FOR THE PEOPLE

FOR EDVCATION

FOR SCIENCE

LIBRARY

OF

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM

OF

NATURAL HISTORY

LIBRARY

OF

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
OSBORN LIBRARY OF VERTEBRATE PAL/LONTOLOGY

PRESENTED JaPAiary 6, 1919

HORSES

WORKS BY THE

SAME AUTHOR

PUBLISHED BY Mr. MURRAY.

JESSE OF CARIBOO.
THE SPLENDID BLACKGUARD.

HORSES

By ROGER POCOCK

Author of "A Frontiersman"

Founder of the Legion of Frontiersmen

Editor of "The Frontiersman's Pocket Book"

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

Professor J. Cossar Ewart, f.r.s.

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W

1917

First Edition - - • Feb., 1016
Reprinted - - - - June, 1917

3

-^i^

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

Introduction - - - - vii

I. The Origin of the Horse - i

II. The Origin of Horse Varie-
ties ----- lO

III. Habits of Outdoor Horses - 54

IV. The Conquest of the Horse - 95
V. The Horse in History - - 11 1

VI. Horsemanship . _ _ 1^2

VII. The Pleasure Horse - - 207

VIII. The Soldier Horse - - 222

Conclusion - - - 243

PREFACE.

By PROFESSOR J. COSSAR EWART, F.R.S.

Roger Pocock's book is in many ways
remarkable. It affords evidence of far
more erudition than seems compatible with
the unsettled and busy life of a frontiersman.
In some parts it is highly speculative, deals
with problems rarely discussed or even
mentioned by hippologists, in others it is
severely practical, and affords evidence of
the close study of horses and horsemanship
in all parts of the world. The more the
reader knows of cosmic changes and of the
origin, history and habits of horses, wild,
feral and tame, the more he is likety
to be fascinated by "Horses." The

chapters on the History of the horse
and on horsemanship are highly suggestive
and interesting, but at the moment those
on the Pleasure Horse and the Soldier

viii PREFACE.

Horse claim and deserve most attention. We
soon forgot about the loss of over 300,000
horses in the Boer War, with the result
that when the World War broke out in
1 9 14 we were as deficient in horses as
in men and munitions. If the suggestions
made b}^ a horsemaster who knows more
about Range than Indoor or Pleasure
horses — suggestions as to the breeding, rear-
ing, and management of militar}^ horses —
are duly considered we may have an ample
suppty of suitable horses for our next war.

J. COSSAR EWART.

UNIVERSITY, EDINBURGH,
September, 1916.

INTRODUCTION.

In the world where the horse hves there is
one god. This god is only a human creature,
soldier by trade, stockrider, groom, or dray-
man, but from him all things proceed. So far
as the horse knows his god made the girth gall
and the harness, the oats and the weather, and
most certainly provides a lump of salt to lick,
a canter over turf, or any other little scrap of
Heaven which falls into the world. So he
hates his god or loves him, fears or trusts him,
trying alwa^^s to beUeve in him, even if he has
at times to kick the deity to make sure he is
really divine. His religion, his conduct, his
whole value, depend upon that poor god, who
is usually well-meaning enough although wont
to practise a deal of ignorance. To get better
horses one must improve the strain of gods.

As a god to horses I was never quite a success,
however hard I tried to live up to a difficult
situation. I attempted, for example, to learn
about my horses from scientific books, yet
found the scientific writer rather trying. He
calls an animal who never injured him by such
a name as Pachynolophus. This may be safe

ix

X INTRODUCTION

enough behind the animal's back, provided
the philosopher makes quite sure that it is
really and truly extinct. But suppose he met
one, would he call it a perissodactylic ungulate
to its face ? Not at all ! He would shin up a
tree and use worse language than that.

So if the Reader finds me ignorant, I beg
him to lay the blame on men of science who
have dug up dead languages to make them a
trade jargon lest any education should reach
the vulgar.

