THE PILLION

THE
HORSE AND HIS RIDER:

OR,

Sketches and Anecdotes of the Noble Quadruped,

and of Equestrian Nations.

BY ROLLO SPRINGFIELD.

LONDON:

CHAPMAN AND HALL 186 STRAND.

MDCCCXLVII.

LONDON.

VIZETELLY BROTHERS AND CO., PRINTERS AND ENGRAVERS,

PETERBOROUGH COURT, FLEET STREET.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I
DOMESTICATION OF THE HORSE—HORSE FURNITURE—VARIOUS BREEDS—BLOOD HORSES—PONIES.

THE reduction of the horse to the domestic state, as Buffon justly observes, is the greatest acquisition from the animal world ever made by the art and industry of man. Every one knows and admires the graceful symmetry, the speed, vigour, docility, and endurance of that noble creature; but few, perhaps, have reflected on the important part he has played in the history of our race; few are aware how much we owe it to him, that we at this day are not as rude and wretched as our barbarian forefathers, but live surrounded by those countless blessings which are the birthright of every child born in a civilised land. We fear that there has been little gratitude or humanity evinced in our general treatment of the horse; and now that we rush along like the wind on the wings of steam, we are perhaps in danger of still more undervaluing his worth. But had we never known his aid, how different far would have been the fortunes of mankind! how hardly would it have fulfilled its destiny, to “multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth!” Unaided by the strength and swiftness of this generous servant, men would but partially and slowly have emerged from barbarism; at the most they would have congregated into tribes and petty states, covering only as much ground as might be traversed in a day’s march or two on foot; and these would have been perpetually engaged in war and rapine: but peace, order, plenty, knowledge, and national power, could never have been established or have made progress, so long as men, divided by wide tracts of country, had no means of rapidly communicating with each other, and of uniting together for their mutual welfare.

Neither sacred nor profane history informs us in what country the horse was first domesticated, or whether he was first used for draught or riding. It is probable that the animal was employed for both purposes in very early times, and in various parts of the world; but though many of the ancients possessed great mastery over their horses, and performed with them admirable feats of skill and agility, it is nevertheless surprising by what slow steps the arts and inventions, connected with horsemanship, have reached their present degree of perfection. The polished Greeks, as well as the ruder nations of northern Africa, for a long while rode without either saddle or bridle, guiding their horses with the voice or the hand, or with a light switch. They touched the animal on the right or left of the face to make him turn in the opposite direction; they stopped him by touching his muzzle, and urged him forward with the heel. The horses must have been excellently trained, to be governed by such slight means, in the violence of their course, or in the tumult of battle; but the attention, docility, and memory of this animal are such, that it is hard to say to what a degree of obedience he may not be brought.

Bridles and bits were at length introduced; but many centuries elapsed before any thing that can properly be called a saddle was used. Instead of these, cloths, single or padded, and skins of wild beasts, often richly adorned, were placed beneath the rider, but always without stirrups. It is a very extraordinary fact that even the Romans, in the times when luxury was carried to the utmost excess amongst them, never devised so simple an expedient for assisting the horseman to mount, lessening his fatigue, and securing his seat, although painful diseases were not infrequently eased by the habit of riding with the feet unsupported. Many ancient sculptures prove that the horsemen of almost every country used to mount on the right side of the animal, in order the better to grasp the mane which hangs on that side. The practice is invariably reversed in modern days, and none but a Billy Button would think of mounting on the off side, notwithstanding the classical authority that may be alleged for so doing.

The ancient heroes generally leaped on their horses’ backs; or their spear, if they carried one, had a loop, or projection, about two feet from the bottom, which served them as a step. The horse was sometimes trained to lower his neck and back, or to kneel down for his rider; and both in Greece and Rome the local magistracy were bound to see that blocks, for mounting from (what the Scotch call loupin-on stanes), were placed along the roads at convenient distances. The great, however, thought it more dignified to use living blocks, and to climb into their seats, by setting their feet on the bent backs of their slaves; and many who could not command such costly help used to carry a light ladder about with them—a curious piece of horse furniture!

What a signal instance was given of the deep humiliation into which Imperial Rome had fallen, when a haughty Persian monarch mounted his horse from the back of the Emperor Valerian! The use of stirrups left pride and insolence without a pretext for thus degrading God’s image. Instead of offering his back to be trampled on, the servant now only held the stirrup for his lord. In the middle ages, the great were fond of exacting this token of servility from their humbled rivals: Emperors of Germany have held the stirrup for the Pope; and Henry II. of England, when his rancour against Thomas à Becket was hottest, thought to cajole the great prelate by a similar show of feigned respect.

The first distinct notice we have of the use of the saddle occurs in an edict of the Emperor Theodosius (A.D. 385); from which we also learn that it was usual for those who hired post-horses to provide their own saddles. The edict directs that no traveller shall use a saddle weighing more than sixty pounds! Such cumbrous contrivances must have been more like the howdahs placed on the backs of elephants, than the light and elegant saddle of modern times. Fortunately for the soldiers of those days, it does not appear that the military punishment of “carrying the saddle” was devised until a later period. It was commonly inflicted on horse-soldiers, and even on knights in the middle ages, for breach of discipline. A saddle, bridle, and other appurtenances were laid on the offender’s shoulders, and he was compelled to march about for a certain length of time, without stopping, exposed to the scoffs and jeers of all who saw him thus oddly accoutred. Well for him that his burden did not amount to the liberal weight allowed by the Roman emperor!

Side-saddles for ladies were an invention of comparatively recent date. The first seen in England was made for Anne of Bohemia, Richard the Second’s queen. It was, probably, more like a pillion than the side-saddle of our day; and if any of our young readers do not know what is meant by the word “pillion,” their grandmammas may, perhaps, be able to describe the thing to them from recollection, for it was in high fashion not a great many years ago. It was a sort of very low-backed arm-chair, which was fastened on the horse’s croup, behind the saddle, on which a man rode who had all the care of managing the horse, while the lady sat at her ease, supporting herself by grasping a belt which he wore, or by passing her arm round his body—if the gentleman was not too ticklish.

Horse-shoeing was not practised for many centuries after the horse himself was in very general use; nor were hoof-protectors essentially necessary until paved tracts and hard roads became more frequent than they were in old times. The first foot defence of the horse seems to have been copied from that of his master. It was a sort of sandal, commonly made of matting, rope, or leather. The Emperor Nero, in his profusion, had his horses and mules shod with silver; and his Empress, Poppæa, was not content with less than gold for the same purpose. These sandals were very insecure, and were apt to be left sticking in the mud; they were, therefore, seldom put on the animal for the whole journey, but only at the worst places. Nor do they appear to have been adequate to protect the hoof from injury; for instance, when Mithridates was besieging the town of Cyzicus, in his first war against the Romans, he was obliged to send away his whole cavalry to Bithynia, because the horses’ hoofs were all worn down, and their feet disordered.

Here again, as in the case of the stirrupless saddle, we are lost in wonder at the fact, that men should, for nearly a thousand years, have gone on fastening plates of metal under horses’ hoofs by the clumsy means of strings and bands; and that it should never in all that time have occurred to them to try nails where strings had failed. Next to the inventive powers of men there is really nothing so wonderful as their want of inventiveness, and the stupid way in which they will continue from generation to generation, doing something very absurd from mere force of habit, and utter want of thought! It is humiliating to think, how men have been content to remain for ages separated by the smallest possible partitions from discoveries in the arts, that tend to the convenience and embellishment of life. We have had India rubber ever since America was explored, yet, until a few years ago, we made no use of it except for rubbing pencil marks out of paper!

Here follows a charade by no less eminent a person than the great statesman, Charles James Fox. Why do we introduce it in this place? That is a question which the ingenious reader will answer for himself when he shall have solved the charade. The key to it will be found in the preceding pages:—

“Inscribed on many a learned page,

In mystic characters and sage,

Long time my first has stood;

And though its golden age be past,

In wooden walls it yet may last,

Till clothed in flesh and blood.

My second is a welcome prize

For those who love their curious eyes

With foreign sights to pamper;

But should it chance their gaze to meet,

Al improviso, in the street,

Oh! how’t would make them scamper!

My third’s a kind of wandering throne,

To woman limited alone,

The Salique law reversing;

But when the imaginary queen

Prepares to act this novel scene,

Her royal part rehearsing;

O’erturning her presumptuous plan,

Up jumps the old usurper—Man.”

The various uses for which the horse is habitually employed require corresponding varieties in the make and shape of the animal. The dray horses of the London brewers are very handsome; but their beauty is of a different kind from that of the Newmarket racer. That which is a good quality in one kind of horse may be a defect in another. An animal, for instance, which is intended for the saddle ought to stand with his fore legs erect; if they slope backwards from shoulder to hoof the rider must be very cautious, for he has to do with a stumbler. A draught-horse, on the other hand, ought to lean a little forward over his fore feet when at rest. That portion of his own weight which brings down the ill-made saddle-horse on his knees, is by the draught-horse thrown against the collar, and helps him in his labour. Look at a team straining hard to drag a heavy wagon out of a rut or over some obstruction: they fling themselves forward, so as to be kept from falling only by the traces, just as you may see a man doing who tugs at a rope fastened to a canal-boat, or a truck. Again, though the hunter and the racer are both made for speed, they must each exhibit certain peculiarities of form adapted to the work they have respectively to do. The hunter requires great strength and elasticity in his forehand, to enable him to bear the shock with which he alights on the ground from a leap. In the racer, on the contrary, the principal power is wanted from behind, to propel the animal forward in his gallop; and the very lowness of the forehand may throw more weight in front, and cause the whole machine to be more easily and speedily moved. The hind-legs of the greyhound are longer than the fore-legs; the difference is still more remarkable in the hare, and it is seen in an extraordinary degree in the kangaroo, an animal whose running is a series of prodigious leaps. The celebrated Eclipse, who never was beaten, was remarkably low in front, his hind-quarters even rising above his fore ones. As we have mentioned the name of this unrivalled runner, we cannot do less than give some particulars of his history.

He was bred by the Duke of Cumberland, and sold at his death to Mr. Wildman, a sheep salesman, for seventy-five guineas. Colonel O’Kelly purchased a share of him from Wildman. In the spring of the following year, when the reputation of this wonderful animal was at its height, O’Kelly wished to become sole owner of him, and bought the remaining share for eleven hundred guineas.

O’Kelly, aware of his horse’s powers, backed him freely on his first race in 1769. This excited curiosity among sporting men; they thought the colonel must have had some extraordinary reason for betting largely on a horse that no one had ever heard of before, and that had not given any public proof of his powers. Some persons, accordingly, tried to watch one of his trials; which the owner, no doubt, wished to keep as secret as possible. They were a little too late on the ground; but they found an old woman, who gave them all the information they wanted. On their inquiring, whether she had seen a race, she replied, she could not tell whether it was a race or not, but she had just seen a horse with a white leg running away at a monstrous rate, and another horse, a great way behind, trying to run after him; but she was sure he would never catch the white-legged horse if he ran to the world’s end.

The first heat was easily won, when O’Kelly, observing that the rider had been pulling at Eclipse during the whole of the race, offered a wager that he would place the horses in the next heat (that is, that he would name the order in which they would be when the foremost reached the winning post). This seemed a thing so highly improbable that he immediately had bets to a large amount. Being called on to declare, he replied—“Eclipse first, and the rest nowhere!” The event justified his prediction; for all the others were distanced by Eclipse with the greatest ease (that is, he was at the winning post before they had reached another 240 yards behind it, called the distancing post), and thus, in the language of the turf, they had no place.

The pecuniary value of Eclipse and his progeny must have been something enormous. He was the sire of 354 winners, and these netted to their owners more than £160,000, exclusive of plates and cups. Ten years after he was withdrawn from the turf; O’Kelly was asked at what price he would sell him. At first he peremptorily refused to accept any price; but after some reflection, he said he would take £25,000, with an annuity of £500, besides certain privileges. The seeming extravagance of this sum excited considerable remark, but O’Kelly declared he had already cleared more than £25,000 by Eclipse, and that the animal was still young enough to earn double that sum.

From what we have said above, it appears that there are various standards of perfection for the horse’s form, and that there must be a certain vagueness in any general description which shall include them all. It is not a little remarkable that we are indebted to Terentius Varro, who wrote about the year 70 B.C., for a description of the horse which, in the opinion of so excellent a judge as Mr. Youatt, has scarcely been surpassed in modern times:—“We may prognosticate great things of a colt,” he says, “if, when running in the pastures, he is ambitious to get before his companions, and if, on coming to a river, he strives to be the first to plunge into it. His head should be small, his limbs clean and compact, his eyes bright and sparkling, his nostrils open and large, his ears placed near each other, his mane strong and full, his chest broad, his shoulders flat and sloping backwards, his loins broad and strong, his tail full and bushy, his legs straight and even, his knees broad and well knit, his hoofs hard and tough, and his veins large and swelling over all his body.”

The English thoroughbred horse, perhaps the finest animal of his kind in the world, derives his descent almost wholly from the Arab and the Barb. Instead of giving a prosaic description of his points, which those who desire it may find in books of a more technical character than ours: we will put him bodily before the reader in Barry Cornwall’s vigorous lines:—

THE BLOOD HORSE.

“Gamarra is a noble steed;

Strong, black, and of the desert breed;

Full of fire, and full of bone;

All his line of fathers known;

Fine his nose, his nostrils thin,

But blown abroad by the pride within!

His mane, a stormy river flowing;

And his eyes like embers glowing

In the darkness of the night;

And his pace as swift as light.

Look,—around his straining throat

Grace and shifting beauty float!

Sinewy strength is on his reins,

And the red blood gallops through his veins;

Richer, redder, never ran

Through the boasting heart of man!

He can trace his lineage higher

Than the Bourbon dare aspire,

Douglas, Guzman, or the Guelph,

Or O’Brien’s blood itself.

He, who hath no peer, was born

Here, upon a red March morn:

But his famous fathers dead

Were Arabs all, and Arab bred;

And the last of that great line

Trod like one of race divine!

And yet,—he was but friend to one

Who fed him at the set of sun,

By some lone fountain fringed with green:

With him,—a roving Bedouin,

He lived (none else would he obey

Through all the hot Arabian day),

And died, untamed, upon the sands

Where Balkh amidst the desert stands!”

Nature has assigned to many races of animals certain geographical limits, beyond which they cannot thrive. Others, on the contrary, are so framed as to be capable of maintaining life and health in countries very widely diffused, and essentially differing in temperature, climate, and food, from those to which they appear indigenous. Fortunately for man, among this number are some of those animals that render him the most essential services,—as the dog, the ox, the sheep, the hog, and the horse. The constitution of these useful allies is endowed with a capacity for adapting itself, more or less, to external circumstances; above all, their respective bulk undergoes notable variations proportioned to the ordinary supply of food within their reach. In the rich pastures of Flanders and of Lincolnshire the horse expands to its largest dimensions, whilst in mountainous regions and in northern islands it becomes a pony.

There is an East Indian pony called the Tattoo, commonly from ten to twelve hands high (a hand is four inches); they are sometimes much smaller. Tavernier describes one which he saw ridden by a young Mogul prince, which was not much larger than a greyhound. In 1765, one not more than seven hands, or twenty-eight inches high, was sent to England as a present to the Queen of George III. It was taken from the ship to the palace in a hackney-coach. It was of a dun colour, and its hair resembled that of a young fawn. It was four years old, well proportioned, had fine ears, a quick eye, with a handsome long tail, and was thoroughly good-natured and manageable.

Hurdwar, in Upper India, is the site of a great cattle fair; Colonel Davidson, describing his visit to this busy scene, says, that among the greatest curiosities he witnessed were half-a-dozen powerful ponies from Usbeck Tartary, called phooldars, which means flower-marked. They were under thirteen hands high, and of the most curious compound colours or marks that can be imagined. A description cannot easily be given, but it may be attempted. Suppose, in the first place, that the animal is of a fine snow white; cover the white with large, irregular, bright bay spots; in the middle of these light bay let there be dark bay marbled spots; at every six or eight inches plant lozenge-shaped patches of a very dark iron grey; then sprinkle the whole with dark flea-bites. There is a phooldar! What a sensation one of these animals would excite in the London Parks!

The horses of the Feroe Islands are of small growth, but strong, swift, and sure of foot, going over the roughest places, so that a man may more surely rely on them than trust to his own feet. In Suderoe, one of these islands, they have a lighter and swifter breed than in any of the rest. On their backs the inhabitants pursue the sheep, which are wild in this island; the pony carries the man over places which would be otherwise inaccessible to him—follows his rider over others—enters into the full sport of the chase, and even knocks down and holds the prey under his feet until the rider can take possession of it.

