they had wrongly attributed to scurvy such symptoms as rash on the body,
swollen legs and ankles, which were rather the result of excessive
fatigue. I may add that we had these signs on our return from the Winter
Journey.

Then there were lectures on Geology by Debenham, on birds and beasts and
also on Sketching by Wilson, on Surveying by Evans: but perhaps no
lecture remains more vividly in my memory than that given by Oates on
what _we_ called 'The Mismanagement of Horses.' Of course to all of us
who were relying upon the ponies for the first stage of the Southern
Journey the subject was of interest as well as utility, but the greater
share of interest centred upon the lecturer, for it was certainly
supposed that taciturn Titus could not have concealed about his person
the gift of the gab, and it was as certain as it could be that the whole
business was most distasteful to him. Imagine our delight when he proved
to have an elaborate discourse with full notes of which no one had seen
the preparation. "I have been fortunate in securing another night," he
mentioned amidst mirth, and proceeded to give us the most interesting and
able account of the minds and bodies of horses in general and ours in
particular. He ended with a story of a dinner-party at which he was a
guest, probably against his will. A young lady was so late that the party
sat down to dinner without waiting longer. Soon she arrived covered with
blushes and confusion. "I'm so sorry," she said, "but that horse was the
limit, he ..." "Perhaps it was a jibber," suggested her hostess to help
her out. "No, he was a ----. I heard the cabby tell him so several
times."

Titus Oates was the most cheerful and lovable old pessimist that you
could imagine. Often, after tethering and feeding our ponies at a night
camp on the Barrier, we would watch the dog-teams coming up into camp.
"I'll give these dogs ten days more," he would murmur in a voice such as
some people used when they heard of a British victory. I am acquainted
with so few dragoons that I do not know their general characteristics.
Few of them, I imagine, would have gone about with the slouch which
characterized his method of locomotion, nor would many of them have dined
in a hat so shabby that it was picked off the peg and passed round as a
curiosity.

He came to look after the horses, and as an officer in the Inniskillings
he, no doubt, had excellent training. But his skill went far deeper than
that. Th