In his " Tropical Light," Surgeon General
Woodruff, of the U.S. Army, makes no mention
of horses, but opens up a new field of thought.
Professor William Ridgeway, in his " Origin
and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse,"
commands the respect of every horseman by
his researches in history. Professor Cossar
Ewart, by far the greatest living authority
on hippology, has, apart from the teaching of
his books, most generously granted me his
private criticism. For the rest, burning my
books behind me, I have ventured to write
about horses just because I love them. An
old rough-neck of the American ranges, who,
living with horses, has tried to understand
them, sets down a few ideas which may be of
use to horsemen.

CHAPTER I.

THE ORIGIN OF THE HORSE.

The material used in making a horse consists
of grass and water. We cannot make one
because we are too ignorant. We know that
for such a making wisdom is needed beyond
the last conception of our hearts, knowledge
far above the scope of our pretentious
little sciences, power omnipotent. Such
attributes of wisdom, knowledge and power
are divine.

The Almighty made the horse out of grass
and water. From the generating engine which
we call the sun He used certain energies dimly
perceived by our science, the chemical, phy-
sical, electrical and psychical forces which
evolved, moulded and coloured the mechanism
of a creature strong, swift, enduring and
beautiful, which is inhabited by a pure,
courageous, generous spirit like that of a

2 THE FOREST AGES

human child. It only remains for man to
shut this creature up in a box, and then cut
off his tail.

Horse Ancestors. — To find the origin of
the horse, one must trace back to the Sixth
Day of the Creation, a period known to science
as the Dawn of Times Present. The lands
and seas were not arranged as in our maps, for
there was a Continent on the site of the North
Atlantic, and broad seas rolled over the areas
now filled by Europe and North America. The
climate, too, was different, for except along
the Equator, the skies were rarely clear, but
very cloud\^, with enormous rains. The air
was that of a hot-house, and, even at the poles,
trees such as the magnolia slept through the
winter night, and flowered in the warmth of
the summer day. Except to leeward of big
continents and mountains the lands of the
whole earth were a continuous forest.

That was the closing phase of the long Age
of Dragons. The principal beasts of the sea,
the land and the air were reptiles who laid
and hatched eggs instead of giving birth to
hving children. Few of them w^ere so large
as the elephants and whales of our own time,
the greatest were already extinct, but still
there were enough uncouth and monstrous

LONGTAILS 3

beasts to make life exciting for the creatures
on which they fed.

Hidden away in the forest there were
Httle animals, of reptile descent indeed, but
quite free from family pride. These con-
verted reptiles were filled with the first
divine quality which ever appeared in the
world, that mother-love which suckles the
young at the breast. We will call them
the Longtails.

We humans often feel that there is not
enough food to go round. We find it hard to
make both ends meet. We have to defend
ourselves or run from our enemies. So it was
with the Longtails, who were always hungr}^,
hard up, and bound to fight or run. To put it
roughly, some tribes of the Longtails took to
hunting, and became the ancestors of all beasts
of prey, some took to the trees as a refuge and
feeding place, and so became the ancestors of
apes and men. But our business is with those
who took to a vegetarian diet and a habit of
hiding or running. These stood on tip toe
looking out for danger, or ran to escape being
eaten. For such purposes the five-toed foot
of the ancestral reptile, most useful on soft
ground, became somewhat clumsy and awk-
ward. For running they were better off

4 HORSE ANCESTORS

without a widel}^ splayed foot, so with the
passing of many generations their needless
inner and outer toes shrank up the leg, became
useless, and finally withered away, until no
trace remained. Here came the parting of
the vegetarian running animals into two big
families. One family ran on the middle
pair of toes, thus becoming the ancestors
of the cloven-hoofed pig, deer, antelope,
sheep, and ox. The other family ran upon
the middle or third toe, and became the
ancestors of the rhinoceros, the tapir, and
the horse.

