Bolting, or Running Away, is often the result of want of exercise, but sometimes it is a systematic vice. A powerful bit and a steady seat, with good hands, are the best means of grappling with this habit, which is sometimes a very dangerous one. If the pony really runs away, the rider should not pull dead at his mouth, but should relax his hold for a short time, and then take a sharp pull, which is often effectual. A good gallop until he is tired will often cure a runaway for the rest of his life. There are a variety of bits intended expressly to counteract this vice, such as the Hanoverian Pelham, the curb with a high port, &c.; but nothing is perfectly effectual where there is a determination to run away. A nose-band has lately been invented for the purpose, which answers better than anything hitherto brought out; it consists of a long nose-band which crosses behind the jaw and then hooks on to the bit in the same way as the ordinary curb-chain. When the rein is pulled hard, this nose-band is drawn tight round the jaw, by which the mouth is closed, and the port is pressed strongly against the roof of the mouth, causing a great degree of pain, sufficient to stop most horses. This powerful remedy, which has been named the Bucephalus nose-band, should not lightly be used; but in the case of a runaway horse, or pony, it is the only really efficacious one.
ROWING.
“A boat, a boat, is the toy for me,
To rollic about in on river and sea;
To be a child of the breeze and the gale,
And like a wild bird on the deep to sail,
This is the life for me!”—Procter.
HISTORICAL MEMORANDA.
The sea service is the glory of Old England, notwithstanding all the glorious land service of ancient and modern days. A country having nearly ten thousand miles of sea-coast, with numerous ports, harbours, estuaries, river mouths, and capacious bays, must ever be a maritime nation, and look for its supremacy to the sea—to her sons being amphibious; and nothing is better calculated to develop the inherent instinct for sea duties than the amusements of boating, of rowing, of sailing, and other aquatic sports. Every young gentleman in England should know how to manage a boat, and to sail a cutter; and it will be our duty to initiate him into the methods of doing so.
The origin of ships must be traced to the ark of Noah; but this was not a sailing or a rowing vessel, but simply a large floating house or receptacle for Noah and his family, and the various types of animated nature. The first navigators were the Phœnicians, who sailed in various seas. They were succeeded by the ships of Carthage, Egypt, Venice, Genoa, Holland, and Portugal. The Saxons under Alfred, and the Danes under Canute, had formidable navies. Alfred, who ascended the throne in 872, commenced the first English fleet in person, and is said to have suggested a variety of improvements in the structure, as well as greatly to have increased the size of the vessels, some of the largest of which carried sixty oars. After the death of Alfred, the naval power of England seems to have lain dormant; and this, no doubt, tempted the Norman invasion in 1066, under William the Bastard, who sailed for the coast of England with a fleet of 900 vessels; and so sensible was he of the importance of the naval service, that he gave certain privileges to certain towns on the sea-coast, which were from their number called the Cinque Ports. Richard I. fitted out large fleets; and his successor, John, asserted the exclusive right of the English nation to the dominion of the seas. The reign of Edward I. was also distinguished for successes at sea. Henry VII., on gaining the throne, in 1485, put the navy into a respectable condition; and a large ship, called the “Great Harry,” which may properly be termed the first ship of the British navy, was built at a cost of 14,000l. The discovery of America, about the period of the accession of Henry VIII., gave a new stimulus to our navy, and many ships were then built of large tonnage, some of a thousand tons. But Queen Elizabeth, deeply impressed with the maxim, that “whosoever commands the sea, commands the trade of the world,” and that “whosoever commands the trade, commands the riches of the world,” and consequently the world itself, so encouraged and restored the marine, that she may be called the “Restorer of the naval power of England;” and, in a few years after, the invasion of the Spanish Armada put our naval power to the proof. Charles I., the great and courageous Cromwell, and even the pleasure-loving Charles II., were all impressed with the great advantages of a formidable navy; and in the reign of Anne, fifty-two French ships, containing more than 3,000 guns, were captured. And during the reign of George III. the naval superiority was placed by a series of glorious successes beyond all dispute; and it is to be hoped that the reign of our beloved Queen Victoria, who is herself a sailor, and full of every generous aspiration that belongs to a British Tar, will, notwithstanding the “mistakes of the Admiralty,” prove that England still retains the sovereignty of the ocean, and on that element she will defy the world.