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Besides, sore backs are not confined to side saddles, for every hunting man, at some period or other, has had a sore-backed horse in his stable. My argument against the adoption of men's saddles is, in the first place, that such saddles afford us far less security of seat than we obtain in our own; for I do not think that men could ride, as we can, over fences without the aid of the reins.
All at once, when one is jogging along stupidly in the sun, and thinking about something ever so far away, here they come, at a stormy gallop, spurring and whooping at those ridgy old sore-backed plugs till their heels fly higher than their heads, and as they whiz by, out comes a little potato-gun of a revolver, there is a startling little pop, and a small pellet goes singing through the air.
How would Washington's farewell address sound now in a phonograph, or some of George's choice swear words at a slave that had ridden a sore-backed mule down to Alexandria after a jug of rum. I would like to run a phonograph show with nothing in the machine but ancient talk from George Washington, but we can have no such luck unless George is born again.
For, many a rebel soldier "hopeless now for his cause," as Richard Hunt was wont to say, "fighting from pride, bereft of sympathy, aid, and encouragement that he once received, and compelled to wring existence from his own countrymen; a cavalryman on some out-post department, perhaps, without rations, fluttering with rags; shod, if shod at all, with shoes that sucked in rain and cold; sleeping at night under the blanket that kept his saddle by day from his sore-backed horse; paid, if paid at all, with waste paper; hardened into recklessness by war many a rebel soldier thus became a guerrilla consoling himself, perhaps, with the thought that his desertion was not to the enemy."
Even our soldier attendant, as soon as the wooden saddle was taken from his sore-backed government steed, would produce his portable lamp, and proceed to melt on his needle the wax-like contents of a small, black box. When of the proper consistency, the paste was rolled on a metal plate to point it for the aperture in the flute-shaped pipe.
All at once, when one is jogging along stupidly in the sun, and thinking about something ever so far away, here they come, at a stormy gallop, spurring and whooping at those ridgy old sore-backed plugs till their heels fly higher than their heads, and as they whiz by, out comes a little potato-gun of a revolver, there is a startling little pop, and a small pellet goes singing through the air.
He was quite feeble next morning when I put him on the old sore-backed mule, where he rode most of the time for the next four days, while the little horse carried our baggage, and I led the way as usual, on foot.
Behind the house that is, at the hinder end of it was a small corral, its walls rudely constructed with fragments of rock. In this stood three lean and sore-backed mules, and a brace of mustangs no better off. There was a field adjoining the corral, or what had once been a field, but from neglect had run into a bed of grass and weeds.
A caballada, of some 500 or 600 loose horses and mules is driven along with us, but many of them are miserable sore-backed skeletons, having been exhausted with hard usage and bad fare during the summer campaign. Besides these, we have a large number of pack-mules, upon which all our baggage and provisions are transported. Distance 10 miles. We did not move on the 1st and 2d of December.
The management of the camels, after one learns the art, is simple enough; they are much easier to work than a mob of pack-horses; but keeping the saddles right is a task of the hardest nature. In consequence of Saleh's looking after ours so well, we never had any trouble with sore-backed camels, thus escaping a misfortune which in itself might wreck a whole caravan.
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