The British islands produce several interesting breeds of ponies. The largest of these, the Scotch Galloway, is unfortunately almost extinct. It was from thirteen to fourteen hands high, of a bright bay or brown, with black legs, small head and neck, and peculiarly deep and clean legs. Its qualities were speed, stoutness, and surefootedness over a very rugged and mountainous country. Dandie Dinmont’s famous Dumple was of this breed. Dr. Anderson thus describes a galloway belonging to himself:—“In point of elegance of shape it was a perfect picture, and in disposition it was gentle and compliant. It moved almost with a wish, and never tired. I rode this little creature for twenty-five years, and twice in that time I rode a hundred and fifty miles at a stretch, without stopping, except to bait, and that not for above an hour at a time. It came in at the last stage with as much ease and alacrity as it travelled the first. I could have undertaken to perform on this beast, when it was in its prime, sixty miles a day for a twelvemonth, without any extraordinary exertion.”

The Exmoor ponies, though generally ugly enough, are hardy and useful: one of them has been known to clear a gate eight inches higher than his back. Those of Dartmoor are larger, and, if possible, uglier. Being admirably fitted for scrambling over the rough roads and dreary wilds of that mountainous country, they are in great demand there. They exist almost in a state of nature. The late Captain Colgrave, governor of the prison, had a great desire to possess one of them somewhat superior in figure to his fellows; and having several men to assist him, they separated it from the herd. They drove it on some rocks by the side of a tor (an upright pointed hill). A man followed on horseback, while the captain stood below watching the chase. The little animal, being driven into a corner, leaped completely over the man and horse, and escaped.

The sheltie, or pony of the Shetland isles, is a very diminutive animal, sometimes not more than thirty inches high, and rarely exceeding thirty-eight. He is often exceedingly beautiful, with a small head, good tempered countenance, a short neck, fine towards the throttle, shoulders low and thick—in so little a creature far from being a blemish—back short, quarters expanded and powerful, legs flat and fine, and pretty round feet. These ponies possess immense strength for their size; will fatten upon almost any thing, and are perfectly docile. Mr. Youatt says that one of them, three feet in height, carried a man of twelve stone forty miles in one day.

Pony hunting used to be one of the favourite amusements of the Welsh farmers and peasantry a century and a half ago, and it has not even now fallen altogether into disuse. The following story of one of these expeditions is related in the Cambrian Quarterly Magazine:—

“A farmer, named Hugo Garonwy, lived in the neighbourhood of Llewyn Georie. Although he handled the small tilt plough, and other farming tools in their due season, yet the catching of the merlin, the fox, and the hare, were pursuits more congenial to his tastes; and the tumbles and thumps which he received, and from which no pony hunter was exempt, served but to attach him to the sport. Rugged, however, as were the Merioneddshire coast and its environs, and abounding with precipices and morasses, the hunter sometimes experienced worse mishaps, and so it happened with Garonwy.

“He set out one morning with his lasso coiled round his waist, and attended by two hardy dependents and their greyhounds. The lasso was then familiar to the Welshman, and as adroitly managed by him as by any Gaucho on the plains of South America. As the hunters climbed the mountain’s brow, the distant herd of ponies took alarm—sometimes galloping onwards, and then suddenly halting and wheeling round, snorting as if in defiance of the intruders, and furiously pawing the ground. Garonwy, with the assistance of his servants and the greyhounds, contrived to coop them up in a corner of the hills, where perpendicular rocks prevented their escape.

“Already had he captured three of the most beautiful little fellows in the world, which he expected to sell for £4 or £5 each at the next Bala fair, to him a considerable sum, and amounting to a fourth of the annual rent which he paid for his sheep walk. There remained, however, one most untamable creature, whose crested mane, and flowing tail, and wild eye, and distended nostril showed that he was a perfect Bucephalus of the hills; nor, indeed, was it safe to attack him in the ordinary way. Many of the three year olds had been known to break the legs of their pursuers, and some had been dismounted and trampled to death.

“Garonwy was determined to give the noble fellow a chase over the hills, and so overcome him by fatigue before the lasso was flung. The dogs were unslipped, and off they went swift as the winds, Garonwy following, and the two assistants posted in a neighbouring eminence. Vain was the effort to tire the merlin. Hugo, naturally impatient, and without waiting to ascertain that the coils were all clear, flung the lasso over the head of the wild horse. The extremity of the cord was twisted round his own body, and tightening as the animal struggled, the compression became insupportable, and at length, in spite of every effort to disengage himself, Garonwy was dragged from his horse.

“The affrighted merlin, finding himself manacled by the rope, darted off with all the speed of which he was capable, dragging poor Garonwy over the rocky ground and stunted brushwood. This occurred at some distance from the men. They called in their dogs that the speed of the merlin might not be increased: but ere they could arrive at the spot at which the accident happened, the horse and the man had vanished. Whether the sufferings of the hunter were protracted, or he was dashed against a rock at the commencement of the horrible race, was never known; but the wild animal, frenzied and blinded by terror, rushed over a beetling cliff, at a considerable distance, overhanging the sea-shore, and the hunter and the horse were found at the bottom, a misshapen semblance of what they had been when living.”

CHAPTER II
PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE HORSE—SAGACITY, FIDELITY, SOCIABILITY, &c.; ANECDOTES—INSANITY.

THE physiognomy of the horse is an interesting subject. Those who have made it their study can read the animal’s passions and purposes in his face. The following hints on this topic are chiefly from Professor Youatt:—

The eye enables us with tolerable accuracy to guess at the animal’s temper. If much of the white is seen, he is not to be lightly trusted. The mischievous horse is always slyly on the look out for opportunities to indulge his malice, and the frequent backward direction of the eye, which makes the white most perceptible, is only to give surer effects to the blow which he is about to aim.

The quality of the horse’s vision differs from that of man. The former can take in a wider range in consequence of the lateral position of the eyes and their distance apart; and when the animal, with its head down, is quietly grazing, it can see objects with facility in every direction round it. Man’s vision is more limited in range, but it is probable more acute, because the black lining of the human eye renders it a more perfect camera obscura, and gives more vividness to the pictures formed within it. The lining membrane of the horse’s eye is of a beautiful sea green colour, in consequence of which it absorbs so much the less light, and thereby affords increased power of vision in the night. Every rider must be aware from experience that his horse can discern surrounding objects, when the gloom of evening conceals them from his own eyesight. All animals who have to seek their food by night have the interior of the eye more or less bright; in the wolf and the dog it is grey; and in all varieties of the cat species it is yellow; the eyes of the lion have been compared to two flaming torches in the night. There are individuals of the human race called Albinos, whose eyes look red like those of ferrets, from the absence of the usual black pigment, and these persons are almost blind by day, but see with ease in what to other men seems thick darkness.

“Many persons erroneously suppose that the flow of tears, caused by bodily pain or emotions of the mind, is peculiar to man. But Shakspere says of the wounded stag:—

“The big round tears

Coursed one another down his innocent nose

In piteous chase;”

and horses are repeatedly seen to weep under acute pain or brutal usage. Mr. Lawrence, speaking of the cruelty exercised by some dealers in what they call “firing” a horse before he is led out for sale, in order to rouse every spark of mettle, says, “More than fifty years have passed away, and I have before eyes a poor mare stone blind, exquisitely shaped, and showing all the marks of high blood, whom I saw unmercifully cut with the whip a quarter of an hour before the sale, to bring her to the use of her stiffened limbs, while the tears were trickling down her cheeks.”

The size, setting on, and motion of the ear, are important points. Ears rather small than large, placed not too far apart, erect and quick in motion, indicate both breeding and spirit; and if a horse is in the frequent habit of carrying one ear forward, and the other backward, and especially if he does so on a journey, he will generally possess both spirit and continuance. The stretching of the ears in contrary directions shows that he is attentive to every thing that is passing round him; and while he is doing this he cannot be much fatigued, or likely soon to become so. It has been remarked, that few horses sleep without pointing one ear forward and the other backward, in order that they may receive notice of the approach of objects in every direction. When horses or mules march in company at night, those in front direct their ears forward, those in the rear direct them backward, and those in the centre turn them laterally or across; the whole troop seeming thus to be actuated by one feeling which watches the general safety.

The ear of the horse is one of the most beautiful parts about him, and by few things is the temper more surely indicated than by its motion. The ear is more intelligible even than the eye; and a person accustomed to the horse can tell, by the expressive motion of that organ, almost all that he thinks or means. When a horse lays his ears flat back on his neck, he most assuredly is meditating mischief, and the stander by should beware of his heels or his teeth. In play the ears will be laid back, but not so decidedly or so long. A quick change in their position, and more particularly the expression of the eye at the time, will distinguish between playfulness and vice.

The hearing of the horse is remarkably acute. A thousand vibrations of the air, too slight to make any impression on the human ear, are readily perceived by him. It is well known to every hunting man, that the cry of hounds will be recognised by the horse, and his ears will be erect, and he will be all spirit and impatience, a considerable time before the rider is conscious of the least sound. Need any thing more be said to expose the absurdity of cropping? The cruel and stupid custom of cutting off the ears of the horse began (to its shame be it said!) in Great Britain, and was so obstinately pursued for many years, that, at length, it became hereditary in some cases, and a breed of horses born without ears was produced. Fortunately for this too often abused animal, cropping is not now the fashion. The practice of lopping off two-thirds of the tail, is more excusable, on the ground of convenience to the rider. In wet weather and miry roads, the switching of a long drabbled swab is not desirable. The question of long tails or short tails, is a question between comfort and beauty of form. Now, much as we may value the former, we think it ought not quite to overbear all consideration for the latter; and we are glad to see that in this instance, too, fashion is beginning to side with reason and good taste.

The lips of the horse are his hands; they serve both as organs of touch and as instruments of prehension, as may be seen when the animal is feeding. He gathers up his corn with them, and collects the grass into a tuft before he bites it. The lips should be thin, but firm and regularly closed. Flabby, pendulous lips indicate weakness or old age, or dulness and sluggishness.

It is thought, perhaps, with some degree of truth, that indications of character may be drawn from the shape of the nose: but the rules in this case are the reverse of those applicable in judging of human noses; for, in the horse, the prominent Roman nose bespeaks an easy, good-tempered kind of beast, but rather of a plebeian order of mind and body; the horse with a straight, or Grecian nose, may be good or bad tempered, but not often either to any great excess; but a hollow nose (a cocked one, as we should say, in speaking of the human face) generally indicates some breeding, especially if the head is small, but occasionally accompanied by a vicious, uncontrollable disposition. “There is another way, however,” says Mr. Youatt, “in which the nasal bones do more certainly indicate the breed; viz., by their comparative length or shortness. There is no surer criterion of a well-bred horse than a broad, angular forehead, prominent features, and a short face; nor of a horse with little breeding than a narrow forehead, small features, and lengthened nose. The comparative development of the head and face indicates, with little error, the preponderance of the animal or intellectual principle.”

As the horse breathes only through the nose, it is important that the openings into that cavity should be free, and capable of dilating sufficiently to allow of the passage of a large volume of air when the animal is put to his speed. The expanded nostril is a striking feature in the blood horse, especially when he has been excited and not overblown. What a sudden effect is given to the countenance of the hunter, when his ears become erect, and his nostrils dilate, as he first listens to the cry of the hounds, and snorts and scents them afar off! And the war-horse—“the glory of his nostrils is terrible!”

The following anecdote, related by Professor Kügler, of Halle, proves both the sagacity and the fidelity of the horse:—A friend of his, riding home through a wood on a dark night, struck his head against a branch of a tree, and fell stunned to the ground. The horse immediately returned to the house they had left, and which was now closed, for the family had gone to bed. He pawed at the door until some one rose and opened it, and then he turned about; and the man, wondering at the affair, followed him. The faithful and intelligent animal led him to the place where his master lay senseless. A still more interesting incident, of a similar kind, occurred in this country:—A little girl, the daughter of a gentleman in Warwickshire, playing on the banks of a canal which runs through his grounds, fell into the water, and would in all probability have been drowned, had not a small pony, which had long been kept in the family, plunged into the stream, and brought the child safely to land.

Mr. Jesse gives an instance of what may fairly be called the sensibility of the horse, and his keen perception of danger. A friend of his was riding a horse one day in India, attended by a spaniel which had long been its companion. The dog ran into some long grass, and came out crying and shaking its head; the horse, contrary to his usual custom, not only avoided the dog, but showed the utmost dread of his coming near him. The dog soon died, and upon examination it was found that he had been bitten in the tongue by a venomous snake.

But the horse’s sensibility is not a selfish quality; he often displays the most generous solicitude, to avoid injuring other creatures. It is not an uncommon thing for a fallen soldier to escape without one touch of a hoof, though a charge of cavalry pass over his prostrate body, every animal in the line leaping clear over him. An old horse belonging to a carter in Strathnegie, Fifeshire, had become particularly familiar with the ways of children, for his master had a large family. One day, as this animal was dragging a loaded cart through a narrow lane near the village, a young child happened to be sprawling in the road, and would inevitably have been crushed by the wheels, if the sagacious old horse had not prevented it. He carefully took up the child by the clothes with his teeth, carried it for a few yards, and then placed it on a bank by the wayside, moving slowly all the while, and looking back as if to satisfy himself that the wheels of the cart had cleared it.

Gregarious in the wild state, the horse retains the same sociable disposition in domestication, and shows a great aversion to be left alone. This companionable temper appears very pleasingly in the field, in the gambolings of horses with each other, in their manifest curiosity when a strange horse comes in sight, and the animated gestures and neighings with which they try to strike up an acquaintance, and, above all, in the little kind offices they perform mutually. It is an every-day occurrence to see two horses gently scratching each other; and Mr. Jesse speaks of it as a well-known fact, that in hot countries where the blood of the horses is heated by the climate, they are in the constant habit of bleeding each other, and sometimes of bleeding themselves, by biting the neck or the shoulder. So strong is the horse’s aptitude for friendship, that he will attach himself to almost any kind of animal rather than remain solitary. White, of Selborne, relates an instance of this kind between a horse and a hen. These two incongruous animals spent much of their time together in a lonely orchard, where they saw no creature but each other, and by degrees an apparent regard sprang up between them. The fowl would approach the quadruped with notes of complacency, rubbing herself quietly against his legs, whilst the horse would look down with satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution and circumspection lest he should trample on his diminutive companion. In the portrait of the celebrated Godolphin Arabian is seen a cat, which was his inseparable companion in the stable, and died really broken hearted for his loss. Another race-horse and cat were great friends, and the latter generally slept in the manger. When the horse was going to have his oats, he always took up the cat by the skin of her neck, and dropped her into the next stall, that she might not be in his way while he was feeding. At all other times he seemed pleased to have her near him. Eclipse was fond of a sheep, and Chillaby, called from his great ferocity, the Mad Arabian, whom only one of the grooms dared to approach, and who savagely tore to pieces the image of a man purposely placed in his way, had his peculiar attachment to a lamb that used to spend many an hour in butting away the flies from his friend.

“A gentleman of Bristol had a greyhound, which slept in the stable along with a very fine hunter of about five years of age. These animals became mutually attached, and regarded each other with the most tender affection. The greyhound always lay under the manger beside the horse, which was so fond of him, that he became unhappy and restless when the dog was out of his sight. It was a common practice with the gentleman to whom they belonged, to call at the stable for the greyhound to accompany him in his walks: on such occasions the horse would look over his shoulder at the dog with much anxiety, and neigh in a manner which plainly said—‘Let me also accompany you.’ When the dog returned to the stable, he was always welcomed by a loud neigh—he ran up to the horse and licked his nose; in return, the horse would scratch the dog’s back with his teeth. One day, when the groom was out with the horse and greyhound for exercise, a large dog attacked the latter, and quickly bore him to the ground; on which the horse threw back his ears, and, in spite of all the efforts of the groom, rushed at the strange dog that was worrying at the greyhound, seized him by the back with his teeth, which speedily made him quit his hold, and shook him till a large piece of the skin gave way. The offender no sooner got on his feet, than he judged it prudent to beat a precipitate retreat from so formidable an opponent.”

