be able once more to sit a horse and enjoy a gallop at
all. And to watch the wild cavalry at their exercises on a broad plain
outside the town was a pretty sight, though it seemed to him that their
performances were too much of the circus order.

"Can the English dragoons or hussars do anything like that?" the Sheikh
Burrachee asked him one day, when they were together watching a body of
horsemen who were supposed to be skirmishing.

They pulled up their horses to a dead halt from a gallop with their
cruel bits; went, not over the head, as it seemed they must, but under
the body of the animal; fired a shot from that position, and remounted
anyhow--one by the neck, another over the tail; a third ran alongside
his horse for some way, using him as cover, and then vaulted on his back
without checking the pace.

Harry was bound to confess that, to the best of his belief, no British
regiment, light or heavy, could rival such equestrian gymnastics.

"No," said the sheikh; "they learn to stick on while the horse keeps his
footing, but these cannot be thrown; for should the horse fall, even, he
jumps at once to the ground."

"But surely he must reach it head or shoulder first sometimes," objected
Harry.

"No," replied his uncle; "he turns a somersault and alights on his feet.
The European is as far behind the Asiatic in horsemanship as in
everything else which is manly and not demoniac. The use of the sword,
for example. The dragoon has a straight weapon, with which he is taught
to cut or thrust. If he does the former, and the blow is not parried,
he may knock his opponent down, but he seldom inflicts a dangerous
wound. If he gives point, he may kill his man indeed, but his weapon
will often become so entangled that he is for some time unable to free
it, and he remains defenceless against another attack. But with his
curved blade of temper, which will not shiver and which takes a razor's
edge, the warrior of the East neither strikes nor gives point, but
presents the half-moon-shaped sword at his opponent, holding it still if
galloping, pushing it forward if motionless, and will so slice off limb
or head, or cut deep into the body, without useless expenditure of
strength, or the chance of losing even the momentary control of his
weapon. I have seen an Arab meet an enemy in full career, and slice his
head clean off in this way, with hardly a perceptible movement of the
arm."

Having no knowledge on this subject, Har