The arms looked tolerably clean and serviceable; but bridle-bits,
bosses, spurs, and accoutrements were crusted with rust and grime;
boots, buttons, and clothing were innocent of the brush as the horses'
coats of the curry-comb. The most careful grooming could not have made
the generality of these animals look anything but ragged and
weedy--rather dear at the Government price of 115-120 dollars,--and
their housings were not calculated to set them off to advantage. The
saddle--a modification of the Mexican principle of raw-hide stretched
over a wooden frame--carries little metal-work; it is lighter, I think,
than ours, and more abruptly peaked, but not uncomfortable; being thrown
well off the spine and withers, there is little danger of sore backs
with ordinary care in settling the cloth or blanket. The heavy clog of
wood and leather, closed in front, and only admitting the fore-part of
the foot, which serves as a stirrup, is unsightly in the extreme; its
advantages are said to be, protection from the weather, and the
impossibility of the rider's entanglement: but the sole has no grip
whatever, and rising to give full effect to a sabre-cut would be out of
the question. Besides a halter, a single rein, attached to rather a
clumsy bit, is the usual trooper's equipment: to this is attached the
inevitable ring-martingale, without which few Federal cavaliers, civil
or military, would consider themselves safe.
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