Another instance of attachment between a horse and a dog is related by Capt. Brown in his “Biographical Sketches:” “My friend, Dr. Smith, of the Queen’s County Militia, Ireland, had a beautiful hackney, which, although extremely spirited, was at the same time wonderfully docile. He had also a fine Newfoundland dog, named Cæsar. These animals were mutually attached, and seemed perfectly acquainted with each other’s actions. The dog was always kept in the stable at night, and uniformly lay beside the horse. When Dr. Smith practised in Dublin, he visited his patients on horseback, and had no other servant to take care of the horse, while in their houses, but Cæsar, to whom he gave the reins in his mouth. The horse stood very quietly, even in that crowded city, beside his friend Cæsar. When it happened that the doctor had a patient not far distant from the place where he paid his last visit, he did not think it worth while to remount, but called to his horse and Cæsar. They both instantly obeyed, and remained quietly opposite the door where he entered, until he came out again. While he remained in Maryborough, Queen’s County, where I commanded a detachment, I had many opportunities of witnessing the friendship and sagacity of these intelligent animals. The horse seemed to be as implicitly obedient to his friend Cæsar as he could possibly be to his groom. The doctor would go to the stable, accompanied by his dog, put the bridle upon his horse, and giving the reins to Cæsar, bid him take the horse to the water. They both understood what was to be done, when off trotted Cæsar, followed by the horse, which frisked, capered, and played with the dog all the way to the rivulet, about three hundred yards distant from the stable. We followed at a great distance, always keeping as far off as possible, so that we could observe their manœuvres. They invariably went to the stream, and after the horse had quenched his thirst, both returned in the same playful manner as they had gone out.

“The doctor frequently desired Cæsar to make the horse leap over this stream, which might be about six feet broad. The dog, by a kind of bark, and leaping up towards the horse’s head, intimated to him what he wanted, which was quickly understood; and he cantered off, preceded by Cæsar, and took the leap in a neat and regular style. The dog was then desired to bring him back again, and it was speedily done in the same manner. On one occasion Cæsar lost hold of the reins, and as soon as the horse cleared the leap, he immediately trotted up to his canine guide, who took hold of the bridle, and led him through the water quietly.”

“A gentleman,” says Mr. Jesse, “who resides near Southampton, had a retriever, a large half-bred Newfoundland dog, that had formed a friendship with a horse, which, at the time I am referring to, was turned out into a paddock near the house. The dog, hunting one day by himself, was caught in a snare by the leg, and after struggling some time, during which its cries were heard, he disengaged himself so far from his confinement as to break the string of the snare, the wire being still attached to the limb. In this situation he was observed by my friend and his host to go to the horse in the paddock, and seemed at once to make him aware of his distress. The horse gently put his nose down to the dog, and the dog having licked it, lifted up the leg to which the snare was attached in a manner which could not be mistaken. The horse immediately began to try to disengage the snare, by applying his teeth to it in a gentle and cautious manner, although he was unable to succeed in removing it. This is by no means a solitary instance of the sympathy which animals show for each other when in distress.”

Man may fully avail himself of this amiable disposition of the horse; it is rarely the latter’s fault if he and his owner are not on the best possible terms. How often has the horse been found grazing by the side of his drunken prostrate master, whom he would not leave. “We have seen,” says Mr. Blaine, “a child of five years old purposely sent by the wife of the coachman to quiet an unruly and noisy coach-horse, for to no other person would he yield such obedience; but a pat from her tiny hand, or her infantile inquiry—‘What is the matter with you?’ was sufficient to allay every obstreperous symptom. But it was to her only he yielded such submission, for otherwise he was a high-spirited and really intractable animal. Often has this child been found lying asleep on the neck of the horse, when he had laid himself down in his stall, and so long as she continued to sleep, so long the horse invariably remained in his recumbent position.”

There is something almost mysterious in the manner in which the horse contrives to pick his way in safety through dangerous and deceitful ground, and to discover and avoid perils of which his master is quite unsuspicious. In all doubtful cases the animal’s head should be left free, that he may put his nose to the ground, and examine it by touch, as well as by sight and hearing (the muzzle is the peculiar organ of touch in the horse), and he will then seldom fail to judge promptly and unerringly whether or not he may venture to proceed. But even when the animal is confined in harness and restrained from the free use of all his faculties, he sometimes exercises his wonderful instinct in the happiest manner. In the very month in which we are writing (January, 1846), several hundred feet of the viaduct of Barentin over the Rouen and Havre railway came down with a sudden crash. Just before the fall, Monsieur Lorgery, flour merchant of Pavilly, was about to cross one of the arches in his cabriolet, when the horse stopped short and refused to pass. M. Lorgery struck the animal with his whip, but all in vain—he refused to stir. At the moment while his unsuspecting driver was still urging him on, the fall took place.

It is partly owing to the faculty of discerning the obscurest traces of a frequented, or at least a practicable road, and partly to that tenacious power of memory which enables a horse to recognise a road he has once traversed, that bewildered travellers, from the days of knight-errantry downwards, have found it good policy to throw the reins on their steed’s neck, and trust themselves implicitly to his guidance. Along with this retentive memory the horse combines a very business-like observance of habit and routine. The author of “The Menageries” knew a horse which, being accustomed to make a journey once a week with the newsman of a provincial paper, always stopped at the houses of the several customers, although they were sixty or seventy in number. But further, there were two persons in the route who took one paper between them, and each claimed the privilege of receiving it first on the alternate Sunday. The horse soon became accustomed to this regulation; although the parties lived two miles asunder, he stopped once a fortnight at the door of the half-customer at Thorpe, and once a fortnight at that of the half-customer at Chertsey; and never did he forget this arrangement, which lasted several years, or stop unnecessarily after he had once thoroughly understood the rule.

The docility and intelligence of the horse are abundantly shown in the feats he is trained to perform in the Circus; but those which he is self-taught are still more interesting. Lord Brougham in his “Dissertations” says, he knew a pony that used to open the latch of the stable door, and also raise the lid of the corn chest; and he notices the instance of a horse opening the wicket-gate of a field by pressing down the upright bar, as a man would do,—“actions,” he observes, “which the animals must have learned from observation, as it is very unlikely that they were taught.” Such feats are not uncommon; but the following is, we believe, unique. In 1794, a gentleman in Leeds had a horse which, after having been kept up in the stable for some time, and turned out into a field where there was a pump well supplied with water, regularly obtained a quantity therefrom by his own dexterity. For this purpose, the animal was observed to take the handle into his mouth, and work it with his head, in a way exactly similar to that done by the hand of man, until a sufficiency was procured.

The force of habit is particularly strong in the old hunter and in the war-horse. The Tyrolese, in one of their insurrections in 1809, took fifteen Bavarian horses, and mounted them with fifteen of their own men; but in a skirmish with a squadron of the same regiment, no sooner did these horses hear the trumpet and recognise the uniform of their old masters, than they set off at full gallop, and carried their riders, in spite of all their efforts, into the Bavarian ranks, where they were made prisoners. But inveterate habits are contracted in peace as well as in war, domi militiæque, a truth which was curiously exemplified in a case that fell under our own observation. Some ladies of our acquaintance in Essex bought a very respectable, middle aged, black-coated horse, to draw their four-wheeled open chaise, driven by their own fair hands. At first they were greatly pleased with their bargain; the horse was as strong as an elephant, as gentle as a lamb, and as sedate as a parish clerk. But he soon gave proof of very ungenteel propensities. No sooner did a public house come in view than he would rush up to the door, in defiance of whip and rein, and persist in remaining there a reasonable drinking time, thereby exposing the reputation of his mistresses to very shocking surmises. It afterwards came out that he had learned these ways of a jolly old farmer in whose possession he had been for some years.

There is a story told of a famous trotter belonging to a butcher, which attracted the admiration of a gentleman by its splendid action, and was bought by him at a very high price. But no long time elapsed before the purchaser came to the conclusion that he had been taken in; the horse was decidedly a dull, lazy brute; it was all over with his fine trotting; and the butcher who sold him was, no doubt, aware that the animal laboured under some unsoundness that destroyed his former high qualities. The gentleman took the horse to its former owner, and indignantly denounced the fraud that had been practised upon him. The butcher listened in silence to the stormy harangue, and then turning to one of his men, who was leaving the shop with a tray of meat on his shoulder, he said to him, “Here, Dick, jump up, just as you are, and let us see if the horse can’t trot a bit.” The man did so, and off started the horse in the very best style. The gentleman was amazed and confounded: “I can never make him go like that!” he said. “That’s a pity, sir,” replied the butcher; “you see it is not his fault. But I’ll tell you what it is; you just please to mount, and let me put a tray of meat on the saddle before you, and then I warrant you’ll say he goes fast enough!”

Horses often exhibit a good deal of cunning. The late General Pater, of the East India service, was a remarkably fat man. While stationed at Madras, he purchased a charger, which, after a short trial, all at once betook himself to a trick of lying down whenever he prepared to get upon his back. Every expedient was tried, without success, to cure him of the trick; and the laugh was so much indulged against the general’s corpulency, that he found it convenient to dispose of his horse to a young officer quitting the settlement for a distant station up the country. Upwards of two years had subsequently elapsed, when, in the execution of his official duties, General Pater left Madras to inspect one of the frontier cantonments. He travelled, as is the usual custom in India, in his palanqueen (a covered couch carried on men’s shoulders). The morning after his arrival at the station, the troops were drawn out; and, as he had brought no horses, it was proper to provide for his being suitably mounted, though it was not very easy to find a charger adapted to his weight. At length an officer resigned to him a powerful horse for the occasion, which was brought out duly caparisoned in front of the line. The general came forth from his tent, and proceeded to mount; but the instant the horse saw him advance, he flung himself flat upon the sand, and neither blows nor entreaties could induce him to rise. It was the general’s old charger, which, from the moment of quitting his service, had never once practised the artifice until this second meeting. The general, who was an exceedingly good-humoured man, joined heartily in the universal shout that ran through the whole line on witnessing this ludicrous affair.

SIR ROBERT GILLESPIE’S DARING FEAT.

Courage is a quality of great importance in a horse, and some possess it in a high degree. It is worthy, too, of remark, that there is often something more than mere natural indifference to danger, something of an intellectual character in the courage of the horse. He learns to overcome his fears. At the sight of a tiger a horse has been known to become wholly paralysed with terror, and incapable of resistance, or even of flight; and yet this instinctive dread of mortal foes can be eradicated by education, and a reliance on the protection of man. A remarkable proof of this is, that the hunting leopard is allowed by the well-trained horse to spring on his back, either behind or before his master, when he goes a-field in pursuit of game. One of the most signal instances of courage on the part of horse and rider, and of perfect concert between both, is that recorded of the late Sir Robert Gillespie and his Arab. Sir Robert being present on the race-course of Calcutta during one of the great Hindoo festivals, when many thousands are assembled to witness all sorts of shows, was suddenly alarmed by the shrieks and commotion of the crowd. On being informed that a tiger had escaped from his keepers, he immediately called for his horse, and, with no other weapon than a boar-spear snatched from one of the by-standers, he rode to attack this formidable enemy. The tiger was probably amazed at finding himself in the middle of such a number of shrieking beings flying from him in all directions; but the moment he perceived Sir Robert, he crouched in the attitude of preparing to spring upon him; and that instant the gallant soldier passed his horse in a leap over the tiger’s back, and struck the spear through his spine. It was a feat requiring the utmost conceivable unity of purpose and movement on the part of horse and rider, almost realising for the moment the fable of the centaur. Had either swerved or wavered for a second, both had been lost. But the brave steed knew his rider. The animal was a small grey, and was afterwards sent home as a present to the Prince Regent.

Sir Robert fell subsequently at the storming of Kalunga. Another horse of his, a favourite black charger, bred at the Cape of Good Hope, and carried by him to India, was, at the sale of his effects, competed for by several officers of his division, and finally knocked down to the privates of the 8th dragoons, who contributed their prize money, to the amount of £500 sterling, to retain this commemoration of their late commander. The charger was always led at the head of the regiment on a march, and at the station of Cawnpore was usually indulged with taking his ancient post at the colour stand, where the salute of passing squadrons was given at drill and on reviews. When the regiment was ordered home, the funds of the privates running low, he was bought for the same sum by a gentleman, who provided funds and a paddock for him, where he might end his days in comfort; but when the corps had marched, and the sound of the trumpet had departed, he refused to eat, and on the first opportunity, being led out to exercise, he broke from his groom, and galloping to his ancient station on the parade, after neighing aloud, dropped down and died.

It is not surprising that an animal endowed in so high a degree as the horse is with mental and moral faculties, should occasionally be subject, like man, to derangement of these faculties. The disordered actions, the fury, the caprices, and the vices which are sometimes shown by the brute, are in the highest degree analagous to certain forms of human insanity. The following anecdotes are related by Mr. Youatt, on the authority of Professor Rodet, of Toulouse:—

A horse, seven years old, was remarkable for an habitual air of stupidity, and a peculiar wandering expression of countenance. When he saw any thing he had not been accustomed to, or heard any sudden or unusual noise, whether it was near or at a distance, or sometimes when his corn was thrown into the manger without the precaution of speaking to him or patting him, he was frightened to an almost incredible degree; he recoiled precipitately, every limb trembled, and he struggled violently to escape. After several useless efforts to get away, he would work himself into the very highest degree of rage so that it was dangerous to approach him. This state of excitement was followed by dreadful convulsions, which did not cease until he had broken his halter, or otherwise freed himself from his trammels. He would then become calm, and suffer himself to be led back to his stable, nor would any thing more be seen but an almost continual uneasiness, and a wandering and stupid expression of countenance. He had belonged to a brutal soldier, who had beaten him shamefully: but before he fell into that man’s hands he had been perfectly quiet and tractable.

A Piedmontese officer possessed a beautiful mare, and one that would have been in all respects serviceable, but for a peculiarity that rendered her exceedingly dangerous: that was a decided aversion to paper, which she recognised the moment she saw it, and even in the dark, if two leaves were rubbed together. The effect produced by the sight or sound of it was so prompt and violent, that she several times unhorsed her rider. She had not the slightest fear of objects that would terrify most horses. She regarded not the music of the band, the whistling of the balls, the roaring of the cannon, the fires of the bivouacs, or the glittering of arms. The confusion and noise of an engagement made no impression on her; the sight of no other white object offended her. No other sound moved her, but the view or the rustling of paper roused her to madness.

A mare was perfectly manageable, and betrayed no antipathy to human beings, to animals of other kinds, or to horses, except they were of a light grey colour; but the moment she saw a light grey horse she rushed towards it and attacked it with the greatest fury. It was the same at all times and everywhere. She was all that could be wished on the parade, on the route, in the ranks, in action, and in the stable; but if she once caught a glimpse of a grey or white horse she rested not until she had thrown her rider or broken her halter, and then she rushed on the object of her dislike with the utmost fury. She generally contrived to seize the animal by the head or throat, and held him so fast that she would suffocate him, if he were not promptly released from her bite.

Another mare exhibited no dread except of white inanimate objects, as white mantles or coats, and particularly white plumes. She would fly from them if she could; but if unable to accomplish this, she would rush fiercely upon them, strike at them with her forefeet, and tear them with her teeth.

One of these horses, the second, was by long and kind attention divested of its insane terror, and became, perfectly quiet and useful; but the other three bid defiance to all means of cure, and to coercion amongst the rest. The cases of all four were as decided instances of monomania, or insanity confined to one object, as ever were exhibited in the human being.

CHAPTER III
VICES, AND DISAGREEABLE OR DANGEROUS HABITS.

IN the last chapter we gave instances of mischievous propensities directed only against certain kinds of objects, and displaying all the characters of what is called monomania. These are rare cases; but it is not uncommon to find horses, whom no jury would pronounce insane, but who are addicted to the worst and most malevolent practices, such as kicking, biting, and plunging without provocation, or to shying and starting from mere wantonness, to the great danger and annoyance of their riders. These and other vices are partly the effect of a naturally bad temper, and partly of bad education. Horses, for instance, that are teased by the thoughtless play of grooms and stable boys, will begin by pretending to bite or kick their tormentors; by-and-by they will do so in earnest, and at last the habit will be permanently confirmed. Almost all veterinary surgeons are agreed in considering it hopeless to attempt the cure of these vices when once established. Professor Stewart says, “I have seen biters punished until they trembled in every joint and were ready to drop, but have never in any case known them to be cured by this treatment, or by any other. The lash is forgotten in an hour, and the horse is as ready and determined to repeat the offence as before. He appears unable to resist the temptation, and in its worst form biting is a species of insanity.” But, according to Burckhardt, the traveller, there is a method known to the Egyptian soldiery for curing the propensity to bite, and practised by them with unfailing success. They roast a leg of mutton, take it hot from the fire, and present it to the offending animal. He plunges his teeth in it, they stick fast in the hot meat, and the pain he endures makes him careful for the future to bite at nothing but his lawful food. Mr. Morier mentions a singular method he saw practised in Persia to subdue the temper of a very vicious horse that had resisted every other kind of treatment. The horse was muzzled, and turned loose in an enclosure, there to await the attack of two horses whose mouths and limbs were at liberty, and which were turned in to attack him. So effectually did this discipline operate that he became completely altered, and as remarkable for docility as he had previously been for savage obstinacy.

