Instead of the large Turkish saddle with Eastern stirrups, a stuffed pad, covered with black or red cloth, and with a low round cautle, is generally used; it is furnished with small stirrups, shaped like those belonging to an hussar saddle, and with a short spur on the inward side. The bridles are of different patterns, and generally made of webbing; and beneath them headstalls are put on, composed of a number of silver chains, and of small flat ornaments on the noseband.

The Mamelukes were formerly, no doubt, well-mounted and armed, and could ride well; but I never saw a fine horseman in these countries. (Abou-Gosh, an Arab chief near Jerusalem, and an old Mameluke at Cairo, were the best.) But although some of them were wellplaced on the old Turkish saddle (which is still used among the Arabs, and by no means an inconvenient equipment), yet they had bad hands, turned entirely on the outside reins; and the hand and heel seldom, if ever, accorded; skirmishing and the exercise of the jereed were not usually performed with much address, although with considerable violence, and few of the horses were really fast. When the colts in the Pacha's stables were occasionally exercised, they were suddenly galloped for a short distance, and then stopped in the most violent and awkward manner, without any regard to the action of the horse, or to the momentary position of his legs; and, therefore, with great danger to his joints. By application through the consuls, strangers can procure horses from these stables; and the Pacha himself, and many his officers, are mounted from them. There are a number of remarkably fine mules at the same place, which are employed in conveying provisions for the troops. The stud at Shoubrah was intended in some degree to supply the cavalry; but in this, as in other instances, the best supply would be procured from the people, by securing to them the peaceable enjoyment of their possessions, and by paying a fair remunerating price.

of

Opposite to the stables at Cairo is the establishment for the Pacha's carriages. I was told that he had procured through Mr. Galloway a tolerable coach and harness: but those, which I saw, were worse than common hackney-coaches, and the horses, harness, and particularly the coachmanship, were beyond all description; and the whole was conducted in such an awkward manner, and attended with so much difficulty and embarrassment, that it was no longer a matter of surprise that carriages appeared to the Turks most extraordinary inventions. These, although they belonged to the Pacha, were never cleaned, except that the linings were occasionally brushed out. I forget the colours of two, but the one most constantly used was a dark blue chariot, with a red hammercloth; the varnish had long since disappeared, and the paint scarcely remained. The harness was of a common sort, (like that used for breaks); it had breast-collars, and did not appear to have been ever cleaned or repaired: there were no bearing-reins, and the cruppers were seldom put on; the reins of the leaders were only passed through the head-terrets of the wheel-horses; and their traces were fastened to a large swing-bar at the end of the pole: the horses were driven in bridoons, or in bits without curbs. There were several sets of horses, white, bay, and chestnut, apparently very old, and underbred. Their thick manes and tails were never combed, and they were thin and out of condition. When they were fastened to the

carriage (for "put together" they never were), the pole pieces were put on first, and then the traces.

The coachman (and the best performer was a black) was dressed in a white Nizam suit, and a red tarbouse and slippers, and drove with a pig-whip. He leaned forward on his box, with his legs stretched out on each side of the foot-board, and, having taken the reins in both hands, ascertained their purchase by two or three violent pulls, that brought the horses' heads alternately round in opposite directions; and then setting to work with his whip, and reins still in both hands, started his straggling team through foot-passengers, camels, asses, &c. in a most surprising manner. On his return, however, the horses had got quite steady, and by taking a long circuit (if nothing accidentally interfered), the equipage was safely deposited through a large gateway

into the remise.

The women of the hareem seemed, however, to enjoy this mode of conveyance, and often took long drives, and returned in the evening by torch-light. I once saw, in an exceedingly hot day, four fat women veiled up in a coach, with a black slave sitting, as a guard, on the floor between them. Abbas Pacha had also a close carriage, and a phaeton, and one or two of the Franks had gigs and one-horse chairs: there were also a few carriages at Alexandria.

(To be continued.)

CHARACTERISTICS OF IRISH STEEPLE-CHASING. BY SHAMROCK.

(Continued from page 286.)