In the dense forests some of the vegetarian
tribes of animals had on the face two little
bags or glands, to hold a strong-smelHng
liquid. This perfume dropped on the herbage
helped the members of the herd to scent
one another's trails, and so keep together
for company or defence. On the skulls ol
some kinds of horses there may still be seen the
hollow where the sac used to be.

The bald skin of the pig is boldly painted
in splashes of pink and brown to imitate the
lights and shadows of forest undergrowth.
The forest ancestors of the horse were bald,
and painted just the same way ; and their
forest colouring may still be seen under the

THE TAPIR 5

hairy coat, especially at the muzzle, where
the hair is thin.

Of direct ancestors to the horse the earliest
known was a little fellow called Hyracotherium,
coloured no doubt like the pig or the hairless
Mexican dog, and not bigger than a toy terrier.
His range extended from England to New
Mexico, across the old Atlantic continent. In
him the original five toes had been reduced to
four on the front foot, and three on the hind,
as with the tapir, who is the very portrait of
a horse-ancestor, although of larger growth.

The tapir was ever a staunch conservative
preferring death to reform. So he remains,
one of the most ancient of all living animals,
and rehc of the long forgotten ages when the
world was one big forest. Nowadays the
tapir range which covered all the northern
continents has shrunken to three districts
widely sundered : Brazil, Mexico, and the
Malay Peninsula. In all three he is dying
out, and in a few more years will be extinct.

From the tapir's habits we may reason that
the horse ancestors were creatures not only of
the deep glades of the forest, but also of closely
wooded mountain ranges. They were shy
and harmless, feeding at night on buds, leaves
and the tender shoots of bushes, not on grass.

6 THE TAPIR

To this diet the horse reverts quite readily in
times of famine, and in spring before the new
grass sprouts, while the stable vice called
cribbing develops when there is not enough
bulk in his forage. The ancestors were fond
of bathing, and when hunted would take refuge
in the water. It will be noted that although
wild horses do not bathe, the tame stock are
excellent at swimming. The dappled skin
of the tapir had grown a coat of hair, dark
brown in the Americas, their original home.
The long tail had shrunk, and in the tapir
is reduced to a mere bud.

But the main interest is in the tapir's snout,
which, like the elephant's trunk, has wonderful
powers of holding and tearing down branches,
of feeUng, sensing, and handling. The horse-
ancestor had a tapir snout of which the horse's
upper lip is the survival. Play with any horse
and you will notice how the lips try to curl
round and grip one's fingers, to bring them
within reach of the teeth. They will curl
round, grip, and tear the bunch grass or
pampas grass of the wild ranges. They are
softer than velvet, deUcate as a baby's hand,
sensitive as the fingers of an artist, will caress
like a woman's lips. The short hairs have an
exquisite sense of touch, the beard bristles

THE EARLIER WORLD 7

are used to sense grass with in the dark, and
the whole instrument is wondrously designed
to select sweet grasses, rejecting poisonous or
unwholesome plants, so that feeding goes on
through hours of total darkness.

Had the Earth remained an unbroken forest
under a roof of cloud there had been no change
since the Age of Dragons, no mighty drama of
Creation lifting man and horse out of the
shadows to work together as master and ser-
vant in the conquest and taming of the wilder-
ness and final subjugation of the World.

The one great factor in Earth's history is
the lessening of the sun's heat. Through long
revolving ages the heat which the Earth re-
ceived from the sun diminished. Ever less
vapour was hfted from the Equatorial seas,
the world-roof of cloud thinned out and dis-
appeared ; direct sunshine poured down instead
of the endless rains ; there was no moisture
left to nourish the worldwide forest. Little
by little glades opened in the woodlands
caused by drought, savannahs replaced the
timber, of tall jungle grasses, the openings
widened into prairies, and vast grassy steppes,
thousands of miles in breadth, evolved at
their centres an aching core of desert. So we
have reached the phase when forest, prairie

8 THE CHANGING CLIMATE

and desert each claim one-third of the land
surface. We are passing on to the phase,
which Mars has reached, of world-wide desert,
and beyond that is the far future when, like
the Moon, our Earth will swing dead through
the great deeps of space.