It is related, we know not on what authority, that a novel kind of jockeyship was once tried with triumphant success in one of those cases we are here speaking of. A well-known nobleman, so runs the tale, had a wild horse which nobody could ride. “I know not what your lordship can do with him,” said some one, “but to set the monkey on his back.” So they put a pad on the horse, and clapped the monkey upon it with a switch in his hand, wherewith he belaboured the horse, and set him into a furious kicking and galloping, but pug still kept his seat. The horse lay down on the ground; but when he threw himself on one side, the monkey was upon the other. He ran into a wood to brush his rider off; but the monkey dodged from side to side so as to avoid every tree and bush, until at last the horse was so sickened and fatigued and broken spirited, that he ran home to the stable for protection. When the monkey was removed, a boy was put in his place, and managed the horse with ease. The animal never gave any trouble afterwards.

Old books of farriery mention a plan for taming intractable horses, which, we believe, has gone out of fashion only on account of the trouble attending it. We should be glad to see it revived, for we are inclined to think it would be attended with very good results. The horse was tethered in his stall, with his tail to the manger, prevented from lying down and kept without food or sleep for forty-eight hours or more; men, who relieved each other by turns, being stationed at his head to rouse him whenever he began to dose. This method was the same in principle as that by which falconers used to tame their hawks; and there can be little doubt that the discipline which could subdue those savage and impetuous birds, would have been no less efficacious in bringing down the unruly temper of the more generous quadruped.

We have now to speak of certain horse-taming exploits, which have in them a strong tincture of the marvellous, but which are, nevertheless, authenticated by undeniable evidence.

At the Spring meeting of 1804, Mr. Whalley’s horse, King Pippin, was brought on the Curragh of Kildare to run. He was a horse of the most strangely savage and vicious disposition. His particular propensity was that of flying at and worrying any person who came within his reach; and, if he had an opportunity, he would turn his head round, seize his rider by the leg with his teeth, and drag him down from his back. For this reason he was always ridden with what is called a sword; this is a strong flat stick, having one end attached to the check of the bridle, and the other to the girth of the saddle—a contrivance to prevent a horse of this kind from getting at his rider.

King Pippin had long been difficult to manage, and dangerous to go near; but on the occasion in question, he could not be got to run at all: nobody could put the bridle on his head. There was a large concourse of people assembled on the Curragh; and one countryman, more fearless than the rest of the lookers on, volunteered his services to bridle the horse. No sooner had he commenced operations, than King Pippin seized him somewhere about the shoulders, and shook him as a dog does a rat. Fortunately for the poor fellow his body was very thickly covered with clothes, for on such holiday occasions an Irishman of his class is fond of displaying his wardrobe, and if he has three coats in the world, he is sure to put them all on. Owing to this circumstance, the horse never fairly got hold of his skin, and the man escaped with little injury, except the rent and ruined condition of his holiday attire.

A VICIOUS RACEHORSE.

The Whisperer was now sent for. This mysterious horse-tamer soon arrived, was shut up with the horse all night, and in the morning exhibited the hitherto ferocious animal following him about the course like a dog—lying down at his command—suffering his mouth to be opened, and any person’s hand to be introduced into it—in short, as quiet almost as a sheep. He came out the same meeting and won his race, and his docility continued satisfactory for a considerable period; but at the end of three years his vice returned, and then he is said to have killed a man, for which he was destroyed.

The man who effected the wonder we have just recounted was an awkward, ignorant rustic of the lowest class, of the name of Sullivan, but better known by the appellation of the Whisperer. His occupation was horse-breaking. The nickname he acquired from the vulgar notion of his being able to communicate to the animal what he wished by means of a whisper; and the singularity of his method seemed in some degree to justify the supposition. How his art was acquired, or in what it consisted, he never disclosed. He died about 1810. His son, who followed him in the same trade, possessed but a small portion of the art, having either never learned the true secret, or being incapable of putting it into practice. The wonder of his skill consisted in the celerity of the operation, which was performed in privacy, without any apparent means of coercion: every description of horse or even mule, whether previously broken or unhandled, whatever their peculiar habits or vices might have been, submitted without a show of resistance to his magical influence, and in the short space of an hour became gentle and tractable. This effect, though instantaneously produced, was generally durable. Though more submissive to him than to others, the animals seemed to have acquired a docility unknown before.

When sent for to tame a vicious beast, for which he was either paid according to the distance, or generally two or three guineas, he directed the stable, in which he and the object of the experiment were, to be shut, with orders not to open the door until a signal was given. After a tête-à-tête of about half an hour, during which little or no bustle was heard, the signal was made, and upon opening the door, the horse appeared lying down, and the man by his side playing with him like a child with a puppy dog. From that time he was found perfectly willing to submit to any discipline, however repugnant to his nature before.

Mr. Croker, to whom we are indebted for this account, once saw this man’s skill tried on a horse which could never before be brought to stand still for a smith to shoe him. “The day after Sullivan’s half hour’s lecture,” he says, “I went, not without some incredulity, to the smith’s shop, with many other curious spectators, where we were witnesses of the complete success of his art. This, too, had been a troop horse, and it was supposed, not without reason, that after regimental discipline had failed, no other would be found availing. I observed that the animal appeared terrified whenever Sullivan either spoke to or looked at him: how that extraordinary ascendancy could have been obtained it is difficult to conjecture.

“In common cases this mysterious preparation was unnecessary. He seemed to possess an instinctive power of inspiring awe, the result, perhaps, of natural intrepidity, in which, I believe, a great part of his art consisted: though the circumstance of the tête-à-tête shows that, on particular occasions, something more must have been added to it. A faculty like this would in some hands have made a fortune, and I understand that great offers were made to him for the exercise of his art abroad. But hunting was his passion: he lived at home in the style most agreeable to his disposition, and nothing could induce him to quit Duhallow and the fox-hounds.”

We have been told by a merchant long resident in Mexico, that it is a common practice in that country to tame the most violent horses by a very simple but singular method, namely, by putting the horse’s nostrils under a man’s armpit. Our informant assures us that the most refractory brute instantly becomes tractable on inhaling the odour of the human body. This strange statement is corroborated by a fact first made known by Mr. Catlin, and both together may perhaps afford a clue to the mystery of the Whisperer’s proceedings. Mr. Catlin tells us, that when an Indian of the Rocky Mountains runs down and nooses a wild horse, one of his first steps is to place his hand over the eyes of the struggling animal, and breathe into its nostrils, when it soon becomes docile, and is so completely conquered that it submits quietly ever after.

Mr. Ellis, a gentleman of Cambridge, happened to read Mr. Catlin’s statement, and felt a natural desire to ascertain how far this mode of horse-taming might be employed among British horses. He tried the experiment on a filly not a year old, that had been removed from her dam three months before, and since that time had not been out of the stable; he tried it, too, under manifest disadvantage, for the filly, which was quite wild, was in the open air, with several strangers about her, and both the owner and the amateur were rather seeking amusement from the failure, than knowledge from the success, of their experiment. It was with great difficulty Mr. Ellis managed to cover the eyes of the restive and frightened animal. At length he succeeded, and blew into her nostrils. No particular effect seemed to follow. He then breathed into her nostrils, and the moment he did so the filly at once desisted from her violent struggles, stood still and trembled. From that time she became very tractable. Another gentleman also breathed into her nostrils, and she evidently enjoyed it, and kept putting up her nose to receive the breath. On the following morning she was led out again. She was perfectly tractable, and it seemed to be almost impossible to frighten her.

Shying is a very troublesome vice, and is only to be overcome by a rider of great firmness and good temper. Blows will scarcely ever cure vicious habits originating in fear; they will only increase them, for the horse will be possessed with the dread of two evils instead of one; viz., the object itself from which he starts away, and the punishment that is to follow. Sometimes his shying is the consequence of defective sight; and then he must be taught to rely on his rider, and to learn from him that the object of his terror is not at all formidable. The tone of the voice, half chiding, half encouraging, and a gentle pressure of the heel, will be perfectly understood by the animal, and he will soon come to trust in his rider’s judgment: on the other hand, if the latter show any symptoms of timidity, they will be instantly detected by the horse, and the mischief will be greatly aggravated. In other cases the vice proceeds from skittishness or affectation, and must be differently dealt with. “Horses,” says Mr. Lawrence, “generally fix on some particular shying butt; for example, I recollect having, at different periods, three hacks, all very powerful: the one made choice of a windmill for the object or butt; the second a tilted wagon; and the third, a pig led in a string. It so happened, however, that I rode the two former when amiss from a violent cold; and they then paid no more attention to either windmills or tilted wagons, than to any other objects, convincing me that their shying, when in health and spirits, was pure affectation; an affectation however, which maybe speedily united with obstinacy and vice. Let it be treated with marked displeasure, mingled with gentle but decided firmness, and the habit will be of short endurance.”

Mr. Blaine once purchased a horse with an excellent character for steadiness, except that he was always much alarmed at a passing carriage, whether it was coming towards or overtaking him. A tilted wagon or a stage-coach were such objects of dread as no power could get him to face. “We knew it would be in vain to oppose human physical force to brute fears, and that it was only by introducing favourable recollections derived from those very objects, greater in degree than the fears hitherto entertained of them, that we could conquer this dangerous propensity. We began by leading the horse, previously exercised and fasted, towards a cart filled with clover hay: the smell of the hay was irresistible, and soon dissipated all dread of the stationary cart; but when it was purposely moved gently onwards, he became rather discomposed; a little coaxing, however, induced him to follow it, and we had the pleasure, at this his first lesson, of seeing him proceed confidently with the cart round a farm-yard, and finally into the road. To vary the effect, after he had steadily walked by the side of the carriage a certain time, we restrained him so that it got ahead of him; when he again reached it, slight indications of fear appeared, as he had to make his way up to the side of the cart, for we had a coverlet purposely drawn over the back, that he might not reach the hay from behind. We next passed the cart altogether, but it was a few paces only, and then turned him round to the other side of it; but his whole mind was so intent on the clover, that with the most trifling symptoms only of alarm, he fell to again on the hay, which finished lesson the first. Our next attempt was with a sieve, full of corn (presented to him on an empty stomach), which he could only reach from the tailboard of a tilted wagon—an awful object! After a few snortings and sniffings, here also hunger overcame his fears, and he munched the oats with great relish; but when the wagon was put in motion, his dread for a little time got the better of his appetite, and the flapping of the covering of the tilt appeared to him most portentous: his fears even in this case, however, soon gave place to confidence, through the skilfulness of a groom to whom he was much attached. This man mounted the wagon, and, resting on the tailboard, offered the oats to the horse, at the same time calling and encouraging him. This worked wonders; nor shall we readily forget the knucker of acknowledgment with which the confiding brute followed the groom’s call as the wagon moved on, occasionally dipping his nose into the sieve. After a few more lessons of a similar kind, one or two of which were varied by giving him hay from the window of a stage-coach, he lost all fear of carriages, and his former owner would willingly have taken him back at a very considerable increase of price.”

The stomach was long ago discovered to be an excellent medium of education; its lessons, aided by habit, are infallible. Here is another example of this truth:—Mr. Grant, a merchant of London, asked a friend if he knew of a saddle nag for sale; the other replied, that he himself had one to dispose of, which he could recommend were it not for his unconquerable dread of swine, which rendered him dangerous either to ride or drive, and on which account alone he must part with him. Mr. Grant was not a person to be dismayed at trifles; and being convinced he could remedy this evil, he bought the horse, and set about its cure by purchasing a sow and a large litter of pigs. The horse, sow, and pigs were all turned together into a sort of barn stable, where they were never disturbed except to give them food. The snortings, kickings, squeakings, and gruntings were for two or three days, great and continual, and the consequence was, that three or four of the younglings were demolished; but gradually the uproar ceased, and in a fortnight’s time the lady mother was to be seen under the belly of the horse, busily employed in searching for the grains of corn left in the straw, with her progeny as actively engaged around her. Well might White, in his “Natural History of Selbourne,” remark, that “interest makes strange friendships.”

With respect to the proper mode of administering punishment in these cases, we will adduce another example from Mr. Blaine: “At Harlow Bush Fair we were struck with the appearance of a likely nag; but as we saw our salesman was evidently one of a suspicious order, we squared our expectations accordingly; and after having cheapened the nag to a very low price, considering his figure, we bought him, after such a trial as this sort of places afford, and this sort of persons allow. On the next day we mounted our purchase, and proceeded five or six miles on the Hertfordshire road, the horse performing well in all his paces, riding to a good mouth, and being apparently as tractable as one could wish. We were, however, still aware, that either he must have been stolen, or that, according to stable slang, ‘a screw was loose’ somewhere, which would soon jingle,—and a turnpike-gate was to unfold the secret; for this gate he would not go through, not from any fear of the gate itself, but from mere restiveness. We battled it with him for some time, but it was to no purpose, and we were too well acquainted with horses to push matters to extremities; for even had we forced him through at this time, he would, without doubt, have repeated the same trick whenever the same spirit moved him. A radical cure was our object, and so we refrained from any further attempts to force him onwards, but, placing his head under the wall of the toll-house bar, we sat quietly on his back an hour. We then tried to pass him through the gate; but as his determination appeared to remain in full force, we gave him another hour of stationary riding, during which he was evidently very uneasy and oppressed with the weight he carried, unrelieved as he was by any change of position or any locomotion. At the end of the second hour we believe we might have forced him through, as his resistances were now feeble; but as they yet evidently existed, we gave him another half hour of waiting, and then he went through the gate as tractably as any horse could do. We did not let the matter rest here, but rode him fully ten or twelve miles further than we had intended, purposely to give him notice that implicit obedience would be exacted of him in future, on pain of a punishment not at all to his taste. He never afterwards showed the smallest disposition to rebel, although, as we learned subsequently, he had, several times before coming into our possession, been passed from hand to hand in the Rothings of Essex, as utterly incorrigible.”

CHAPTER IV
SPEED AND ENDURANCE—CARNIVOROUS HORSES—HORSE FLESH AS FOOD—HORSE BAITING.

THE maximum speed of the racehorse appears to be at the rate of a mile in a minute; for few, if any, horses can retain the full velocity of this rate for even that time. A mile has, however, been run at Newmarket by a stop-watch in one minute and four and a half seconds. It is said, but was never proved, that Flying Childers did run at Newmarket one mile in the minute; certain it is that this celebrated horse, when carrying nine stone two pounds ran over the round course, which is three miles six furlongs and ninety-three yards, in six minutes and forty seconds. Bay Melton ran four miles at York, in 1763, in seven minutes forty-three seconds and a half. Eclipse also ran the same distance, on the same course, in eight minutes with twelve stone. The most extraordinary instance on record of the stoutness as well as speed of the racehorse was displayed in 1786, when Mr. Huell’s Quibbler ran twenty-three miles round the flat at Newmarket in fifty-seven minutes and ten seconds. The speed of the greyhound, and that of the hare, is but little inferior to that of the racehorse, but their powers of endurance at their utmost velocity are not equal to his.

The racing gallop is evidently but a succession of leaps, in which the forelegs and the hind-legs start in pairs, each pair acting simultaneously. The hand-gallop is not so rapid a movement, in it the right legs are a little in advance of their fellows. It is well ascertained that a horse can never pass at once from a state of rest into the gallop of full speed, but must begin with the hand-gallop; and cunning jockeys sometimes derive profit from this circumstance by wagering with the unwary, that no horse shall be found to gallop one hundred yards while a man runs fifty, the two starting together. In this case the man is sure to win the race, for the horse has not time enough to acquire the necessary momentum, as he would do if the race were for a hundred and fifty yards.

The following account of a fearful race between a steam engine and a mare is extracted from a number of the Ipswich Express, for January, 1846:—“An occurrence, approaching the wonderful in its nature, took place on the Colchester end of the Eastern Counties Railway, early on the morning of Sunday the 4th instant. A mare, the property of Mr. Garrad, whose farm adjoins the railway and its Colchester terminus, had obtained access to the line in the course of the night, and ran off in front of the engine when the mail train started from Colchester at a quarter before three o’clock. It being quite dark, the animal was not at first observed by the engine-driver; but after the train had proceeded a short distance, and a smart speed was attained, the mare was seen ahead of the engine, between the up-line of rails, going along at a rate which seemed likely to test the power of the locomotive. The driver sounded the whistle, in the hope of frightening the mare from the line; but this only served to quicken her speed without diverting her course; on she went like the wind, with the engine and train puffing, clattering, and groaning in her rear: so desperate was her pace, that though the speed of the train had reached twenty-five miles an hour, the driver and stoker frequently lost sight of her in the gloom, and at first supposed the train had passed her, but ever and anon she was again caught sight of, still rushing along in the course of the engine; and the screaming whistle, which was now blown repeatedly, acting on the terrified mare more powerfully than the combination of spur, whip, and voice, drove her madly forward far ahead of the iron monster. What would have been the issue of this strange race had it continued much longer it is not difficult to surmise; the mare’s spirit was good, but what in the long run can flesh and blood do against the giant power of steam? As it was, she gallantly kept ahead for full five miles, when just as the flying pursuer reached the Mark’s Tey bridge, the poor animal caught her foot against a stone or part of the rail, and rolled headlong on to the down-line. The engine, with a parting shriek and puff, passed on; and the mare was found, when daylight appeared, nothing the worse for her race and tumble, and in due time was restored to her owner.”

It is not certain that a trotting speed of twenty miles an hour has ever been attained, but the distance has been done in six seconds over that time. Phenomenon, a mare belonging to Sir Edward Astley, when twelve years old, trotted seventeen miles in fifty-six minutes, and performed the same distance a month afterwards in less than fifty-three minutes; that is to say, at the rate of more than twenty-one and a half miles per hour. The American horses are celebrated for their trotting. In general they are not ridden, but driven, and that in a peculiar manner. The driver leans back in his seat and keeps up a steady pull on the reins; as long as this continues the horse runs, but stops the moment the reins are relaxed. Tom Thumb, a celebrated American horse belonging to Mr. Osbaldeston, was matched in 1829 to perform the wonderful feat of trotting a hundred miles in harness in ten and a half successive hours. The vehicle did not weigh more than one hundred pounds, nor the driver more than ten stone three pounds. The gallant little horse, which was but fourteen hands high, completed the task in ten hours and seven minutes; twenty-three minutes within the allotted time, without being in the smallest degree distressed.

It used to be thought that no horse could in fair walking contend with a man, who was a first-rate pedestrian; but the opinion was refuted by the performance of a hackney named Sloven, that, in 1791, beat a celebrated pedestrian by walking twenty miles in three hours and forty-one minutes. Two years afterwards the same animal walked twenty-two miles in three hours and fifty-two minutes.

The preceding statements are sufficient to display the absolute powers of the horse; let us now consider what can be done by horse and man. Wonderful things are related of the Tartar couriers, who used to ride from one end of the Turkish empire to the other in an incredibly short space of time, with a pacha’s head dangling at their saddle bow; but we have had European couriers whose feats were not less astonishing and better authenticated. In the days when as yet railroads were not, government expresses that required great dispatch used to be carried by men on horseback, though ordinary messengers usually travelled in carriages. Relays of horses were kept ready for the courier all along the road; a postilion accompanied him from station to station, and he continued his journey day and night without halting except to take a fresh horse. He ate and drank in the saddle, slept in the saddle, leaning forward on a cushion strapped to the high-peaked pummel, and was lifted, saddle and all, from the back of one horse to another’s; for the attempt to mount and dismount, after his heated limbs had been long fixed in one posture, would have speedily disabled him. The postilion who galloped beside him looked to his safety when he slept, and took charge of his horse. In this way couriers with despatches for London from Vienna, have ridden from the latter capital to Calais without stopping, the distance being about nine hundred miles.

In 1763, a Mr. Shafto won a match which was to provide a person who should ride one hundred miles a day, on any one horse each day, for twenty-nine days together, and to have any number of horses not exceeding twenty-nine. The jockey accomplished the task with fourteen horses, and on one day rode one hundred and sixty miles on account of the tiring of his first horse. The celebrated Lafayette rode in August, 1778, from Rhode Island to Boston, a distance of nearly seventy miles in seven hours, and returned in six hours and half.

One of the most extraordinary feats in the way of express riding performed in modern times was that of a boy of fifteen, Frederick Tyler, who conveyed, from Montgomery to Mobile, the news of the two days’ battle, fought between the armies of the United States and Mexico in the summer of 1846. The distance, one hundred and ninety miles, was accomplished in thirteen hours; and during the entire night the boy caught and saddled his horses, none of which were in readiness, as he was not looked for by those who had the horses in charge.

A bet against time was won in July, 1840, by an Arab horse at Bungalore, in the presidency of Madras, to run four hundred miles in four consecutive days. Mr. Frazer relates, in his “Tartar Journeys,” a still more striking instance of the speed and bottom of the Arab: a horse of that breed carried him from Shiraz to Teheran, five hundred and twenty-two miles in six days, remained three at rest, went back in five days, remained nine at Shiraz, and returned again to Teheran in seven days. Another high-blooded Arabian carried Mr. Frazer from Teheran to Koom, eighty-four miles, in about ten hours. A courier, whom Major Keppel fell in with between Kermanshaw and Hamadan, places one hundred and twenty miles distant from each other, performed that journey, over a rugged mountainous tract, in little more than twenty-four hours; and the next morning set off on the same horse for Teheran, two hundred miles further, expecting to reach it on the second day.

It is, of course, among the wild races inhabiting vast level tracts, such as are suitable to the habits and constitution of the horse, that the power of holding out long in the saddle is most assiduously and most generally cultivated. There are tribes and nations who may be said to spend the greater part of their lives on horseback:—the Kirghis, for instance, in Central Asia; the Gauchos, or countryfolk of European descent, who inhabit the immense Pampas, or plains of South America; and, in a still higher degree, the Indians of the same regions. The Pampas, though fertile, are totally uncultivated, and yield the scattered inhabitants no other nourishment than water, and the flesh of the unappropriated herds of cattle and horses, that roam over them in countless multitudes. Their hardy inhabitants are thus portrayed by Sir Francis Head:—

“The life of the Gaucho is very interesting. Born in the rude hut, the infant receives little attention, but is left to swing from the roof in a bullock’s hide, the corners of which are drawn towards each other by four strips of hide. In the first year of his life he crawls about without clothes, and I have more than once seen a mother give a child of this age a sharp knife, a foot long, to play with. As soon as he walks his infantine amusements are those which prepare him for the occupations of his future life: with a lasso made of twine he tries to catch little birds or the dogs as they walk in and out of the hut. By the time he is four years old he is on horseback, and immediately becomes useful by assisting to drive the cattle into the corral. The manner in which these children ride is quite extraordinary: if a horse tries to escape from the flock which are driven towards the corral , I have frequently seen a child pursue him, overtake him, and then bring him back, flogging him the whole way; in vain the creature tries to dodge and escape from him, for the child turns with him, and always keeps close to him; and it is a curious fact, which I have often observed, that a mounted horse is always able to overtake a loose one.

“His amusements and his occupations soon become more manly. Careless of the biscacheros (the holes of an animal called the biscacho, which undermine the plains, and which are very dangerous) he gallops after the ostrich, the gáma, the puma, and the jaguar; his catches them with his balls; and with his lasso he daily assists in catching the wild cattle and dragging than to the hut, either for slaughter or to be milked. He breaks in the young horses, and in these occupations is often away from his hut many days, changing his horse as soon as the animal is tired, and sleeping on the ground. As his constant food is beef and water, his constitution is so strong that he is able to endure great fatigue; and the distances he will ride, and the number of hours he will remain on horseback, would hardly be credited. The unrestrained freedom of such a life he fully appreciates; and, unacquainted with subjection of any sort, his mind is often inspired with sentiments of liberty which are as noble as they are harmless, although they of course partake of the wild habits of his life. Vain is the endeavour to explain to him the luxuries and blessings of a more civilized life; his ideas are, that the noblest effort of man is to raise himself off the ground and ride instead of walk; that no rich garments or variety of food can atone for the want of a horse; and that the print of the human foot on the ground is the symbol of uncivilization.

“The character of the Gaucho is often very estimable, he is always hospitable; at his hut the traveller is sure to find a friendly welcome, and he will often be received with a natural dignity of manner which is very remarkable, and which he scarcely expects to meet with in such a miserable looking hovel. On my entering the hut, the Gaucho has constantly risen to offer me his seat, which I have declined, and many compliments and bows have passed, until I have accepted his offer,—the skeleton of a horse’s head. It is curious to see them invariably take off their hats to each other as they enter a room which has no window, a bullock’s hide for a door, and but little roof.”

Sir Francis, who had occasion to make frequent journeys across the Pampas between Buenos Ayres to the Andes, adopted the Gaucho style of riding, galloping from sunrise to sunset without stopping except to change horses, sleeping at night on the bare ground with his saddle for a pillow, and living on beef and water. So violent was the exertion, that at first the blood used to gush from his nose as he sank down at evening utterly exhausted; but practice hardened him by degrees, and at length such was the effect of this rude training and simple diet, that he felt, to use his own words, “as if nothing would kill him.”

Every one has heard of the celebrated highwayman Turpin, his black mare, and the incredibly short space of time in which she is said to have carried him from London to York, animated by the juice of a beef-steak, which the bold robber had tied round the bit. The efficacy of this expedient appears to be established. We ourselves are aware of its having been practised by a noted hardriding butcher of Dover, and it is deserving of remark, that his horse was of an exceedingly violent and ungovernable temper, possibly from the effects of this frequent beef-chewing. An inhabitant of Hamah in Syria, assured Burckhardt that he had often given his horses roasted meat before the commencement of a fatiguing journey, that they might be the better able to endure it; and the same person fearing lest the governor should take from him his favourite horse, fed him for a fortnight exclusively upon roasted pork, which so excited his spirit and mettle, that he became absolutely unmanageable, and no longer an object of desire to the governor. The classical reader will call to mind the mares of Diomedes, which were fed upon human flesh, according to the Greek legend, and which it was one of the labours of Hercules to capture.

In the “Edinburgh Journal of Natural History,” we find the following passage:—“We are assured by Mr. Youatt, that in Auvergne fat soups are given to cattle, especially when sick or enfeebled, for the purpose of invigorating them. The same practice is observed in some parts of North America, where the country people mix, in winter, fat broth with the vegetables given to their cattle, in order to render them more capable of resisting the severity of the weather. These, broths have been long considered efficacious by the veterinary practitioners of our own country in restoring horses which have been enfeebled through long illness. It is said by Peall to be a common practice in some parts of India to mix animal substances with the grain given to feeble horses, and to boil the mixture into a sort of paste, which soon brings them into good condition, and restores their vigour. Pallas tells us that the Russian boors make use of the dried flesh of the Hamster reduced to powder, and mixed with oats; and that this occasions their horses to acquire a sudden and extraordinary degree of embonpoint. Anderson relates, in his ‘History of Iceland,’ that the inhabitants feed their horses with dried fishes when the cold is very intense, and that these animals are extremely vigorous, though small. We also know that in the Feroe Islands, the Orkneys, the Western Islands, and in Norway, where the climate is very cold, this practice is also adopted; and it is not uncommon in some very warm countries,—as in the kingdom of Muskat, in Arabia Felix, near the straits of Ormuz, one of the most fertile parts of Arabia, fish and other animal substances are there given to the horses in the cold season, as well as in times of scarcity.”

From horses eating to horses eaten, the transition is easy and natural. Wherever the animal exists in an unreclaimed state, its flesh is a staple article of food. The Kirghis Kassaks pursue it with hawks, and shoot it with arrows, or drive it into the Caspian Sea to be drowned. The Calmucks, Mongols, and other Tartars, make use of horse meat, and manufacture a weak spirit, called koumiss, from mare’s milk. The mounted Indians of South America have no other food than the flesh, milk, and blood of their mares, which they never ride; and the only luxury in which they indulge habitually, is that of washing their hair in mare’s blood. They are fond indeed of intoxicating liquors, which they drink to excess when they can procure them from the white men; but this happens only on rare occasions, and they have none of their own manufacture.

The tribes that, settling, some fifteen hundred or two thousand years ago, in the regions of Europe surrounding the Baltic, brought with them the worship of Odin, were undoubtedly of Asiatic origin, and came probably from the banks of the Don, and the shores of the Black Sea. It is a curious confirmation of this opinion, that the eating of horseflesh prevailed among their descendants down to the eleventh century. Now such a custom could never have arisen spontaneously in a country like Germany, or Scandinavia, where the animal was comparatively scarce and valuable, but it must have existed from the earliest times in the inexhaustible pastures of the plains of Asia. It was practised at the religious feasts of the Pagan north, in commemoration of the original land of those who partook of the banquet, and was a token of adherence to the religion of Odin. In one of Pope Zachary’s letters to Saint Boniface, the great apostle of the Germans, he enjoins that pious missionary to prevent the eating of horseflesh; and St. Olaf, the cruel king, who converted the Scandinavians to Christianity by the sword, put to death or mutilated all who persisted in using that heathenish food. Odinism is now extinct, and no man can be tempted by hostility to Christianity to prefer horse-steaks to beef-steaks. Yet is it not very curious to find that neither a total change of religion, nor the lapse of seven centuries have quite extinguished the hereditary taste of the northern nations for such untempting viands? There has even sprung up in Germany, of late years, a society having for its object to encourage and promote the use of horseflesh for human food! The horse is the only animal slaughtered for the supply of the prisoners, in the house of correction in Copenhagen. Mr. Bremner, who courageously tasted both the soup and the bouilli, says, that the latter is “tough, like the worst kinds of beef, but by no means bad to eat, or disagreeable in taste, only dry and thready. Had we not been told, we should have taken it for the flesh of an ox ill fed.”

Is it not wonderful thus to behold systems of cookery surviving systems of religion out of which they arose, and to see empires and kingdoms pass away, while the practices of the kitchen hold their ground? Special inclinations to certain kinds of food, may be constantly traced among different nations. Swine’s flesh has been from all times an abomination to the Arabians; and the aversion of the Jew to pork, wisely confirmed by Divine command, is a striking indication of his Arabian origin. The Germanic nations have always held beef in favour, and they alone know how to prepare it so as to make it savoury and nutritive. In Germany as in England, in Sweden as in Norway and Denmark, the German blood announces itself by this unfailing test. The Roman nations, i. e. the French, the Spaniards, and the Italians have all something in common in their kitchen as in their language and history. The Tartar princes long domesticated in St. Peterburg, and accustomed to every Western luxury, still have their feasts of horseflesh, which is dressed in twenty different forms, and which they wash down with the choicest vintages of France and Germany.

Stow makes no mention of horse-baiting as among the pastimes of the Londoners in former days, and for the honour of our ancestors we could hope that so brutal a sport was seldom witnessed; but that it was occasionally practised is certain. Ass-baiting, although more common, does not appear to have become very popular; not probably from any lack of inclination to torment, but because the poor ass resisted feebly, and made but little sport. In Malcolm’s “Anecdotes of London” we are told, that so late as 1682, horse-baiting was witnessed, and under circumstances of singular barbarity. Notice was given in the public papers that on the 12th of April, a horse of uncommon strength, and between eighteen and nineteen hands high, would be baited to death at his Majesty’s bear-garden, at the Hope, on the Bank-side, for the amusement of the Morocco ambassador, and any nobility who knew the horse, or would pay the price of admission. It seems that this animal originally belonged to the Earl of Rochester, and being of a ferocious disposition, had killed several other horses, for which misdeeds he was sold to the Earl of Dorchester, and in his service he committed several similar offences; he was then transferred to the worse than savages, who kept the bear-garden. On the day appointed, several dogs were set on the ferocious steed, but he destroyed, or drove them from the area. At length his owners determined to reserve him for a future day’s sport, and directed a person to lead him away; but before the horse had reached London bridge, the spectators demanded the fulfilment of the promise of baiting him to death, and began to destroy the building. At last the poor beast was brought back, and other dogs set upon him without effect, when he was stabbed to death with a sword.

A parallel for this barbarity is recorded in Colonel Davidson’s “Travels in Upper India.” He saw at Lucknow in the king’s stable, a beautiful bay English blood horse, which had been presented by George IV. to a former king of Oude. The animal was blinded with cloths, and fastened on each side of his headstall with strong chains, his vicious temper rendering these precautions necessary. While thus secured he was not only a windsucker, but a weaver; and his whole body incessantly moved from one side to another without rest by night or day. On the colonel’s calling out in groom’s fashion, “Come up!” the weaving instantly ceased, the horse trembled violently, and then suddenly lashed out with his hind legs, as if he wished to kick the speaker to atoms. Attempts had been made to educate him in the native style, and this was the cause that had rendered him so intolerably vicious; nor is this to be wondered at, for few horses possess tempers sufficiently good to endure the severe treatment of the native riding schools. On the accession of the late king of Oude, this poor creature was turned loose into a court-yard with a hungry royal Bengal tiger. The battle was of considerable duration; but the event proved the power and spirit of the horse, who kicked the tiger to death after his own bowels had been torn out, and trailed on the ground.