THE day being a sort of dies non in the town, the races not coming off until the next, each follower of the turf might have been seen doing a little business on his own account:"-selling horses on time to minors-shewing off the sound ones of their establishments-swopping double-barrelled guns, pistols, coats, saddles, even down to cravats -in fact, engaged in all sorts of skirmishes, merely to keep their hands in for the evening. In the centre of the square was a sallow man, seated in a gig, apparently new, but which, upon investigation, I found only new in paint, with a thorough-bred one in the shafts, whom he kept in a constant state of excitement, fearing that a stand-still would shew the navicular extension of the fore leg; he, the driver, swearing that he hated swopping for unknown goods, and that he had brought his gig and horse into the square to shew to all the world. I had been much struck with the figure of the horse; and, patting him upon the neck, was preparing to put my hand to his fore leg, when he made a sudden bound which made me jump away, and apparently nearly threw his driver out of the gig. "Hallo, sir!" said he, "I beg your pardon; but the fact is, this horse is always restless upon short work, and I only drove him over to-day about eighteen miles. He always does it in an hour and eighteen minutes: could do it in an

hour and ten, for a hundred, with any man. Upon my honour, as a gentleman, I would not take £200 for him, but that he was the property of my poor son; and I think the tremendous force he used to go along with this horse was the cause of his death. With those feelings I part him. He would be a treasure to any person fond of doing long miles in short time." "Would you swop him?" said the snob, with an œillade of magnificent meaning. "No, thank you, sir; I should not. I will take £150 for him, and no less." "Why," said I, turning to the snob, "he is surely down in that off foreleg; and how could he engage him?" "He has n't the slightest idea of selling him; but he wants to impress upon the minds of the hearers the fact that he is sound, and will relate this to-night, when he will be forced to part him by a confederate; which confederate, after giving him £100 and another horse, will also part him to some spoon, and the pair will share the profits between them." "But was he not his son's horse? "Not at all; he only got him the day before yesterday from Luke Coxe, in a knock for a pair of spurs and five sheep." "But is not all this, now, what people would call 'cheating?"" "Cheating! pho, pho! humbug it is only trade.-By the by," said the snob, "he is a very clever fellow that, I can assure you; he gave me a very severe lesson when I first came down to those parts." May I ask how?" "Oh, with pleasure: the fact is, you see, that my elder brother and I do not agree. Having, as second son, by the will of my grandfather, the Earl of B-n, inherited the least encumbered part of the property, my brother, upon my father's death, intimated to me that he did not conceive his property at all sufficient to keep pace with mine, and requested that I would look out for a residence more suitable for a man of my enlarged views. I took him at his word; and, after a stroll through Italy, and a flying visit to Africa, I returned, after a lapse of two years, to my native country; and, having heard this part of the country lauded as the most sporting in Ireland, I ordered down some of my establishment here for the winter's hunting. Now, 'pon my soul, I hate doing any thing by halves, and when my horses arrived, I found that my foreign trip had so increased my weight that my hunters were all under my calibre; I, therefore, in order to get rid of some flesh, determined to buy a racehorse or two, solely to make myself move and bustle about, certainly not as a matter of either speculation or gain, as I need not inform you. In the meantime I understood that this particularly Satanic-looking person had an excellent hunter to dispose of, and I ordered my carriage one morning and drove to see him. I liked him very much, and asked his price. My Erebean friend placed him at £300-too much for me after a rather expensive tour. During the winter I heard occasional reports against the horse, but did not mind them, until one day in March last, by the cover side, I discovered my dark-eyed gentleman coming down the hill, leading his magnificent hunter dead lame; and upon coming up to me I said, 'Hallo, my dear sir, I see Signal is quite lame.' 'Yes;' said he, although he left my stables as sound as a bell, yet he fell lame about a mile from this, and I cannot account for it.' Have you examined him?' said I, thinking such statement a fact. 'Every where,' said he; but as I know you are a judge, perhaps you would be so kind as to look him over for me?' After a close investi

