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In our judgment, the most insecure seat we have ever noticed is that of the French dragoon. The fault lies in having the stirrup too long. The ancients, it must be remembered, rode entirely without stirrups, which were not invented until the fifth century, nor adopted into general use until the twelfth, when it was still thought a mark of dexterity to dispense with them. In all cases the heel should be sunk, and the toe well up. This position gets the muscles of the leg in good holding condition. A dependent toe entails a loose, relaxed seat, and such we consider to be the vice of the French school of military equitation. In the simplicity of their horse equipments, they go beyond us with advantage. As a general rule, they have no unnecessary ornament, and thus the men are spared superfluous manual labour. Nothing is kept bright that can be as serviceable when bronzed; nothing polished that mere wiping will keep clean. One extra appointment they carry, which struck us as very judicious. This is an additional curbchain, fastened over the poll-piece of the bridle, thereby serving as a defensive armour, until required for its legitimate purpose. A very practical and useful supercession of the brazen paraphernalia that encumber some of our dragoon bridles.

The dress of the modern hussar, as we have previously observed, is perhaps the most useless and cumbersome monstrosity which has ever grown by degrees out of a very simple original. Look at it in the picture (page 142), or in any living exemplar, as he rides through the streets, carrying unimportant orders, or invitations to dinners and balls, the principal peace duties he has to perform. There he is, squeezed into a tight, braided jacket, with another of exactly the same size and shape dangling over his left shoulder. He could not put it on over the first, if his life depended on it. What is it intended for? He has not the most remote idea, and would give something to any one who would rid him of the oppressive incumbrance, provided he could only connive at the abduction, without being brought in as "particeps criminis."

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Captain Nolan opens his book with an interesting historical sketch of the most remarkable cavalry actions of ancient and modern times. The selection is well made; but he might have included Zama, which was decided by the timely return of Scipio's horse from the pursuit of the enemy; and Borodino, where Caulaincourt the younger (brother of the Duke of Vicenza), with his heavy cuirassiers, stormed the great Russian redoubt, and afforded Napoleon the opportunity of converting that profitless victory into a second Austerlitz, had he followed up success with his early vigour. The most extraordinary cavalry feat ever recorded in history, either ancient or modern, is the capture of the Dutch fleet at the Texel, in the severe winter of 1795, by the French hussars of Pichegru, who galloped across the plains of ice, charged boldly on to the very decks of the vessels as they lay frozen up at anchor, and took possession of them without resistance.* Our author does not consider that the best cavalry officers of the French empire, even including Murat, would have been called good by Frederick the Great. This opinion sounds rather startling, as we have been so long accustomed to look on the brilliant King of Naples as ranking in the very first class. Napoleon said, at St. Helena, that had Murat been in the field at Waterloo, he would have broken the English squares. The Duke of Wellington thought differently. Captain Nolan is of opinion that masses of cavalry, skilfully handled, may frequently prevail against infantry, and cites many wellknown instances. Colonel Mitchell, and other military authorities, have gone further, and affirmed that they will also do so. Why, then, did they not succeed at Waterloo? We must refer our readers to the elaborate reasoning on all sides for a scientific answer. For ourselves, we are satisfied that there are such steady elements in the composition of British infantry, that they are in no danger from the attacks of cavalry, unless unskilfully disposed and taken by surprise. We do not think any other foot soldiers in the world have the same enduring qualities, with a corresponding confi

See Jomini, "Histoire Critique et Militaire des Guerres de la Revolution."—Vol. vi.

p. 268.

dence in their own superiority; which latter feeling goes far to ensure their

success.

In

A very important doctrine is strongly urged by Captain Nolan - namely, that speed, not weight, is the grand desideratum in a cavalry onset. evidence of this, he appeals to the prodigies performed by the gallant horsemen of Gustavus Adolphus and Charles the Twelfth, who were light men, mounted upon Swedish, Friesland, or Livonian nags or ponies; and to the formidable charges of Cossacks, who have frequently driven steel-clad cuirassiers before them, and scattered masses of infantry, which heavy troopers were unable to shake. He also thinks little of the lance, and regards it rather as a clumsy and ineffective weapon. In the thirty years' war, the King of Sweden took away the lances from his cavalry. He had practically ascer tained their inefficiency. Many of our Indian officers are great advocates for this cumbrous appendage. The late General Cureton, himself a lancer, may be cited as a strong authority on the other side. He used to say that he could make six good swordsmen for one efficient lancer. The lance acts somewhat as the pilum or javelin did in the hands of the Roman soldier. He commenced offensive operations with it, but soon gave it up, and trusted to his sword. We won all our battles without lancers or cuirassiers, opposed to an enemy who had both. Nevertheless, no sooner was the war concluded, than we adopted the appointments which had proved so ineffective when employed against us. Truly, the game of war is too serious and expensive to permit that outward show should supersede utility. We cannot afford to play at soldiers, or to convert such stern realities into a theatrical pageant. When we take the field again with a large army, it would be a good beginning to leave the lances and cuirasses at home en depôt, packed up, and to wait till called for.

Captain Nolan introduces an anecdote of a single combat which took place at Waterloo between a German hussar of our army and a French cuirassier, his object being to show the superiority of the former over the latter. The incident is originally related by Serjeant-Major Cotton..

"A hussar and a cuirassier had got entangled in the melee, and met in the plain in full view of our line. The hussar was without a cap, and bleeding from a wound in the head; but that did not hinder him from attacking his steel-clad adversary. He soon proved that the strength of cavalry consists in good horsemanship, and the skilful use of the sword, and not in being covered with heavy defensive armour. The superiority of the hussar was visible the moment the swords crossed. After a few wheels, a tremendous facer made the Frenchman reel in the saddle, and all his attempts to escape his more active foe became unavailing. A second blow stretched him on the ground, amidst the cheers of the light horseman's comrades, the 3rd German Hussars, who were ardent spectators of the combat."

The popular opinion on the Continent is in favour of light cavalry, and many eminent authorities have published their opinions on the subject. Various extracts from these are scat. tered through Captain Nolan's volume, to which we must refer our readers, who will then be enabled to weigh the respective value of the arguments. His own view is very clearly expressed as follows:

"Heavy cavalry should have the largest and most powerful horses; but the men and their accoutrements should be light. If you weight the powerful horses with heavy men and accoutrements, you bring them to a level with smaller and weaker horses. Thus a great heavy man in armour, on a fine strong horse, could not catch or ride down a Cossack on a good pony; but the same horse, with a light, active man on his back, would ride down a dozen of such Cossacks, one after the other."

This reasoning appears to us as conclusive as a theorem in mathematics, or a syllogism in logic. He then proceeds thus:

"In a charge, the same horses with light weights will, by their speed and impulsive power, ride down or over obstacles which would certainly stop them if heavily weighted. The heavier the man, the less available the high qualities of the horse, and the less formidable the man on his back. What (except, perhaps, the want of opportunity) is to prevent our armour-clad household cavalry from meeting with the same fate, at the hands of some active and determined light horsemen, as befell the brave French cuirassiers when they were shot and speared off their horses by the Cossacks?"

*A Voice from Waterloo."

These are important considerations. It is bad to be beaten at all, but far worse to be beaten by an inferior and contemptible enemy, who dares only to attack because he knows you have neutralised your own superior power. We remember the combat between Saladin and the Prince of Scotland in "The Talisman." The strength and weight of knightly panoply were of no avail against the lightning-like rapidity of the horseman of the desert, who galloped round and round, and exhausted his heavy opponent without winding himself or courser.

It is manifest that the efficacy of the dragoon depends equally on a judicious selection and aptitude of man and horse. Again, Captain Nolan remarks with sound truth, every man may be taught to ride, but it is not every man who will make a good rider. In this, as in other peculiarities, each individual has his gifts, and without them you cannot force nature. It is so with almost every accomplishment-from painting and sculpture, to fencing, shooting at a mark, and dancing, inclusive. The character and attributes of the horse require to be studied with as much attention as those of the man. He is called upon to perform duties beyond those of mere habit and instinct, and, from the moment that he is enlisted, should be treated as a rational being. There was something beyond mere folly passing in the mind of Caligula when he made his favourite charger a consul. "Write up in golden letters," says our author, or in letters distinguishable

and easy to read, in every riding-school and in every stable-HORSES ARE TAUGHT, NOT BY HARSHNESS, BUT BY

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GENTLENESS. The precept comes from Xenophon, and is not the less to be followed because ancient and classical. If you want to govern your horse's temper, you must never lose your own.

All cavalry officers will undoubtedly read Captain Nolan's volume, and none will consider they have wasted their time. There are many details we have not space to touch upon, and numerous strictures on other points fully as essential as those we have selected for special notice. With such glaring defects as exist at present, it seems almost miraculous that our mounted troops have maintained their high position; but when improvement is so easy, and leading impediments so clearly pointed out, we trust the authorities will allow this praiseworthy effort to find favour in their eyes, and not cast it aside without a fair examination. The avowed object of the author is to advance that branch of the service of which he appears to be a very enthusiastic member, and to assist young beginners in gaining a knowledge of their profession. Unless some one leads the way to amelioration, and meets with encouragement, old errors will continue to perpetuate themselves by prescriptive right. There is not much wisdoin in being content with the second place when we have the power of filling the first; neither can we laud the qualified ambition which pauses at mediocrity when excellence is within reach.

CASTILE AND ANDALUCIA.*

For a tourist to write a clever, amusing book on Spain, and at the same time a true one, is no easy matter. So many influences tend to give a mistaken colouring to the opinions of a foreigner; so many contradictions and incongruities he witnesses; so many social and political paradoxes, and, in nine cases out of ten, so totally a different state of things from what he anticipated, that it requires not only a residence of some duration in the country, but an observant eye and a judicious mind to see things as they are, freed from prejudice and misconception. Of the numerous works which have been published upon Spain, we know of none in which this task has been more successfully and more gracefully accomplished, than in the splendid volume whose title we have given above. Not only is it a charming contribution to the literature of the day, brought out in the most striking and attractive manner, but one well entitled, from the thorough knowledge of the country which it evinces, and the spirit of truth and candour in which it is written, to be ranked among works of real and intrinsic value. To none will its perusal afford more pleasure, or at whose hands will it receive more warm commendation than those who, from their personal knowledge of the subject, are best capable of judging and appreciating its merits. There may, doubtless, be many readers whom the style of the book may not exactly suit, who, in taking up a tour in Spain, expect and care only to find a succession of exciting and diverting incidents. To them we would suggest their devoting their literary leisure to some other and more imaginative book; but to that other class, who read for information as well as amusement who wish to see things as they are, and know the country as it is-who can appreciate the beauties of nature in the wild Sierra, and those of art in glorious temples and mouldering ruins -- who can dwell with pleasure among the monuments of the past, and who seek

to learn what the stranger may and may not expect to find in visiting Spain, we unhesitatingly recommend the perusal of "Castile and Andalucia." That it should be illustrated, as it is, in a style of unusual excellence, might well be expected from the same gifted pencil, which has already given. to the public its "Sketches in the East;" but what impressed us as the peculiar characteristic of this volume is, its careful avoidance of all exaggeration-its spirit of truthfulness; and, while entering into questions of great difficulty on the religious, social, and political condition of the country, its entire freedom from prejudice.

In style it is unaffected. at times even to carelessness; but always rising, when the subject invites it, into elegance and high descriptive power. Of the opportunity which a residence of some two years afforded, of studying the history, language, and literature of Spain, the authoress seems to have diligently availed herself; and thus we have also the advantage of inferring that her opinions are not the result of crude, hasty impressions, but of personal experience, and an intimate acquaintance with her subject — advantages of which, we are bound to acknowledge, she has availed herself with good taste, good feeling, and very great ability.

The authoress lands at Malaga, whither she proceeded with her family, to spend the winter of 1850. She, too, seems to have shared in all those notions about Spain and Spaniards, so common in the world :

"No one," she 66 says, can approach Spain without feelings of the deepest interest, different, indeed from those which animate the traveller, on first seeing the more classic shores of Greece or Italy; but still of a character which awakens many astirring thought and cherished recollection.

Spain has been ever the favoured land of romance; and some of her greatest heroes live but in the wild verses of her ballads. There is still a charm in this land of bygone chivalry, which lingers about it, even after

"Castile and Andalucia." By Lady Louisa Tenison. London: Bentley. 1853.

a long residence in the country, and an acquaintance with the sad realities of its present state have gone far to dispel the dreams in which imagination had so long indulged."

Not long, however, are we denizens of the soil, and settled in our quarters at the Fonda de la Alameda (then a very tolerable, but now certainly one of the best hotels in Spain), and admired on the promenade the charming effect of the gay mantilla, when one of the most popular of those "dreams" is thus "dispelled " :

"I know that I shall be accused of insensibility and want of taste, when I confess that my first disappointment on landing in Spain was the almost total absence of beauty amongst the Spanish women. Poets have sung of Spain's 'dark-glancing daughters,' and travellers have wandered through the country, with minds so deeply impressed with the preconceived idea of the beauty of the women, that they have found them all their imaginations so fondly pictured, and their works have fostered, what I cannot help maintaining, is a mere delusion; one of the many in which people still indulge when they think and dream of Spain. The women of Spain have magnificent eyes, beautiful hair, and generally fine teeth; but more than that cannot be said by those who are content to give an honest and candid opinion. I have rarely seen one whose features could be called strictly beautiful, and that bewitching grace and fascination about their figures and their walk which they formerly possessed, have disappeared with the high comb which supported the mantilla, and the narrow basquina, which gave a peculiar character to their walk. With the change in their costume, those distinctive charms have vanished. The gaudy colours which now prevail have destroyed the elegance that always accompanies black, in which alone, some years since, a lady could appear in public. No further proof of this is required than to see the same people at church, where black is still considered indispensable, and on the Alameda with red dresses and yellow shawls, or some colours equally gaudy, and combined with as little regard to taste. The men have likewise abandoned the cloak, and now appear in paletots and every variety of foreign invention: nor have they either gained by their sacrifices at the altar of French fashion. By no means distinguished in figure, none needed more the rich folds of the capa to lend them that air of grace and dignity which it peculiarly possesses."-p. 7.

Malaga has become of late years rather a favourite place with the faculty, to which to send those patients

VOL. XLIII.-NO. CCLIII.

for whom a genial climate is supposed to be the best restorative; and in many cases, doubtless, there could not be a better selection. Dry it is, to an extraordinary degree; and to any one accustomed to a northern winter, a Christmas spent on that sheltered shore of the Mediterranean is as warm and sunny as our "balmy month of May." To some, that alone would be all-sufficient. - to look out upon the calm blue waves, to inhale the gentle south wind, as it breathes pure and fresh across those inland waters; and when the setting sun sinks behind the distant mountains of Tarifa, to retire for the night, content with the tranquil enjoyment of the day, and with the consoling prospect that each successive one will be a repetition of that which preceded it. But to many, such a monotonous existence would more than neutralise the benefit of climate; and it might be a question well deserving the serious attention of medical men, in sending people about the world in search of health, to ascertain not only the respective physical, but the ethnological condition of the patient and the place, in order that both may harmonise as much as possible in producing the result desired. Of the claims of Malaga in this respect, we may judge from the following:

Its

"The last few years Malaga has become a very favourite residence for invalids. climate certainly is exceedingly mild and genial; and the invalid who can obtain rooms facing the sun will seldom suffer from cold during the winter. There is but little rain in fact, its excessive dryness might be hurtful to some constitutions, to which the moister air of Madeira might prove more beneficial. It is, however, occasionally visited by bitter winds, called the Terral, which are the warmest in summer, and coldest in winter. They blow across the plain to the westward of the town; and while they prevail, the want of rain makes the dust quite insupportable, particularly in the Alameda. A cloudless sky and glowing sun may offer great and deserved attractions to the invalid, whose hopes are all centred upon climate; but let no one be tempted to fix on Malaga as a residence, for any other rea

son.

"Society there is none; and, with the exception of the theatre, there are no amusements whatever which could contribute to make time pass agreeably, and no objects of interest to attract the attention of the traveller. With the exception of Madrid, there is

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