As the slow tremendous change of the
Earth's climate narrowed the forest, there
was no longer food for all the woodland
animals, and some of them ventured out into
the open glades. Here was a final parting of
the wa3's between the tapir who stayed in the
woods and the horse-ancestor w^ho went out
into the open. He was as yet no bigger than
a sheep, and still wore three toes on each foot,
but the grass diet agreed with him, for his
tribe soon grew to the size of an EngHsh
donkey. The firmer ground no longer needed
a wide tread to the foot. Slowly the second
and fourth toes shrank away up the leg, and
hung there like the dew claw of a dog, some-
times surviving more or less even in human
times, as with Juhus Caesar's charger. The
next ages evolved an animal the size of our
ponies, running on one toe hardened to the
hoof we know to-day. The snout diminished,
while the tail became a fly whisk.

So we have the beginning of a group of

VARIETIES OF THE HORSE 9

animals the tarpan (Prejevalski) zebra, quagga
and ass. They are so much ahke that one
cannot easily tell from the bones to which
kind a skeleton belongs. We must think of
them, then, as varieties of the horse.

CHAPTER II.

THE ORIGIN OF HORSE VARIETIES.

Propositions. In the study of any subject,
if we can only begin by clearing our vision,
we shall have a sporting chance of avoiding
muddle.

The horse, like man or any other animal,
reflects his environment in times past and
present.

1. If all countries had equal lighting, all
horses would reflect one colour.

2. If all countries were equally warm, all
horses would grow the same thickness of coat.

3. If all countries had equal moisture, all
horses would show similar endurance.

4. If all countries had one type of land-
scape, all horses would show the same mark-
ings.

5. If all countries had one soil, all horses
would be of one build.

6. If all countries had one weight of forage
to the acre, all horses would have one bulk.

COLORATION BY SUNLIGHT ii

7. If all countries had one quality of
forage, all horses would have one strength.

8. It follows that the study of light, heat,
moisture, landscape, soil, and food should
explain the origin of the wild types of horses.
Our breeds are got by crossing from these
varieties.

If, therefore, the facts which we find out by
study shall correspond with the reader's own
experience of horses, no further proof is
needed ; but if they fail to appeal to the
reader's sense and judgment, no balancing of
proofs upon a point of falsehood will save a
useless book from the flames which await
waste paper.

PART I. COLORATION BY SUNLIGHT.

The best way to train one's sense of colour
is to dabble in landscape painting. At first,
one feels that there must be a personal Devil,
but with luck the colours begin to clear, show-
ing that the tones of night and the deep sea
are based on indigo, while those of the day
are blue, red and yellow variously mixed.
The blend of blue and red is violet ; the mix-
ture of blue and yellow gives us green ; and
if we want an orange we use red and yellow.
The blending of all seven is sunlight in theory,
but makes mud in practice.

12 MAGIC OF SUNLIGHT

In nature there are permanent colours like
those of the night, and transient hues like
those of the sunrise or sunset. So the blue
of the sk}' and yellow of the earth make the
green of living plants which seems to be per-
manent until, in decay, the blue turns out to be
transient, and passes awa}^ leaving the herbage
3'ellow. It is odd that the natural food of the
horse is dried herbage from which the blue
has faded

And so it is with man. We ma}^ eat green
salads, containing transient blue, but the
permanent colours of our food are free from
blue, and based on red and yellow. Neither
horse nor man would fatten on blue food.

Sunlight shining through blue glass will stop
the growth of plants. The various actions of
coloured light upon the human body are being
studied in many hospitals.