gation, I discovered that the horse had picked up a nail; and having extricated it, the animal, although still tender, evinced great relief. The gratitude of his owner knew no bounds; he swore that I had saved his horse, and that he would not take £500 for him; and he pressed me so urgently to dinner (promising to take care of my horses), that, being over twenty miles from home, I consented, and sat down about seven o'clock with a large party to an excellent dinner. The cloth was scarcely taken away, when a young gentleman upon my left hand addressed me. 'Sir,' said he, did you ride, walk, or come in a gig?' Sir,' I replied, I rode.' 'Very well, sir,' said he, 'I am at the hack you rode.' I was perfectly uninitiated then in the science of swopping, and shall only observe that, before I retired to bed, I got, in a swop, the lame hunter, as my friend called him, for £194 and an excellent hunter of mine. I brought him home the next day, lame still; but I supposed it was only from the inflammation arising from the nail but having kept him poulticed for about a week, and having then tried him, I found the lameness not decreased, and it then struck me that all was not right. A rencontre with a servant whom the demon had parted with, let me into the secret. It appears that the horse could never have been sold as a sound horse, as he had been labouring under contraction of the feet for over two years. This being the case, the late owner of him asked so large a price for him, that no person would offer one: the great point, then, was to part him in a swop for as large a sum as possible. Hearing that I was to be out, he drove a nail into the horse's hoof when near the cover, and then allowed me to extract it-judging, and very rightly, that I would put down his lameness to that cause and buy him. All happened as he foresaw, and I was victimised. It is a façon de parler of this county when a gentleman gets what is called a 'stick' in horseflesh, to say that he is burnt; and accordingly, as I handed him a check upon my agent for the £194, I said to him, I fear, sir, I have been burnt.' His reply was rather a good one; it was-'By my owne soule, sir, if you are not burnid, ye're most greevusly skorchid.'

As I was laughing at the reply, the snob said to me, with a very gentlemanlike bow, "Good morning, sir," and walked away; and turning round, I remarked the Northern jock looking at me with a very comical air. Having been introduced to him before, I said to him, "Well, I never was more deceived in my life: here is a gentleman of large fortune, grandson to an earl, who pursues steeple-chasing, &c. only as an amusement, who I thought was some swindling cosmopolite from unknown regions." "What's that?" said the Northern. I repeated the snob's story, and he laughed heartily. "Well," says he;" 'ye kno yon Chorley is a queer lod, ye kno; he's just as much ground, ye kno, or property, ye kno, as my boy Jem, ye kno, and he hasn't as good a karactir: the only property yon chap will evir have, ye see, will be by running away with some fool of a gurl, ye

see, with money, ye kno; and then his property will be in a ringfince, ye see (if he's not thranspoorted before, ye kno)." "But he mentioned the earl's name," said I. "O, ay, just thot; bit for all, ye see, he's only a jackeen of a Dublin shop-boy, ye see.” “Oh, nonsense! he has a very good address; and, when he likes it, is very much of a gentleman." "So he ought, ye see, for he was taken up from the

shop-board by yon Lord Cs, ye see, and he just, ye kno, made a gentleman of him, ye kno; and he gev him horses, ye see, and that's the weay he went industhrin, ye see: I often bought cravats from him, ye see.' "But then, he gave a large sum, I heard, for the horse to this man?" 'Well, ye see, he neevur gev him a rap, ye see." "How so?" “Why, he gev him a bill, ye kno, upon yon M. P., ye kno; and when it kem round, ye see, yon chap couldn't get it from yon M. P., for he pays nobody, ye see; and when he ausked the other one, he just told him he'd see him to first. He won, ye see, two steeple-chases with yon horse, lame as he is, ye see; and then, when yon chap asked him for half, he said, 'Ye needn't trouble yourself asking me, for you gave me a lame horse, and I gave you a lame bill, ye see; and if ye proceed, I'll just, ye kno, send the horses to Tom's, and I'll tip you the ben in no time.' "What's the ben?" said I. "Just the benefit of the Insolvent Act," quoth the Northern.