The prudent traveller will never commence a journey of length, without every necessary precaution that can be adopted for general safety during the whole; he will insure to a certainty, by personal examination, the shape, make, fixing, and firmness of his horse's shoes, as the most indispensible prelude to the success of his progress, it being one great step to the prevention of trouble and disquietude. He will observe that every part of his apparatus is sufficiently strong and durable for the purpose, that he may not be likely to encounter the mortification of _repairs_ upon the road; as well as that his BRIDLE is properly adapted to the MOUTH, and the SADDLE to the BACK of the horse. A sore back, or lacerated lips, are sad concomitants in a tedious or a dreary journey. He will also remember at setting off, that the animal he bestrides is formed of materials by no means dissimilar to his own; that he is composed of fibres, nerves, tendons, muscles, flesh, blood and bone; that these are all perishable commodities, liable to accident, sickness, and dissolution; that he has also his passions, his sensations, his appetites, his wants, his pains, and his pleasures. Not possessed of the pleasing powers of communication by speech, it is a duty incumbent upon the rider, not only to speak for, but to take care of (in the strictest meaning of the words) an object so little capable of taking care of itself. Having all these things in humane recollection, he will advert to the state of the roads, and the season of the year: the mode of treatment, and manner of travelling proper in one, might be improper in the other. Observation should be made upon the constitutional stamen, and innate properties, of the horse, in respect to power and action, that his paces and progress should be regulated in proportion. One may with ease travel EIGHTEEN or TWENTY miles at a stage, with strength and vigour less diminished, than another may _twelve_; and this it is the more necessary to know and observe, because a horse overworked, or overfatigued, in the _early_ part, very frequently never recovers himself during the whole of a journey. It is a judicious maxim, and should be rigidly adhered to, never to ride or drive horses at an immoderate or unreasonable pace at first setting off in a morning; the carcase being full, brisk action occasions much uneasiness, if not pain; and a horse never goes with comfort to himself till relieved by frequent evacuation. Those who are properly attentive to their own interest in the preservation of their horse, will regulate their pace (as well as the length of their stage) by the HEAT of the WEATHER in SUMMER, or the DEPTH of the ROAD in the WINTER, each having equal and distinct effects upon the strength, and exertion of power, in the horse, as the other.