his saddle when the scary animal sprang from under him.

Bred in the vigorous school of frontier warfare, "the earth for his
bed, his canopy the heavens," Washington excelled the hunter and
woodsman in their athletic habits, and in those trials of manhood which
filled the hardy days of his early life. He was amazingly swift of foot,
and could climb steep mountains seemingly without effort. Indeed, in all
the tests of his great physical powers he appeared to make little
effort. When he overthrew the strong man of Virginia in wrestling, upon
a day when many of the finest athletes were engaged in the contest, he
had retired to the shade of a tree intent upon the reading of a book. It
was only after the champion of the games strode through the ring calling
for nobler antagonists, and taunting the reader with the fear that he
would be thrown, that Washington closed his book. Without taking off his
coat he calmly observed that fear did not enter his make-up; then
grappling with the champion, he hurled him to the ground. "In
Washington's lion-like grasp," said the vanquished wrestler, "I became
powerless, and went down with a force that seemed to jar the very marrow
in my bones." The victor, regardless of shouts at his success, leisurely
retired to his shade, and again took up his book.

Washington's powers were chiefly in his limbs. His frame was of equal
breadth from the shoulders to the hips. His chest was not prominent, but
rather hollowed in the center. He never entirely recovered from a
pulmonary affection from which he suffered in early life. His frame
showed an extraordinary development of bone and muscle; his joints were
large, as were his feet; and could a cast of his hand have been
preserved, it would be ascribed to a being of a fabulous age. Lafayette
said, "I never saw any human being with so large a hand as the
General's."