M. Arnauld, in his “History of Animals,” relates the following incident of ferocious courage in a mule:—“This animal belonged to a gentleman in Florence, and became so vicious and refractory, that his master resolved to make away with him, by exposing him to the wild beasts in the menagerie of the grand duke. For this purpose he was first placed in the dens of the hyenas and tigers, all of whom he would have soon destroyed, had he not been speedily removed. At last he was handed over to the lion, but the mule, instead of exhibiting any symptoms of alarm, quietly receded to a corner, keeping his front opposed to his adversary. Once planted in the corner, he resolutely kept his place, eyeing every movement of the lion, which was preparing to spring upon him. The lion, however, perceiving the difficulty of an attack, practised all his wiles to throw the mule off his guard, but in vain. At length the latter, perceiving an opportunity, made a sudden rush upon the lion, and in an instant broke several of his teeth by the stroke of his fore-feet. The ‘king of beasts,’ as he has been called, finding that he had got quite enough of the combat, slunk grumbling to his cage, and left the sturdy mule master of the field.”

CHAPTER V
PRIMITIVE STOCK OF WILD HOUSES—THE STEPPES.

ARE there any genuine wild horses in existence—that is to say, any that are not descended, like those of South America, from a domesticated stock? Naturalists have all concurred until very recently in answering this question negatively. They were of opinion that, as in the case of the sheep, the goat, and some other domestic animals, not a singular indication remains by which we can judge of the form, the colour, or the habits, by which the horse was characterized before it became the servant of man, or how far it may have differed from the present domesticated races. But this opinion is entirely gratuitous, and unsupported by a single fact. They choose to assume, in defiance of probability and of testimony, that the herds of horses that roam over the vast unexplored regions of Central Asia are not wild but feral (that is, sprung from a tame stock), for no other reason than because they are not very unlike our ordinary domestic breeds. Colonel Hamilton Smith, a writer of great authority, has combated these notions with great force.

“Whatever,” he says, “may be the lucubrations of naturalists in their cabinets, it does not appear that the Tahtar or even the Cossack nations have any doubt upon the subject; for they assert that they can distinguish a feral breed from the wild by many tokens, and naming the former takja and muzin, they denominate the real wild horse tarpan and tarpani. We have had some opportunity of making personal inquiries on wild horses among a considerable number of Cossacks of different parts of Russia, and among Bashkirs, Kirguise, and Kalmucs, and with a sufficient recollection of the statements of Pallas and Buffon’s information obtained from M. Sanchez, to direct the questions to most of the points at issue. From the answers of Russian officers of this irregular cavalry, who spoke French or German, we drew the general conclusion of their general belief in a true wild and untamable species of horse, and in herds that were of mixed origin. Those most acquainted with a nomadic life, and in particular an orderly Cossack attached to a Tahtar chief as Russian interpreter, furnished us with the substance of the following notice. The tarpani form herds of several hundreds, subdivided into smaller troops, each headed by a stallion; they are not found unmixed excepting towards the borders of China; they prefer wide, open, elevated steppes, and always proceed in lines or files, usually with the head to windward, moving slowly forward while grazing, the stallions leading, and occasionally going round their own troop. Young stallions are often at some distance, and single, because they are expelled by the older, until they can form a troop of mares of their own; their heads are seldom observed to be down for any length of time; they utter now and then a kind of snort, with a low neigh somewhat like a horse expecting its oats, but yet are distinguishable by the voice from any domestic species, excepting the woolly Kalmuc breed. They have a remarkably piercing sight, the point of a Cossack spear at a great distance on the horizon, seen behind a bush, being sufficient to make a whole troop halt; but this is not a token of alarm; it soon resumes its march, till some young stallion on the skirts begins to blow with his nostrils, moves his ears in all directions with rapidity, and trots or scampers forward to reconnoitre, the head being very high, and the tail out; if his curiosity is satisfied, he stops and begins to graze; but if he takes alarm, he flings up his croup, turns round, and with peculiarly shrill neighing warns the herd, which immediately turns round, and gallops off at an amazing rate, with the stallions in the rear, stopping and looking back repeatedly, while the mares and foals disappear as if by enchantment, because, with unerring tact, they select the first swell of ground, or ravine, to conceal them, until they re-appear at a great distance, generally in a direction to preserve the lee-side of the apprehended danger. Although bears and wolves occasionally prowl after a herd, they will not venture to attack it, for the sultan-stallion will instantly meet the enemy, and, rising on his haunches, strike him down with his fore-feet; and should he be worsted, which is seldom the case, another stallion becomes the champion; and in the case of a troop of wolves, the herd forms a close mass, with the foals within, and the stallions charge in a body, which no troop of wolves will venture to encounter. Carnivora, therefore, must be contented with aged or injured stragglers.

“The sultan-stallion is not, however, suffered to retain the chief authority for more than one season without opposition from others, rising, in the confidence of youthful strength, to try by battle whether the leadership should not be confided to them, and the defeated party driven from the herd in exile. These animals are found in the greatest purity in the Kara Koom, south of the lake Aral, and the Syrdaria, near Kusneh, on the hanks of the river Tom, in the territory of the Kalkas, the Mongolian deserts, and the solitudes of the Gobi. Within the Russian frontier there are, however, some adulterated herds, in the vicinity of the fixed settlements, distinguishable by the variety of their colours, and a selection of residence less remote from human habitations. Real tarpans are not larger than ordinary mules; their colour is invariably tan, Isabella, or mouse, being all shades of the same livery, and only varying in depth by the growth or decrease of a whitish surcoat, longer than the hair, increasing from Midsummer, and shedding in May; during the cold season it is long, heavy, and soft, lying so close as to feel like a bear’s fur, and then is entirely grizzled; in summer much falls away, leaving only a certain quantity on the back and loins: the head is small; the forehead greatly arched; and the ears far back, either long or short; the eyes small and malignant; the chin and muzzle beset with bristles; the neck rather thin, and crested with a thick rugged mane, which, like the tail, is black, as are also the pasterns, which are long; the hoofs are narrow, high, and rather pointed; the tail, descending only to the hocks, is furnished with coarse and rather curly or wavy hairs, close up to the crupper; the croup is as high as the withers. The voice of the tarpan is loud, and shriller than that of a domestic horse; and their action, standing, and general appearance resembles somewhat those of vicious mules. Such is the general evidence obtained from the orderly before mentioned; a man who was a perfect model of an independent trooper of the desert, and who had spent ten or twelve years on the frontier of China.”

Leo Africanus states that there are wild horses in Northern Africa, and that they are sometimes taken by means of snares, and their flesh is eaten by the Arabs. This is probably the animal first described by Colonel H. Smith, under the name of Koomrah. It differs remarkably from all other known breeds in not being gregarious. It inhabits the mountain forests, whence it comes down singly or in small groups, to the wells, where only it is liable to be captured, by men or by beasts of prey; but its wariness, its keen sense of smell, its fleetness, and the courage and fierceness with which it defends itself when brought to bay, render it very difficult to be taken. Colonel H. Smith says, “of the real koomrah we have seen a living specimen in England, and the skin of another. The first came from Barbary; the second died on board of a slave-ship, on the passage from the coast of Guinea to the West Indies in 1798, the skin, legs, and head having been carefully preserved by the master, who kindly permitted a sketch and notes to be made of it at Dominica.

“The koomrah of the mountains is about ten, or ten and a half hands, high; the head is broad across the forehead, and deep measured to the jowl; it is small, short, and pointed at the muzzle, making the profile almost triangular; instead of a forelock between the ears, down to the eyes the hair is long and woolly; the eyes are small, of a light hazel colour; and the ears large and wide; the neck thin, forming an angle with the head, and clad with a scanty but long black mane; the shoulder rather vertical and meagre, with withers low, but the croup high and broad; the barrel large; thighs cat-hammed, and the limbs clean but asinine, with the hoofs elongated; short pastern, small callosities on the hind legs; and the tail clothed with short fur for several inches before the long black hair begins. The animal is entirely of a reddish bay colour, without streak or mark on the spine, or any white about the limbs. We made our sketch at Portsmouth, and believe it refers to the same animal which lived for many years, if we are rightly informed, in a paddock of the late Lord Grenville’s. There was in the British Museum a stuffed specimen exactly corresponding in size and colour, but with a head (possibly in consequence of the taxidermist wanting the real skull) much longer and less in depth. The other specimen, which came from the mountains north of Accra in Guinea, was again entirely similar. We were told that in voice it differed from both horse and ass; and in temper, that which died on shipboard, though very wild and shy at first, was by no means vicious, and it fed on sea-biscuit with willingness.”

The Steppes, as the great table land of Central Asia is called, extend from the borders of Hungary to those of China. They constitute an almost uninterrupted plain, of considerable elevation, covered in spring and autumn by a luxuriant herbage; in winter by drifting snows, heaped up in some places, and leaving the ground bare in others; and in summer by clouds of dust so excessively fine, that even on the calmest day they hang suspended in the air, having the appearance rather of a vapour exhaled from the ground, than of earthly particles raised by the agitation of the atmosphere. The slight undulations that occur assume but rarely the character of hills; but artificial hillocks or tumuli are frequently met with, the origin of which it is impossible to trace through the darkness of bygone ages. The most singular characteristic, however, of the Steppe is, the total absence of trees, on a soil remarkable for its richness, and the luxuriance of its herbage. For hundreds of miles a traveller may proceed in a straight line without encountering even a bush, unless he happens to be acquainted with the few spots known to the Tartar sportsmen, to whom they answer the purpose of game preserves. Countless herds of horned cattle, and wild or half-wild horses roam over these noble pasture grounds, on which a calf, born at the foot of the great Chinese wall, might eat his way along until he arrived a well fattened ox, on the banks of the Dniestr, prepared to figure with advantage at the Odessa market. The poor animals suffer much during the hot and dry summers, when every blade of grass is parched up; but the careful herdsman who has provided himself with an abundant stock of hay, is able to keep his beasts alive until autumn returns to gladden them with fresh abundance.

The most pleasing aspect of the Steppe is that presented in spring. In the first week of that season, while as yet the snow has scarcely disappeared from the earth, a luxuriant vegetation springs up, converting the waste into a fairy scene. On this carpet of rich green grass, variegated by the hyacinth, the tulip, the crocus, and the wild mignionette, besides a thousand other flowers, a traveller mounted on the fleetest steed, and riding without intermission night and day, if such a thing were possible, would find the spring elapse before he could reach the end of this vast plain, so large a portion of the earth’s surface does it cover; and so little would he find it differing from the frontiers of the Ukraine to those of Chinese Tartary, that at his journey’s end he might still fancy the same scene surrounded him as when he began it; the Steppe almost everywhere resembling the Steppe on its eastern, the same as on its western frontier.

With the first summer months the soil which is badly watered becomes dry and arid in the burning sun; the grass withers and turns brown, and then more dusky still, as it gets covered with the black dust which the wind disturbs, until at last the whole Steppe becomes covered with the same sombre hue; life seems for ever destroyed in all the withered vegetation, except wormwood and prickly weeds, which cover whole tracts, still thriving in the rankness of the nitrous soil, wherein they have grown to such gigantic size, that the thistles rise like little woods, capable of concealing a whole encampment, and in which a mounted rider is perfectly hidden when sitting on the tallest horse.

Towards the end of summer one parched and arid wilderness extends around on every side, in which the cattle grow thin and languid, and often perish in great numbers for want of water. The Russian herdsman can no longer extract a draft of milk from his cows; the Tartar finds that the dugs of his mares refuse him the needful refreshment. Towards autumn the Steppe is constantly set fire to; sometimes through carelessness or wilfulness, sometimes for sake of the young crop of grass that shoots up through the ashes, when the mists and dewy nights of autumn give a fresh and ephemeral life to the productions of the earth. The fires sometimes extend for hundreds of miles, and give rise to frequent accidents.

The method of escaping from the flames, which come on roaring and crackling over an extent many miles in width, is not by flight; because though the steed may carry his rider faster than the fire can travel, it is sure to overtake the fugitive in the long run. The inhabitants of the Steppe resort to the same means as those of the American prairies to save themselves; they combat fire by fire, and kindling the grass to leeward, they advance in the rear of the flames, which clears the way for them, and leaves no food for the burning sea that is rushing towards them.

In the autumn water is less scarce; a partial verdure springs through the withered stems of grass and plants, and the herds recover. The winter is intensely cold. The piercing winds which have swept across the North American continent and the Arctic regions of Siberia, howl over these now desolate and cheerless regions, where nothing breaks the monotony of thousands and thousands of miles of level ground, except the tumuli of the ancient Mongol warriors, the tents of the Kalmuck and the Tartar, and the huts of the Cossack or the herdsman, and where nothing intervenes to arrest the violence or to modify the rigour of the freezing blast. No language can give an adequate idea of these metels as they are called in Southern Russia. They come down on the land with such whirling and driving gusts, such furious and continuous tempests, such whistlings and roarings of the wind, and a sky so murky and threatening, that no hurricane at sea can be more terrific. The snow is now piled up mountains high, now hollowed into deep valleys, now spread out into rushing and heaving billows; or it is driven through the air, fluttering like a long white veil, until the wind has scattered the last shreds before it. Whole flocks of sheep, surprised by the tempest close to their folds, and even herds of horses, have been driven into the Black Sea or the Caspian, and drowned. When beset by such dangers their instinct usually prompts them to cluster together in a circle and form a compact mass, so as to present a less surface to the metel. But the force of the wind gradually compels them onwards;—they reach the shore, their footing fails, and finally they are all engulphed in the waves.

In the European Steppes the cold often reaches 30° Reaumur, or far below the point at which boiling water cast up in the air falls to the earth in a shower of frozen hailbeads. Even where some of the most southern Asiatic Steppes assume the character of the African Sahara, and where the camel in the summer sinks up to his knees in the burning sand, in winter the icicles gather as thickly on the few straggling hairs of the Tartar’s chin, as they do on the bushy beard of the Muscovite on the banks of the Neva. Perovski, the governor of Orenburg, on his expedition to Khiva, six winters since, was arrested by the impassable snow, on the very route which he dared not undertake in the summer months for fear of being buried under the hot and drifting sand, as it has not unfrequently happened to the caravans which ventured to invade the solitude of this desert.

The region of the Steppes is the home of the Cossacks, of a portion of the Mongol race, and of more than a score of Tartar tribes. It is the home of the camel and of the fat-tailed Kirghis sheep; of the wild steed and of the Taboon horse, scarcely tame; of the grey oxen, which furnish nearly all our tallow; of the antelope and the bustard. The wolf, driven to change his habits, burrows in these immense plains like a fox; the jackal infests portions of them; and the destroying locust falls like a blight and a curse on the young green grass of the free space, or on the rising harvest of the agricultural pioneer. On some parts of these wide Steppes dwell the most hideous of the human race, the Calmucks and Baskirs; and on other parts the Circassians, the most beautiful of their species, still sometimes descend in their predatory excursions.[^[1]]

[1]. Revelations of Russia. Hommaire de Hell’s Steppes of the Caucasus.

CHAPTER VI
THE CENTAUR—THE MONGOLS AND CALMUCKS—A RUSSIAN TABOON.

THE origin of the fabulous Centaur is referred by some of the learned to the Steppes, whence the first horses, and probably their riders also, passed into Thessaly. The equestrian skill acquired by the Thessalians at an early period when the horse was unknown in the rest of Greece, might have induced the imaginative beholders to declare in hyperbolical language that the horse and rider were one body:—

“These gallants

Had witchcraft in ’t; they grew into their seat,

And to such wondrous doing brought their horse

As they had been incorpsed, and deminatured

With the brave beast.”

And thus what was at first but a figurative expression, may have come afterwards to be regarded as standing for a literal truth. Or, as it is still more likely, the appearance of the first mounted strangers may have so terrified the native inhabitants, as to have sent them flying, with an awful story in their mouths of the invasion of the country by a set of monsters, half man, half quadruped. Thus it was in South America, where the natives for a long while believed that the cavalry of the invaders were composite animals, which they called Gachupins, a word which continued to be applied as a nickname to the Spaniards, until they were expelled from the continent. The Mongol Tartar of the Steppes is just such a being as an artist would choose to form the human portion of the more than half brutish figure of the Centaur. The upper portion of his frame is well developed, but his weak and ill-formed legs seem made only to hold him on his horse, on whose back he passes most of his life, and with which he appears to form as it were one whole. The Tartar’s head, round as a bullet, looks like a weight stuck on his body to balance it in the gallop. No other expression than those of animal impulses is discernible in his hard features, and small, black, oblique eyes. He scarcely exhibits a trace of those spiritual conceptions which are to be found among all other races, however rude; he possesses not the least element of a mythology, or of a primitive religion. The ancients, who make mention of this people, say that they worshipped the sword as the emblem of physical force; and, according to the traditions and songs of the Sclavonic nations, the Tartar has a new deity for every day of his life, a saying which very significantly expresses a devotion that regards only the enjoyments of each passing day. Blind obedience to their leaders is instinctive in this race; and military discipline, which among others is the elaborate work of art, is with them the spontaneous impulse of nature. Their leaders, who have obtained such hideous renown, combined in their own persons till the good and bad qualities of their hordes; they were born to command armies, and possessed the art of strategy in the highest degree, and were utterly incapable of mercy. The deeds of Attila, the scourge of God, are well known. Genghis Khan, sitting in his tent beneath the pole-star, issued his orders to two armies, one of which was devastating India, the other Germany. Nay, the inferior leaders often apprehended and fell in with the general plan of operations without receiving any special instructions; the whole host, the whole race, was evermore conducted by the unfailing instinct that guides the vulture to its prey. Genghis Khan could not read, he did not even know the history of his own race, and yet he and the other Mongol conquerors were not barbarians, if the art of creating wealth and power constitutes civilization. The Mongols were sedulous to advance trade and manufactures. When they sacked a city, they generally exempted the artisans from the general butchery, and transported them to their own dominions. The system of posting was known to them; Genghis Khan’s courier-stations extended from China to Poland. It was his wish to establish everywhere one uniform system of weights and measures, and it is said that he even hit upon the invention of bank-notes.

