When Buffalo Bill took his cowboys to Europe they made a practice in England,France,Germany,and Italy of offering to break and ride,in their own fashion,any horse given them.They were frequently given spoiled animals from the cavalry services in the different countries through which they passed,animals with which the trained horse-breakers of the European armies could do nothing;and yet in almost all cases the cowpunchers and bronco-busters with Buffalo Bill mastered these beasts as readily as they did their own western horses.
At their own work of mastering and riding rough horses they could not be matched by their more civilized rivals;but I have great doubts whether they in turn would not have been beaten if they had essayed kinds of horsemanship utterly alien to their past experience,such as riding mettled thoroughbreds in a steeple-chase,or the like.Other things being equal (which,however,they generally are not),a bad,big horse fed on oats offers a rather more difficult problem than a bad little horse fed on grass.After Buffalo Bill's men had returned,I occasionally heard it said that they had tried cross-country riding in England,and had shown themselves pre-eminently skilful thereat,doing better than the English fox-hunters,but this I take the liberty to disbelieve.I was in England at the time,hunted occasionally myself,and was with many of the men who were all the time riding in the most famous hunts;men,too,who were greatly impressed with the exhibitions of rough riding then being given by Buffalo Bill and his men,and who talked of them much;and yet I never,at the time,heard of an instance in which one of the cowboys rode to hounds with any marked success.In the same way I have sometimes in New York or London heard of men who,it was alleged,had been out West and proved better riders than the bronco-busters themselves,just as I have heard of similar men who were able to go out hunting in the Rockies or on the plains and get more game than the western hunters;but in the course of a long experience in the West I have yet to see any of these men,whether from the eastern States or from Europe,actually show such superiority or perform such feats.
It is however,quite possible,now that Buffalo Bill's company has crossed the water several times,that a number of the cowboys have by practice become proficient in riding to hounds,and in steeple-chasing.
It would be interesting to compare the performances of the Australian stock-riders with those of our own cowpunchers,both in cow-work and in riding.The Australians have an entirely different kind of saddle,and the use of the rope is unknown among them.A couple of years ago the famous western rifle-shot,Carver,took some cowboys out to Australia,and I am informed that many of the Australians began themselves to practise with the rope after seeing the way it was used by the Americans.An Australian gentleman,Mr.A.J.Sage,of Melbourne,to whom I had written asking how the saddles and styles of riding compared,answered me as follows:
