ericans who never sat even so little as an Atlantic-State's pony, on
coming here presently take to the saddle with all their hearts. In most
of the smaller Californian towns, a very serviceable half- or
quarter-breed saddle-horse is to be had for forty dollars,--the "breed"
portion of his blood being drawn from an Eastern stallion, the remaining
fraction being native or Mustang stock. This animal, if need be, will
live on road-side croppings nearly as well as a mule,--travel all day
long on an easy "lope," never offering to stop till fatigue makes him
fall,--and, if you let him, will take you through _chaparrals_, and up
and down precipices at whose bare suggestion an Eastern horse would
break his legs. Our party, seeking rather more ambitious mounts,
supplied itself, after a tour through the San-Francisco stables, with
saddle-animals at an average of seventy dollars apiece. This, payable in
gold, then amounted to one hundred dollars in notes; but the New-York
market could not have furnished us with such horses for one hundred and
fifty dollars.

It may seem as if, like most cavalcades, we should never get started,
but I must linger a moment to do justice to our accoutrements. If there
be a more perfect saddle than the Californian, I would ride bare-back a
good way to get it. Anything more unlike the slippery little pad on
which we of the East amble about parks and suburban roads cannot be
imagined. It is not for a day, but for all time, and for those who spend
nearly the latter in it. Its wooden skeleton is as scientifically fitted
to the rider's form as an old "_incroyable's_" pair of pantaloons. There
is no such thing as getting tired in or of it. Rising to the lower
lumbar vertebrae behind, and in front terminating gracefully in a
broad-topped pommel, it enables one to lean back in descending, forward
in climbing, the great ridges on the path of California travel,--thus
affording capital relief both to one's self and one's horse, and
bringing in both from a fifty-miles' march comparatively unjaded.

The stirrups of this saddle are broad hickory hoops, shaped nearly like
an Omega upside-down (U)[Transcriber's note: upside down Omega], left
unpolished so as to afford the most unshakable footing, covered with a
half-shoe of the stoutest leather, which renders it impossible for the
toe to slip through or the ankle to foul under any circumstances.
Attached to the straps from which these swing is a wide and neatly
orname