Were we now to ask, what was the purpose of all the Mongol expeditions to the remotest regions, it would not be easy to answer the question. Their leaders did not set the least value on the wealth they seemed to hunt after. Destruction was their only apparent object. It was once coolly discussed by them in a council of war, whether it would not be better to extirpate the whole population of Persia, and turn the entire face of the country into pasture ground; and the plan was very near being realized. The Mongol rulers always declared that it was their vocation to chastise and exterminate mankind, a belief which is not yet extinct in the race of Genghis Khan. The Mongols possess not one poet, not one artist, nevertheless they can claim one architectural invention as peculiarly their own, that, namely, of building up towers of living men cemented together with mortar. Timur Lenk, or Tamurlane, used to assist the masons with his own hand at this work. What is the greatest bliss in this world? This question having been once propounded among the sages and chief men, the Khan replied: “It is to vanquish the foe, to outrage his wife before his eyes, to slaughter his children, and then to torture himself to death.” The sovereign’s opinion exactly coincided with that of the people.

Such is the character of the race that first perhaps deserved the name of “tamers of horses.”

A CALMUCK EQUESTRIAN COURTSHIP.

The Calmucks, a principal branch of the great Mongol stock, are more widely dispersed over the globe than any other, even the Arabs not excepted. Tribes of this people occur over all the countries of Upper Asia, between 38° and 52° north latitude, and from the most northern bend of the Hoang-ho to the banks of the Volga. They are the Hippophagi, or eaters of horseflesh, of Pliny, and the more ancient historians. They have very large settlements in the neighbourhood of Taganrok, and there Dr. Clarke had an opportunity of studying their habits and appearance. Calmuck men and women were continually galloping their horses through the streets of the town, or lounging in the public places. The women, he says, ride better than the men, and a male Calmuck on horseback looks as if he was intoxicated, and likely to fall off every instant though he never loses his seat; but the women sit with much ease, and ride with extraordinary skill. We shall see however by and by, that the men are better equestrians than the learned traveller supposed. The ceremony of marriage among the Calmucks is performed on horseback. A girl is first mounted and rides off at full speed. Her lover pursues, and if he overtakes her she becomes his wife on the spot, and then returns with him to his tent. But it sometimes happens that the woman does not wish to marry the person by whom she is pursued, in which case she will not suffer him to overtake her; and Dr. Clarke was assured that no instance occurs of a Calmuck girl being thus caught unless she has a partiality for her pursuer. If she dislikes him she rides, in English sporting phrase, neck or nothing, until she has completely escaped, or until the pursuer’s horse is tired out, leaving her at liberty to return, to be afterwards chased by some more favoured admirer.

Of all the inhabitants of the Russian empire, the Calmucks are the most distinguished by peculiarity of feature and manners. In their personal appearance they are athletic, and very forbidding. Their hair is coarse and black, their language harsh and guttural. The Cossacks alone esteem them, and intermarry with them; and these unions sometimes produce women of very great beauty, although nothing is more hideous than a Calmuck. High, prominent, broad cheek bones, widely separated from each other; a flat and broad nose; coarse, greasy, jet black hair; scarcely any eyebrows; and enormous prominent ears, constitute no very inviting portrait. Their persons are indescribably filthy, and their habits loathsome. They eat raw horseflesh, and may be seen tearing it like wild beasts from large bones which they hold in their hands. Sometimes they cook their meat, but not in a manner that would make it much more inviting to an English stomach. They cut the muscular parts into steaks which they place under their saddles, and after they have galloped thirty or forty miles, they find the meat tender and palatable. This is a common practice with them on their journeys. The author of Hudibras alludes to this culinary process in terms more pointed than decorous.

Every body has heard of the fermented liquor called koumiss, which the Calmucks, the Tartars, &c., manufacture from the milk of the mare. It is produced by combining with six of warm milk, one part of warm water, and a little very sour milk or old koumiss. The vessel is then covered with a thick cloth and left in a moderately warm place for twenty-four hours, until the whole mass becomes sour. After this it is twice beaten with a stick in the shape of a churn staff, so as perfectly to mix together the thick parts and the thin. This being done the process is complete, and the liquor is ready for drinking.

A subsequent process of distillation obtains from this koumiss an ardent spirit called rack or racky, a name identical with that given to the spirit manufactured in the East Indies. Dr. Clarke found some women in the act of making it. “The still,” he says, “was composed of mud, or very close clay. For the neck of the retort a cane was used; and the receiver was entirely covered by a coating of wet clay. The brandy had just passed over. The woman who had the management of the distillery, wishing to give us a small taste of the spirit, thrust a stick with a small tuft of camel’s hair into the receiver, dropped a portion of it on the retort, and waving the instrument above her head, scattered the remaining liquor in the air. I asked the meaning of this ceremony, and was told it was a religious custom to give always the first of the brandy which they drew from the receiver to their god. The stick was then plunged into the liquor a second time, when more brandy adhering to the camel’s hair, she squeezed it into the palm of her dirty hand, and having tasted the liquor, presented it to our lips.”

A recent traveller, Madame de Hell, gives a more pleasing picture of the Calmucks, whom she saw under favourable circumstances, being the guest of one of their princes. The following is her account of an equestrian entertainment she witnessed:—

“The moment we were perceived, five or six mounted men, armed with long lassos (strong flexible thongs with running nooses) rushed into the middle of the taboon (herd of half wild horses), keeping their eyes constantly fixed on the young prince, who was to point out the animal they should seize. The signal being given, they instantly galloped forward and noosed a young horse with a long dishevelled mane, whose dilated eyes and smoking nostrils betokened inexpressible terror. A lightly-clad Calmuck, who followed them on foot, immediately sprang upon the stallion, cut the thongs that were throttling him, and engaged with him in an incredible contest of daring and agility. It would be impossible, I think, for any spectacle more vividly to affect the mind than that which now met our eyes. Sometimes the rider and his horse rolled together on the grass; sometimes they shot through the air with the speed of an arrow, and then stopped abruptly, as if a wall had all at once risen up before them. On a sudden the furious animal would crawl on its belly, or rear in a manner that made us shriek with terror, then plunging forward again in his mad gallop, he would dash through the taboon, and endeavour in every possible way to shake off his novel burden.

“But this exercise, violent and dangerous as it appeared to us, seemed but sport to the Calmuck, whose body followed all the movements of the animal with so much suppleness, that one would have fancied that the same spirit animated both bodies. The sweat poured in foaming streams from the stallion’s flanks, and he trembled in every limb. As for the rider, his coolness would have put to shame the most accomplished horseman in Europe. In the most critical moments he still found himself at liberty to wave his arms in token of triumph; and in spite of the indomitable humour of his steed, he had sufficient command over it to keep it almost always within the circle of our vision. At a signal from the prince, two horsemen, who had kept as close as possible to the daring centaur, seized him with amazing quickness, and gallopped away with him, before we had time to comprehend this new manœuvre. The horse, for a moment stupified, soon made off at full speed, and was lost in the midst of the herd. These performances were repeated several times without a single rider suffering himself to be thrown.

“But what was our amazement when we saw a boy of ten years come forward to undertake the same exploit! They selected for him a young white stallion of great size, whose fiery bounds and desperate efforts to break his bonds, indicated a most violent temper.

“I will not attempt to depict our intense emotions during this new conflict. This child, who, like the other riders, had only the horse’s mane to cling to, afforded an example of the power of reasoning over instinct and brute force. For some minutes he maintained his difficult position with heroic intrepidity. At last, to our great relief, a horseman rode up to him, caught him up in his outstretched arm, and threw him on the croup behind him.”

We will now lay before our readers the economy of a Russian taboon, as described by Kohl, the German traveller. A small number of stallions and mares, placed under the care of a herdsman, are sent into the Steppe as the nucleus of the herd. The foals are kept, and the herd is allowed to go on increasing, until the number of horses is thought to be about as large as the estate can conveniently maintain. A taboon seldom consists of more than a thousand horses; but there are landowners in the Steppe, who are supposed to possess eight or ten such taboons in different parts of the country. It is only when the taboon is said to be full, that the owner begins to derive revenue from it, partly by using the young horses on the estate itself, and partly by selling them at the fairs, or to the travelling horse-dealers in the employ of the government contractors.

The tabunshick, to whose care the taboon is intrusted, must be a man of indefatigable activity, and of an iron constitution; proof alike against the severest cold, and the most burning heat, and capable of living in a constant exposure to every kind of weather, without the shelter even of a bush.

It must be a matter of indifference to him whether he makes his bed at night among the wet grass, or upon the naked earth, baked for twelve hours by an almost vertical sun. In the coldest weather he can seldom hope for the shelter of a roof; and though the hot winds blow upon him like the blast of a furnace, and his skin cracks with very dryness, yet he must pass the greater part of his day in the saddle, ready at every instant to gallop off in pursuit of a stray steed, or to fly to the rescue of a young foal attacked by a ravenous wolf. The shepherd and the herdsman carry their houses with them. Their large wagons, that always accompany them on their wanderings, afford shelter from the weather, and a warm nest at night; but these are luxuries the tabunshick must not even dream of. His charges are much too lively to be left to their own guidance. His thousand horses are not kept together in as orderly and disciplined a fashion as those of a regiment of dragoons; and it may be doubted, whether an adjutant of cavalry has to ride about as much, and to give as many orders, on a day of battle, as a tabunshick on the quietest day that he spends in the Steppe. When on duty, a tabunshick, scarcely ever quits the back of his steed. He eats there, and even sleeps there: but he must beware of sleeping at the hours when other men sleep; for while grazing at night, the horses are most apt to wander away from the herd, and at no time is it more necessary for him to be on his guard against wolves, and against those adventurous dealers in horseflesh, who usually contrive that the money which they receive at a fair, shall consist exclusively of profit. During a snow-storm, the poor tabunshick must not think of turning his back to the tempest; this his horses are too apt to do, and it is his business to see that they do not take flight, and run scouring before the wind.

The dress of a tabunshick is chiefly composed of leather, fastened together by a leathern girdle, to which the whole veterinary apparatus, and a variety of little fanciful ornaments, are usually appended. His head is protected by a high cylindrical Tartar cap, of black lambskin; and over the whole he throws his sreeta, a large, brown, woollen cloak, with a hood to cover his head. This hood, in fine weather, hangs behind, and often serves its master at once for pocket and larder.

The tabunshick has a variety of other trappings, of which he never divests himself. Among these, his harabnick holds not the least important place. This is a whip, with a thick short stem, but with a thong often fifteen or eighteen feet in length. It is to him a sceptre that rarely quits his hand, and without which it would be difficult for him to retain his riotous subjects in anything like proper order. Next comes his sling, which he uses like the South American lasso, and with which he rarely misses the neck of the horse whose course he is desirous of arresting. The wolf club is another indispensable part of his equipment. This club which mostly hangs at the saddle, ready for immediate use, is three or four feet long, with a thick iron knob at the end. The tabunshicks acquire such astonishing dexterity in the use of this formidable weapon, that, at full gallop they will hurl it at a wolf, and rarely fail to strike the iron end into the prowling bandit’s head. The club, skilfully wielded, carries almost as sudden death with it as the rifle of an American back-woodsman. A cask of water must also accompany the tabunshick on every ride, for he can never know whether he may not be for days without coming to a well. A bag of bread, and a bottle of brandy are likewise his constant companions, besides a multitude of other little conveniences and necessaries, which are fastened either to himself, or his horse. Thus accoutred, the tabunshick sallies forth on a mission that keeps his dexterity and his power of endurance in constant exercise. His thousand untamed steeds have to be kept in order with no other weapon than his harabnick; and this, it may easily be supposed, is no easy task. His greatest trouble is with the stallions, who, after spending their ten or twelve years on the Steppe, without having once smelt the air of a stable, or felt the curb of a rein, become so ungovernable, that the tabunshick will sometimes threaten to throw up his office, unless such or such a stallion be expelled from the taboon.

Such constant exposures to fatigue and hardship, make the average life of a tabunshick extremely short. At the end of ten or fifteen years he is generally worn out, and unfit for such arduous duty. His pay therefore is proportionably high; for every tabunshick is a hired servant, as no serf could be impelled by any dread of punishment to exert that constant vigilance, without which the whole taboon would be broken up in a few days. What the fear of the whip, however, cannot effect in a slave, the hope of gain may insure from a freeman. The wages of a tabunshick are regulated by the number of horses committed to his care. For each horse he usually receives five or six rubles a year; so that the guardian of a full taboon may earn his six thousand rubles annually (£275), if he can keep the wolf and thief at bay; but every horse that is lost the tabunshick must pay for; and horse stealing is carried on so largely and dextrously on the Steppe, that he may sometimes lose half a year’s wages in a single night. He must also pay his assistants out of his own wages, and three assistants at least will be required to look after a taboon of a thousand horses. Notwithstanding all these drawbacks, however, the tabunshick, if he were vigilant and careful, might always save money; but few of them do so, and it rarely happens, that when invalided, they have hoarded together a little capital to enable them to embark in any more quiet occupation.

The hardships to which they are constantly exposed, and the high wages which they receive, make the tabunshicks the wildest dare-devils that can be imagined; so much so, that it is considered a settled point, that a man who has had the care of horses for two or three years, is unfit for any quiet, or settled kind of life. No one, of course, that can gain a tolerable livelihood in any other way, will embrace a calling that subjects him to so severe a life; and the consequence is, that it is generally from among the scamps of a village that servants are raised for this service. They are seldom without money, and when they do visit the brandy-shop, they are not deterred from abandoning themselves to a carouse by the financial considerations likely to restrain most men in the same rank of life. They ought, it is true, never to quit the taboon for a moment, but they will often spend whole nights in the little brandy-houses of the Steppe, drinking and gambling, and drowning in their fiery potations all recollections of the last day’s endurance. When their senses return with the returning day, they gallop after their herds, and display no little ingenuity in repairing the mischief that may have accrued from the carelessness of the preceding night.

The tabunshick lives in constant dread of the horse-stealer, and yet there is hardly a tabunshick on the Steppe that will not steal a horse if occasion presents itself. The traveller, who has left his horses to graze during the night, or the villager, who has allowed his cattle to wander away from his house, will do well to ascertain that there be no taboon in the vicinity, or in the morning he will look for them in vain. The tabunshick, meanwhile, takes care to rid himself, as soon as possible, of his stolen goods, by exchanging them away to the first brother herdsman that he meets, who again barters them away to another; so that in a few days, a horse that was stolen on the banks of the Dniepr, passes from hand to hand till it reaches the Bug or the Dniestr; and the rightful owner may still be inquiring after a steed, which has already quitted the empire of the Czar, to enter the service of a Moslem, or to figure in the stud of a Hungarian magnate. The tabunshicks have constantly little affairs of this kind to transact with one another, for which the Mongolian tumuli, scattered over the Steppe, afford convenient places of rendezvous.

Accustomed to a life of roguery and hardship, and indulging constantly in every kind of excess, the tabunshick comes naturally to be looked upon, by the more orderly class, as rather a suspicious character; but his friendship is generally worth having, and his ill-will is always dreaded. His very master stands a little in awe of him, for a tabunshick is not a servant that can be dismissed at a day’s notice. When the taboon has once become accustomed to him, the animals are not easily brought to submit to the control of a stranger. The tabunshick, moreover, has learned to know his horses; can tell the worth of each, can advise which to sell and which to keep, and knows where the best pasture ground may be looked for. Such a fellow, therefore, if intelligent and experienced, whatever his moral character may be, becomes necessary to his master, and, feeling this, is not long without presuming upon his conscious importance. He plays his wild pranks with impunity, and looks down with sovereign contempt upon the more decent members of society, particularly upon the more honest shepherds and cowherds, whom he considers, in every point of view, as an inferior race.

