nature of the country. In Chile, a horse is not considered perfectly broken, till he can be brought up standing, in the midst of his full speed, on any particular spot,-for instance on a cloak thrown on the ground; or, again, he will charge a wall, and rearing scrape the surface with his hoofs. I have seen an animal bounding with spirit, yet merely reined by a forefinger and thumb, taken at full gallop across a courtyard, and then made to reel round the post of a verandah with great speed, but at so equal a distance, that the rider, with outstretched arm, all the while kept one finger rubbing the post. Then making a demi-volte in the air, with the other arm outstretched in a like manner, he wheeled round, with astonishing force, in an opposite direction.

Such a horse is well broken; and although this at first may appear useless, it is far otherwise. It is only carrying that which is daily necessary into perfection. When a bullock is checked and caught by the lazo, it will sometimes gallop round and round in a circle, and the horse being alarmed at the great strain, if not well broken, will not readily turn like the pivot of a wheel. In consequence many men have been killed; for if the lazo once takes a twist round a man's body, it will instantly, from the power of the two opposed animals, almost cut him in twain. On the same principle the races are managed; the course is only two or three hundred yards long, the wish being to have horses that can make a rapid dash. The racehorses are trained not only to stand with their hoofs touching

a line, but to draw all four feet together, so as at the first spring to bring into play the full action of the hind-quarters. In Chile I was told an anecdote, which I believe was true: and it offers a good illustration of the use of a well-broken animal. A respectable man riding one day met two others, one of whom was mounted on a horse which he knew to have been stolen from himself. He challenged them; they answered him by drawing their sabres, and giving chase. The man, on his good and fleet beast, kept just ahead: as he passed a thick bush he wheeled round it, and brought up his horse to a dead check. The pursuers were obliged to shoot on one side and ahead. Then instantly dashing on right behind them, he buried his knifein the back of one, wounded the other, recovered his horse from the dying robber, and rode home. For these feats of horsemanship two things are necessary: a most severe bit, like the Mameluke, the power of which, though seldom used, the horse knows full well; and large blunt spurs, that can be applied either as a mere touch, or as an instrument of extreme pain. I conceive that with English spurs, the slightest touch of which pricks the skin, it would be impossible to break in a horse after the South American fashion.

C. Darwin.

XIII.

ON THE SIGHT OF SHOPS.

To begin then, where our shopping experience began, with the toy-shop.

"Visions of glory, spare our aching sight!

Ye just breech'd ages, crowd not on our soul!”

We still seem to have a lively sense of the smell of that gorgeous red paint which was on the handle of our first wooden sword. The pewter guard also, how beautifully fretted and like silver did it look! How did we hang it round our shoulder by the proud belt of an old ribbon; then feel it well suspended; then draw it out of the sheath, eager to cut down four savage men for ill-using ditto of damsels! An old muff made an excellent grenadier's cap; or one's hat and feather, with the assistance of three surreptitious large pins, became fiercely modern and military. There it is, in that corner of the window,-the same identical sword, to all appearance, which kept us awake the first night behind our pillow. We still feel ourselves little boys, while standing in this shop; and for that matter, so we do on other occasions. A field has as much merit in our eyes, and gingerbread almost as much in our mouths, as at that daisyplucking and lemon-cake-munching period of life.

There is the trigger-rattling gun, fine of its kind,

but not so complete a thing as the sword. Its memories are not so ancient; for Alexander or St. George did not fight with a musket. Neither is it so true a thing-it is not "like life." The trigger is too much like that of a crossbow; and the pea which it shoots, however hard, produces even in the imaginative faculties of boyhood a humiliating flash of the mock-heroic. It is difficult to fancy a dragon killed with a pea; but the shape and appurtenances of the sword being genuine, the whole sentiment of massacre is as much in its wooden blade as if it were steel of Damascus.

The drum is still more real, though not so heroic. In the corner opposite are battledores and shuttlecocks, which have their maturer beauties; balls, which have the additional zest of the danger of breaking people's windows; ropes, good for swinging and skipping, especially the long ones which others turn for you, while you run in a masterly manner up and down, or skip in one spot with an easy and endless exactitude of toe, looking alternately at their conscious faces; blood-allies, with which the possessor of a crisp finger and thumbknuckle causes the smitten marbles to vanish out of the ring; kites, which must appear to more vital birds a very ghastly kind of fowl, with their grim long white faces, no bodies, and endless tails; cricket bats, manly to handle; trap-bats, a genteel inferiority; swimming-corks, despicable; horses on wheels, an imposition on the infant public; rockinghorses, too much like Pegasus, ardent, yet never getting on; Dutch toys, so like life, that they ought

to be better; Jacob's ladders, flapping down one over another their tintinnabulary shutters; dissected maps, from which the infant statesman may learn how to dovetail provinces and kingdoms; paper posture-makers, who hitch up their knees against their shoulder-biades, and dangle their legs like an opera-dancer; Lilliputian plates, dishes, and other household utensils, in which a grand dinner is served up out of half an apple; boxes of paints, to colour engravings with, always beyond the outline; ditto of bricks, a very sensible and lasting toy, which we except from a grudge we have against the gravity of infant geometrics; whips, very useful for cutting people's eyes unawares; hoops, one of the most ancient as well as excellent of toys; sheets of pictures, from "A," apple pie, up to farming, military, and zoological exhibitions, always taking care that the fly is as large as the elephant, and the letter "X" exclusively appropriated to Xerxes; musical deal-boxes, rather complaining than sweet, and more like a peal of bodkins than bells; penny trumpets, awful at Bartlemy-tide; Jews'-harps, that thrill and breathe between the lips like a metal tongue; carts, carriages, hobbyhorses, upon which the infant equestrian prances about proudly on his own feet; in short, not to go through the whole representative body of existence,-dolls, which are so dear to the maternal instincts of little girls. We protest, however, against that abuse of them which makes them fulldressed young ladies in body, while they remain infants in face; especially when they are of frail