distance, came very near to our modern inventions.

But in this discourse of horses and horsemanship, we are not to forget
the pleasant posture of one Maistre Pierre Pol, a doctor of divinity,
upon his mule, whom Monstrelet reports always to have ridden sideways
through the streets of Paris like a woman. He says also, elsewhere, that
the Gascons had terrible horses, that would wheel in their full speed,
which the French, Picards, Flemings, and Brabanters looked upon as a
miracle, "having never seen the like before," which are his very words.

Caesar, speaking of the Suabians: "in the charges they make on
horseback," says he, "they often throw themselves off to fight on foot,
having taught their horses not to stir in the meantime from the place,
to which they presently run again upon occasion; and according to their
custom, nothing is so unmanly and so base as to use saddles or pads, and
they despise such as make use of those conveniences: insomuch that, being
but a very few in number, they fear not to attack a great many." That
which I have formerly wondered at, to see a horse made to perform all his
airs with a switch only and the reins upon his neck, was common with the
Massilians, who rid their horses without saddle or bridle:

"Et gens, quae nudo residens Massylia dorso,
Ora levi flectit, fraenorum nescia, virga."

["The Massylians, mounted on the bare backs of their horses,
bridleless, guide them by a mere switch."--Lucan, iv. 682.]

"Et Numidae infraeni cingunt."

["The Numidians guiding their horses without bridles."