At the horse-fairs, the tabunshick is always a man of great importance; and it is amusing and interesting to see him, with his wild taboon, at Balta and Berditsheff, where are held the greatest fairs between the Dniepr and the Dniestr. The horses are driven into the market in the same free condition in which they range over the Steppe, for if tied together they would become entirely ungovernable. When driven through towns and villages, the creatures are often frightened; but that occasions no trouble to their drivers, for the herd is never more certain to keep together than when made timid by the appearance of a strange place. In the market-place the taboon is driven into an enclosure, near which the owner seats himself, and the tabunshick enters along with his horses. The buyers walk round to make their selection. They must not expect the horses to be trotted out for their inspection, as at Tattersall’s, but must judge for themselves as well as they can, with the comfortable reflection, that, after they have bought the animals, they will have ample time to become acquainted with them. “I have none but wild horses to sell,” the owner will say. “Look at them as long as you please. That horse I will warrant five years old, having bred him on my own Steppe. Further than that I know nothing of him. The price is a hundred rubles. Will you take him? If you say yes, I’ll order him to be caught; but I’d advise you to make the tabunshick a present, that he may take care not to injure the animal in catching it.” This last caution is by no means to be neglected, for a horse, carelessly caught, may be lamed for several weeks; and as the horse is never caught till the bargain has been concluded, any injury done to the animal is the buyer’s business, not the seller’s. If, on the other hand, the tabunshick be satisfied with the fee given him, he goes about his task in a much more methodical manner. The sling is thrown gently over the neck of the designated steed, but the latter is not thrown with the jerk to the ground. He is allowed for a little while to prance about at the full length of his tether, till his first fright be over. Gradually the wild animal becomes reconciled to the unwonted restraint, and the buyer leads him away quietly to his stable, where it will often take a year’s tuition to cure him of the vicious habits acquired on the Steppe.

After saying so much of the tabunshick, it will be but fair to give some account of the life led by the riotous animals committed to his charge. During what is called the fine season, from Easter to October, the taboon remains grazing day and night in the Steppe.

During the other six months of the year, the horses remain under shelter at night, and are driven out only in the day, when they must scrape away the snow for themselves, to get at the scanty grass underneath. When we say the horses remain under shelter, it must not be supposed that the shelter in question resembles in any way an English stable. The shelter alluded to consists of a space of ground enclosed by an earthen mound, with now and then something like a roof towards the north, to keep off the cold wind. There the poor creatures must defend themselves, as well as they can against the merciless Boreas, who comes to them unchecked in his course all the way from the pole. To a stranger it is quite harrowing to see the noble animals, in severe weather, in one of these unprotected enclosures. The stallions and the stronger beasts, take possession of the shed; the timid and feeble stand in groups about the wall, and creep closely together, in order to impart a little warmth to each other. Nor is it from cold that they have most to suffer on these occasions. Early in winter they still find a little autumnal grass under the snow, and the tabunshick scatters a little hay about the stable to help them to amuse the tedious hours of night. The customary improvidence of a Russian establishment, however, seldom allows a sufficient stock of hay, to be laid in for the winter. As the season advances, hay grows scarce, and must be reserved for the more valuable coach and saddle horses, and the tabunshick is obliged to content himself with a portion of the dry reeds and straw stored up for fuel. For these he has soon to battle it with the cook and the stove heaters, whose interest never fails to outweigh that of the poor taboon horses. These, if the winter last beyond the average term, are often reduced to the thatch of the roofs, and sometimes even eat away one another’s tails and manes; and that in a country where every year more grass is burnt during the summer, than would suffice to provide a profusion of hay, for a century of winters!—It will hardly be matter of surprise to any one, to learn that the winter is a season of sickness and death to the horses of the Steppe. After the mildest winter, the poor creatures come forth, a troop of sickly looking skeletons; but when the season has been severe, or unusually long, more than half of them, perhaps, have sunk under their sufferings, or have been so reduced in strength that the ensuing six months are hardly sufficient to restore them to their wonted spirits. The year 1833 was remarkably destructive to the taboons, and they had not recovered from its effects five years afterwards, when I last visited the Steppe. In such years of famine, the most enormous prices are sometimes paid for hay; yet every careful agriculturist may secure his cattle against such sufferings, by a little industry and forethought. In the proper season he may have as much hay as he pleases, for the mere trouble of cutting it; and such is the dryness of the climate during summer, that the hay may always be carried home, and stacked within a few hours after it has been mown.

From the hardships of an ordinary winter, the horses quickly recover amid the abundance of spring. A profusion of young grass covers the ground as soon as the snow has melted away. The crippled spectres that stalked about a few weeks before, with wasted limbs, and drooping heads, are as wild and mischievous at the end of the first month, as though they had never experienced the inconvenience of a six months’ fast. The stallions have already begun to form their separate factions in the taboon, and the neighing, bounding, prancing, gallopping, and fighting, goes on merrily from the banks of the Danube to the very heart of Mongolia.

In a taboon of a thousand horses, there are generally fifteen or twenty stallions, and four or five hundred brood mares. The stallions, and particularly the old ones, consider themselves the rightful lords of the community. They exercise their authority with very little moderation, and desperate battles are often fought among them, apparently for the mere honour of the championship. In almost every taboon there is one stallion who, by the rule of his hoof, has established a sort of supremacy, to which his comrades tacitly submit. Factions, cabals, and intrigues are not wanting. Sometimes there will be a general coalition against some particular stallion, who, if he get into a quarrel, is immediately set upon by ten or a dozen at once, and has no chance but to run for it. There is seldom a taboon without two or three of these objects of public animosity, who may be seen with a small troop of mares grazing apart from the main body of the herd.

The most tremendous battles are fought when two taboons happen to meet. In general, the tabunshicks are careful to keep at a respectful distance from each other; but sometimes they are away from their duty, and sometimes, when a right of pasturage is disputed, they bring their herds together out of sheer malice. The mares and foals on such occasions keep aloof, but their furious lords rush to battle with an impetuosity, of which those who are accustomed to see the horse only in a domesticated state, can form but a poor conception. Tho enraged animals lash their tails, and erect their manes like angry lions; their hoofs rattle against each other with such violence, that the noise can be heard at a considerable distance; they fasten on one another with their teeth like tigers; and their screamings and howlings are more like those of the wild beasts of the forests, than like any sounds ever heard from a tame horse. The victorious party is always sure to carry away a number of captive mares in triumph; and the exchange of prisoners is an affair certain to bring the tabunshicks and their men by the ears, if they have been able to keep themselves out of the battle till then.

The spring, though in so many respects a season of enjoyment, is not without its drawbacks. The wolves, also, have to indemnify themselves for the severe fast of the winter, and are just as desirous as the horses to get themselves into good condition again. The foals, too, are just then most delicate, and a wolf will any day prefer a young foal, to a sheep, or a calf. The wolf accordingly is constantly prowling about the taboon during the spring, and the horses are bound to be always prepared to do battle, in defence of the younger members of the community. The wolf, as the weaker party, trusts more to cunning than strength. For a party of wolves openly to attack a taboon at noon-day, would be to rush upon certain destruction; and, however severely the wolf may be pressed by hunger, he knows his own weakness too well, to venture on so absurd an act of temerity. At night, indeed, if the taboon happen to be a little scattered, and the wolves in tolerable numbers, they will sometimes attempt a rush, and a general battle ensues. An admirable spirit of coalition then displays itself among the horses. On the first alarm, stallions and mares come charging up to the threatened point, and attack the wolves with an impetuosity, that often puts the prowlers to instant flight. Soon, however, if they feel themselves sufficiently numerous, they return, and hover about the taboon, till some poor foal straggle a few yards from the main body, when it is seized by the enemy, while the mother, springing to its rescue, is nearly certain to share the same fate. Then it is that the battle begins in real earnest. The mares form a circle, within which the foals take shelter. We have seen pictures in which the horses are represented in a circle, presenting their hind hoofs to the wolves, who thus appear to have the free choice to fight, or to let it alone. Such pictures are the mere result of imagination, and bear very little resemblance to the reality; for the wolf has, in general, to pay much more dearly for his partiality to horseflesh. The horses, when they attack wolves, do not turn their tails towards them, but charge upon them in a solid phalanx, tearing them with their teeth, and trampling on them with their feet. The stallions do not fall into the phalanx, but gallop about with streaming tails, and curled manes, and seem to act, at once, as generals, trumpeters, and standard bearers. When they see a wolf, they rush upon him with reckless fury, mouth to mouth, or if they use their feet as weapons of defence, it is always with the front, and not the hinder hoof, that the attack is made. With one blow the stallion often kills his enemy, or stuns him. If so, he snatches the body up with his teeth, and flings it to the mares, who trample upon it till it becomes hard to say what kind of animal the skin belonged to. If the stallion, however, fail to strike a home blow at the first onset, he is likely to fight a losing battle, for eight or ten hungry wolves fasten on his throat, and never quit him till they have torn him to the ground: and if the horse be prompt and skilful in attack, the wolf is not deficient in sagacity, but watches for every little advantage, and is quick to avail himself of it; but let him not hope, even if he succeed in killing a horse, that he will be allowed leisure to pick the bones: the taboon never fails to take ample vengeance, and the battle almost invariably terminates in the complete discomfiture of the wolves, though not, perhaps, till more than one stallion has had a leg permanently disabled, or has had his side marked for life with the impress of his enemy’s teeth.

These grand battles happen but seldom, and when they do occur, it is probably always against the wolf’s wish. His system of warfare is a predatory one, and his policy is rather to surprise outposts, than to meditate a general attack. He trusts more to his cunning than his strength. He will creep cautiously through the grass, taking special care to keep to leeward of the taboon, and will remain concealed in ambush, till he perceive a mare and her foal grazing a little apart from the rest. Even then he makes no attempt to spring upon his prey, but keeps creeping nearer and nearer, with his head leaning on his fore feet, and wagging his tail in a friendly manner, to imitate, as much as possible, the movements and gestures of a watchdog. If the mare, deceived by the treacherous pantomime, venture near enough to the enemy, he will spring at her throat, and despatch her before she have time to raise an alarm; then, seizing on the foal, he will make off with his booty, and be out of sight perhaps before either herd or herdsman suspect his presence. It is not often, however, that the wolf succeeds in obtaining so easy a victory. If the mare detect him, an instant alarm is raised, and should the tabunshick be near, the wolf seldom fails to enrich him with a skin, for which the fur merchant is at all times willing to pay his ten or twelve rubles. The wolf’s only chance, on such occasions, is to make for the first ravine, down which he rolls head foremost, a gymnastic feat that the tabunshick on his horse cannot venture to imitate.

As the summer draws on, the wolf becomes less troublesome to the taboon; but a season now begins of severe suffering for the poor horses, who have more perhaps to endure from the thirst of summer, than from the hunger of winter. The heat becomes intolerable, and shade is nowhere to be found, save what the animals can themselves create, by gathering together in little groups, each seeking to place the body of his neighbour between himself and the burning rays of a merciless sun. The tabunshick often lays himself in the centre of the group, for he also has nowhere else a shady couch to hope for.

The autumn again is a season of enjoyment. The plains are anew covered with green, the springs yield once more an abundant supply of water, and the horses gather strength at this period of abundance, to prepare themselves for the sufferings and privations of winter. In autumn, for the first time in the year, the taboon is called on to work, but the work is not much more severe than the exertions which the restless creatures are daily imposing upon themselves, while romping and rioting about on the Steppe. The work in question is the thrashing of the corn.

A thrashing-floor, of several hundred yards square, is made, by cutting away the turf, and beating the ground into a hard, solid surface. The whole is enclosed by a railing, with a gate to let the horses in and out. On such a floor, supposing the taboon to consist of a thousand horses, five hundred score of sheaves will be laid down at once. The taboon is then formed into two divisions, and five hundred steeds are driven into the enclosure, stallions, mares, foals, and all, for when in, the more riotous they are the better the work will be done. The gate is closed, and then begins a ball of which it requires a lively imagination to conceive a picture. The drivers act as musicians, and their formidable harabnicks are the fiddles that keep up the dance without intermission.

The horses terrified, partly by the crackling straw under their feet, and partly by the incessant cracking of the whip over their heads, dart half frantic from one extremity to the other of their temporary prison. Millions of grains are flying about in the air, and the labourers without have enough to do to toss back the sheaves that are flung over the railing by the prancing, hard working thrashers within. This continues for about an hour. The horses are then let put, the corn turned, and the same performance repeated three times before noon. By that time a thousand sheffel of corn have been thrashed, after a fashion that looks more like a holiday diversion, than a hard day’s work; but in such ah operation, more corn is lost than is gained on many large farms in Germany.

CHAPTER VII
THE COSSACKS—THE CIRCASSIANS—THE MAMELUKES.

UNDER the name of Cossacks of the Bug, of the Don, of the Ural, of Orenburg, of Astrakhan—Cossacks of the Black Sea—and Siberian Cossacks—this hardy and spirited race is disseminated over all the southern portions of European and Asiatic Russia. Every man of them, between the age of fifteen and fifty, is a soldier, eager for war, and ready to engage in it, no matter at what extremity of the earth. The Russian empire is undoubtedly indebted to these tribes for the vast extension of its dominion; and Europe has to thank them for the preservation of her civilization, when threatened by the ruthless Tartar invaders. Nature seems to have fitted the Cossack to become the conqueror of the Tribes of the Desert by endowments as peculiar as those which enable the camel to traverse it. Distance and climate vanish before his wandering and adventurous spirit: the regions where the burning sun destroys all life and vegetation, or those where “the frost burns frore and cold produces the effect of fire,” have never stayed his purpose, or arrested his onward march. With singular versatility he adapts himself to all outward circumstances; as occasion requires, he combines with his warlike profession the labours of the husbandman, the fisher, the herdsman, and the trader, and readily abandons one character to adopt the other whenever it may be needful. It is not only at the point of the lance he has subdued the wild inhabitants of so large a portion of the globe; but by his wonderful facility of adapting himself to the customs of the wilderness, and establishing a commercial intercourse with its fiercest hordes. It required a mixture of the reckless and wandering spirit of the sons of Ishmael, with the intense love of gain peculiar to the children of Israel, both of which his character exhibits, to form the wandering merchant, who could trade and defend his merchandise, and who would penetrate, to effect his purpose, a thousand miles away from his station, either towards the hyperborean regions, or through the parched plains of the naked Steppes.

A Russian Tsar might speedily collect from amongst this people a larger and more formidable force of cavalry than the whole of united Europe could bring together; and in all the regular cavalry of the Russian line, there never was a horseman, however laboriously drilled, whom the untutored Cossack would not charge, wheel round, and overcome, though armed cap-a-pie, with his mere nagaica, or whip. The Cossacks are invaluable as light cavalry; they are the most daring and intelligent foragers in the world, who take care of themselves by instinct, and without taxing the foresight or the ingenuity of the general. Spreading on every side, they strike terror into the neighbourhood, and render it almost impossible to surprise a Russian force. Brought up amongst turbulent tribes, the vigilant Cossack never exposes himself to be taken unawares, as all other light troops do, when scattered abroad; and thus he can act even in the midst of a guerilla peasantry.

France still remembers with shuddering rage the two irruptions of those terrible barbarians upon her soil. The fearful image of another Cossack invasion has been embodied by Beranger, the greatest poet of France, in his “Chant du Cosaque,” thus vigorously translated by “Father Prout:”—

Come, arouse thee up, my gallant horse, and bear thy rider on!

The comrade thou, and the friend I trow, of the dweller on the Don:

Pillage and death have spread their wings; ’tis the hour to hie thee forth,

And with thy hoofs an echo wake to the trumpets of the North.

Nor gems, nor gold do men behold upon thy saddle tree;

But earth affords the wealth of lords for thy master and for thee.

Then proudly neigh, my charger grey! Oh! thy chest is broad and ample.

And thy hoofs shall prance o’er the fields of France, and the pride of her heroes trample.

Europe is weak, she hath grown old, her bulwarks are laid low;

She is loath to hear the voice of war, she shrinketh from a foe:

Come, in our turn, let us sojourn in her goodly haunts of joy,

In the pillared porch to wave the torch, and her palaces destroy:

Proud as when first thou slak’st thy thirst in the flow of conquered Seine,

Ay, thou shalt lave within that wave thy blood-red flank again: Then proudly neigh, &c.

Kings are beleaguered on their thrones by their own vassal crew,

And in their den quake noblemen, and priests are bearded too.

And loud they yelp for the Cossack’s help to keep their bondsmen down,

And they think it meet, while they kiss our feet, to wear a tyrant’s crown.

The sceptre now to my lance shall bow, and the crosier and the cross,