er, roots, and lianes--a few flagstones and boulders here and
there will be quite in place; plant the whole with the thickest
pheasant-cover; set a field of huntsmen to find their way through it
at the points of least resistance three times a week during a wet
winter; and if you dare follow their footsteps, you will find a very
accurate imitation of a forest-track in the wet season.

At one place we seemed to be fairly stopped. We plunged and slid
down into a muddy brook, luckily with a gravel bar on which the
horses could stand, at least one by one; and found opposite us a
bank of smooth clay, bound with slippery roots, some ten feet high.
We stood and looked at it, and the longer we looked--in hunting
phrase--the less we liked it. But there was no alternative. Some
one jumped off, and scrambled up on his hands and knees; his horse
was driven up the bank to him--on its knees, likewise, more than
once--and caught staggering among boughs and mud; and by the time
the whole cavalcade was over, horses and men looked as if they had
been brickmaking for a week.

But here again the cunning of these horses surprised me. On one
very steep pitch, for instance, I saw before me two logs across the
path, two feet and more in diameter, and what was worse, not two
feet apart. How the brown cob meant to get over I could not guess;
but as he seemed not to falter or turn tail, as an English horse
would have done, I laid the reins on his neck and watched his legs.
To my astonishment, he lifted a fore-leg out of the abyss of mud,
put it between the logs, where I expected to hear it snap; clawed in
front, and shuffled behind; put the other over the second log, the
mud and water splashing into my face, and then brought the first
freely out from between the logs, and--horrible to see--put a hind
one in. Thus did he fairly walk through the whole; stopped a moment
to get his breath; and then staggered and scrambled upward again, as
if he had done nothing remarkable. Coming back, by the by, those
two logs lay heavy on my heart for a mile ere I neared them. He
might get up over them; but how would he get down again? And I was
not surprised to hear more than one behind me say, 'I think I shall
lead over.' But being in front, if I fell, I could only fall into
the mud, and not on the top of a friend. So I let the brown cob do
what he would, determined to see how far a tropic horse's legs could
keep h