“The Gauchos are well known to be perfect riders. The idea of being thrown, let the horse do what it likes, never enters their heads. Their criterion of a good rider is a man who can manage an untamed colt, or who, if his horse falls, alights on his own feet, or can perform such exploits. I have heard of a man betting that he would throw his horse down twenty times, and that nineteen times he would not fall himself. I recollect seeing a Gaucho riding a very stubborn horse, which three times successively reared so high as to fall backwards with great violence. The man judged with uncommon coolness the proper moment for slipping off, not an instant before or after the right time; and as soon as the horse got up the man jumped on his back, and at last they started at a gallop. The Gaucho never appears to exert any muscular force. I was one day watching a good rider, as we were galloping along at a rapid pace, and thought to myself, surely if the horse starts, you appear so careless on your seat, you must fall. At this moment a young ostrich sprang from its nest right beneath the horse’s nose. The young colt bounded to one side like a stag; but as for the man, all that could be said was that he started and took fright with his horse.” And again Darwin writes in reference to balance without apparent muscular effort, “Each morning, from not having ridden for some time previously I was very stiff, I was surprised to hear the Gauchos, who have from infancy almost lived on horseback, say that under similar circumstances they always suffer. St. Jago told me that, having been confined for three months by illness, he went out hunting wild cattle, and, in consequence, for the next two days his thighs were so stiff that he was obliged to lie in bed. This shows that the Gauchos, although they do not appear to do so, yet really must exert much muscular effort in riding.” The guides, in the same way, do not appear to exert much muscular effort, but great power is there both latent and manifest, and none of it is wasted in a useless manner. There is even found in climbing that ars celare which is so pretty in figure-skating.
FOOT OF A SWISS GUIDE.
The angle made by the foot with the leg without pressure. From a photograph by Captain Abney.
For an example of strength in balance, combined with bending at the ankle-joint, a climbing friend of mine, who is as graceful as a Greek athlete, and has a good balance, maintaining his equilibrium with the least possible muscular effort in mountaineering, has given me the study of carpet athletics photographed below. It represents two positions in the feat of standing on one foot, sitting slowly down, and then getting up again with the same leg without touching the floor except with the buttock. It is best not to attempt this performance often after the age of fifty, but it is no matter to mountaineers, for on the Alps all of them are of the same age, i.e. about five and twenty.
