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Historical Long Riders
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Major Sam Dale, still remembered as a pioneer, had a part to play in Long Rider history. In the early 1800s Dale had immigrated into the Georgia-Alabama area of the United States. Here he became a confident of the Cherokee and Choctaw Indians. Following Dale’s recommendations, these Native Americans issued a remarkable series of “Georgia Passports” to settlers who wished to travel through or live on Indian lands. Then in 1815 Dale was called upon to make an extremely hazardous equestrian journey from Georgia to New Orleans, where American General Andrew Jackson was fighting the British. Dale not only managed to reach Jackson in remarkable time, 600 miles in eight days, the Alabama Long Rider then rode his still-fit horse, Paddy, back home |
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Sir Malcolm Lyall Darling was a brilliant officer in the Indian Civil Service, whose lifelong ambition it was to befriend and understand the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. Known for his sense of fair play, Darling was ostracized by his English compatriots after he denounced General Dyer’s massacre of unarmed civilians at Amritsar in 1919. During his career, Darling brought E.M. Forster to India and helped George Orwell at the BBC. In addition, the civil servant made extensive horseback tours of the Indian subcontinent, during which he sought to interact with village elders and local residents. Darling’s most remarkable equestrian journey occurred in the winter of 1946 when he rode from Peshawar, more than a thousand miles across India, to Jubbulpore. A fluent speaker of many native languages, Darling ended this journey with a visit to his friend, Mahatma Gandhi. The English Long Rider’s keen political and cultural observations were later recounted in his book, “At Freedom’s Door.” This remarkable volume, which recounts the last few months of the English Raj, will soon be reissued by The Long Riders’ Guild Press. |
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Charles Darwin - during the five years in which he made his famous scientific journey around the world, he took every opportunity to explore the continents of South America, Australia and Africa on horseback. Darwin wrote of "The pleasure of living in the open air with the sky for a roof and the ground for a table." |
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When asked in 1879 why she wanted to travel to such an outlandish place as Patagonia, the English Long Rider, Lady Florence Dixie replied without hesitation that she was taking to the saddle in order to flee from the strict confines of polite Victorian society. “Palled with civilization and its surroundings, I wanted to escape to some place where I might be as far removed from them as possible. A longing grows up within one to taste a more vigorous emotion than that afforded by the monotonous round of society’s so-called pleasures,” Dixie wrote. The aristocrat successfully traded the perils of a London parlor for the wind-borne freedom of a wild Patagonian bronco. Her equestrian exploits became legendary. One of the first Europeans to ride Criollo horses, on one occasion Dixie escaped from a rampaging prairie fire by riding directly through the flames! Long considered a classic of equestrian travel, Lady Florence’s book, Riding Across Patagonia, is illustrated with pen and ink drawings that show her mounted entourage during the course of their remarkable adventures. |
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Maynard Dixon - famed American artist, made a trip through several Western States, accompanied by his fellow painter, Edward Borien (known as "the Cowpuncher Artist") in 1901, searching for Western themes. |
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Brook Dolan rode from India to China across Tibet in 1940. To read an exciting story about the journey, please click here. |
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Fanny Duberly led one of the most dashing and dangerous lives of the mid-nineteenth century. In 1854, while still in her early twenties, Fanny accompanied her husband Henry and his regiment to the front lines of the Crimean War to fight the Russians. Considered the first female "embedded reporter," Fanny's eye-witness account of the horrors of the Crimean War includes the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade. After having survived bullets, cholera and shipwreck, Fanny and her husband next saw action in India. In 1857 Fanny rode more than two thousand miles through the deserts of India alongside Captain Duberly and his troops during the suppression of the Sepoy Revolt. This remarkable Long Rider was the author of two fascinating books entitled Crimean Journal and Indian Journal, both of which are available at www.classictravelbooks.com. The photograph on the left shows Fanny on her horse, Bob, with Henry standing in front of her. |
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Very little is known about A. W. Du Bois. According to a New York Times article written in 1911, the mysterious Long Rider recalled how he had recently made a 2,000 mile solo equestrian journey across Persia. The ride took him from “from Bushire on the Persian Gulf to Tehran, and from thence along the Caspian Sea into Turkistan.” During the course of this journey Du Bois witnessed a great deal of political unrest, as Persia was being swept by riots. |
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Jane Duncan - rode from Srinagar, Kashmir, to Goma Hanu, Tibet and back in 1904. |
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John Duncan was a Scotsman who set off on horseback in 1844 in search of West Africa’s mysterious Kong mountains. The former cavalryman turned explorer had originally ridden in Queen Victoria’s elite Life Guards. Despite the equatorial heat, Duncan dressed in his ceremonial uniform, with glistening cuirass, helmet, gauntlets and high boots. During this remarkable journey Duncan was befriended by the infamous African despot, King Gezo, who urged the Scotsman to drink to Queen Victoria’s health in a goblet carved from a human skull. Additionally, Duncan came in contact with several flourishing African cavalry cultures, the existence of which has been almost completely overlooked by western scholars. Although Duncan never found the Kong mountains, his original travel account, Travels in Western Africa, as well as a new biography regarding this brave Long Rider, The King’s Stranger,” are both available via the Long Rider’s Guild Press. |
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Otto Ehlers - rode from Moulmein, Burma to Poofang, French Tonkin in 1891-1892. |
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Elizabeth I of England - was known to be an excellent horsewoman who loved riding as a form of exercise and relaxation. On her many journeys across England circa 1580, often as far afield as Suffolk and Devon, she rarely used a litter but rode with her Court on horseback. There are records of her enthusiastically travelling from Exeter to London and also attending St. Paul's in state in this manner. |
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Master Robert Eracles was an English knight who was present at Runnymede for the signing of the Magna Carta. He thereafter journeyed from the Middle East to Mongolia in 1243, whereupon Genghis Khan enlisted the linguistically talented Eracles as a diplomat. The knight turned Long Rider then rode from Central Asia back to Europe, where he was beheaded by Europeans for having assisted the Mongols. |
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Lieutenant Percy Etherton was stationed in remote village of Chitral, in India’s North West Frontier Province, when he decided to return home to England the long way! The young army officer set out in 1909 to reach London but only after having taken a four thousand mile equestrian detour via Kashmir, Gilgit, over the Pamir mountains, through Chinese Turkistan, Mongolia and on into Russian Siberia, at which the intrepid Long Rider off-saddled and returned to his homeland via train and ship. He was accompanied throughout the journey by a Gahrwali tribesman named Giyan Sing. It was whilst Etherton and Sing were traveling through the seldom-explored Pamir mountains that they met local Kirghiz tribesmen. The Kirghiz were puzzled at the unexpected arrival of these stranger outsiders. Having never heard of England, the Kirghiz asked the Long Rider if his country could possibly be as large as their home there in the remote Taghdumbash Valley. Etherton explained that not only was England much bigger than their narrow valley, it was also protected by battle ships. Having never seen either the ocean or a ship, the comments of the amazed Kirghiz tribesmen can only be imagined. |
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