians rather quickly caught and subjugated some of the wild horses that were descended from the castaways of the Spanish explorers. They undoubtedly taught themselves to ride in the first place, though many of them had seen mounted white men. It is impossible to think that in the many generations that they have been using horses, that they have not improved in their horsemanship. At any rate they have a style of their own, and as bareback riders they cut a great dash. But they are not good horsemen. They are cruel to their horses, and are far from getting the best results out of their mounts. The whites, as was proved year after year in the frontier warfare, can outride them even when the whites carry more weight and more impedimenta. Footnote 11: