m standing
on an iron step behind and balancing himself by grasping two straps
attached to the back corners of the carriage, a shabbily-harnessed
China pony in the shafts, and the equipage is complete.

The occupants of this triumphal car are either three or four
prosperous-looking Chinamen, clothed in many-coloured silks, or a
posse of gaily-dressed celestial beauties, who, with faces painted
white, lips dyed vermilion, hair caked with oil, garlanded with
flowers, laden with jewels, displaying their tiny satin shoes and
toying with fans in their small and beautiful hands, furnish a
_tout-ensemble_ sufficiently original if not too painfully grotesque.

At Shanghai, certainly, many thousands of ponies are employed, but it
is owing entirely to the influence and example of Europeans.

The majority of men taking up appointments in China are barely out of,
if not still in, their teens, and whether they come straight from
school, from business in the city or from the universities, it is
seldom they have had any large experience of horses. In very many
cases they do not even know how to mount, but finding ponies so cheap,
or, better still, getting a discarded racer as a cumshaw, they take to
riding as naturally as if to the manner born, so that there are but
few residents of either sex who cannot ride, and China ponies
consequently hold a place in the estimation of foreigners which is
altogether denied them by the natives.

From hacking to racing is but a step. The man who has learnt to ride
(or thinks he has), being already a member of the race club, takes his
steed for a quiet canter round the course. The old racer no sooner
finds himself on the familiar track than he is off with the speed of
flames, and our young friend, being powerless to check him, with his
feet out of the stirrups and hanging on to the back of the saddle for
dear life, is carried a mile or so before a sudden swerve at the exit
rail deposits him on the turf.

No bones are broken but the damage is done. Unless the dismounted
cavalier be devoid of all enthusiasm the spirit of racing has
assuredly entered his veins!

In future he will haunt the course with his own luckless hack, he will
attend the training regularly each morning in hopes of getting a mount
on any rank outsider, and will think of little else all day than
riding and ponies.

To some men riding comes naturally, like cricket, while others can
never acquire a good seat.

A light-weight