The blue indigo and violet, or actinic ra3^s,
appear to have a special mission in burning
bad microbes, such as the germs of disease.
A green forest, for example, despite the per-
manent 3xllow in its colour, is said to be partly
transparent to these rays which kill germs
lurking in the soil. The flesh of men and
beasts is red and yellow, save only for the
blue tmge of blood from which the oxygen has

CLIMATE AND COLOUR 13

been exhausted. Yet even despite its colour-
ing, the tissue of the flesh is partly trans-
parent, so that actinic rays may kill bacilli,
and sunshine is used as a medicine for the sick.
But the rays which begin by killing germs may
be strong enough in time to burn the living
tissues. For that reason man and the greater
animals are armoured by red and yellow liquid
paints in the layers of skin, which vary in
strength and volume with the degree of sun-
light in each cUmate, from pale hues in cloudy
districts of low sun to an intense black in the
tropics.

Stocks native to forest shelter such as men,
elephants and pigs are guarded only with skin
body colour. Those exposed to direct light —
horses, cattle and sheep, have also a coat of
hair as a second armour against the actinic
rays, and this also varies in colour with the
strength of sunshine, from white in the regions
of snow to the golden dun of lions and tigers,
the dun and bay of horses and the black of
many species in regions of strong light.

In men and other animals there is Httle red
flesh covering for the brain, the spine and the
great gangUa of the nerve machinery. So
many animals like the lion and bison have
manes as an extra shield for the nerve centres.

14 PROTECTIVE COLOUR

The human head and neck, for instance, grow
hair, not to encourage barbers, but for the pre-
vention of sunstroke, and this varies in colour
with the degree of sunhght. So all natural
breeds of horses have a dark forelock and mane
with a streak of strong brown or black colour
from the withers to the root of the tail, thus
guarding the whole length of the spine. This
armour and shield defines for us two primi-
tive types :

The Bay of the Desert produced in fierce
light the year round.

The Dun of the Steppes produced in fierce
light limited to the summer.

And here the need of clear thought leads to
a new definition of " protective " colour.

The dun Siberian tiger, largest and fiercest
of all cats, hunted the Dun pony of the Steppes.
The dun hon of Africa hunted the Bay horse.
Had both cats and both horses been painted
sky blue, their relative chances in the chase
would be exactly the same. They do not owe
meat or safety from attack to their body
colour. Both species would have perished
under the actinic rays of sunhght but for their
equal shield of non-actinic colour.

The purpose of body colour is defence
from actinic light. Only the markings are

THE CxREAT ICE AGE 15

protective as concealing animals from one
another.

So far I have not been able to find in books
about horses these applications of facts ac-
cepted by men of science, which are of use to
horsemen. In the Hght of such evidence the
close hogging of horse's manes needs recon-
sidering.

PART II. THE GREAT ICE AGE.

Unless a fellow can swim he has no business
to go out of his depth ; but if he minds his
business, he loses all the fun.

It is the application of these two principles
which leads me to a problem in the history of
the horse which nobody has solved.

The species is native to the Americas, where
it became extinct. One theory of this
extinction imagines a germ, like that of
horse-sickness, whose range covered all lati-
tudes from tropic to sub-arctic. Such a
hearty microbe as that would seem unusual.

The other theor}^ relates to a disagreeable
change in the climate, which overwhelmed the
drainage basin of the North Atlantic with a
field of massive ice. That seems conclusive
until one reflects that the Pacific slope of the
United States and the continent of South
America remained as warm as ever. The cold

i6 THE ICE AGE

of the Great Ice Age does not explain the
wiping out even in North America of the
camel, elephant, tapir and horse.

It has been my good fortune to make a series
of voyages to Bering Sea and Norway in the
winter, and in summer along the flanks of both
the St. EUas and the Greenland ice-caps. In
these journeys by sail and steam, in boats, in
canoes, with man}^ landings and scrambles
across country, I was able to test the theories
of Glacialogists against the actual facts of the
Great Ice Age.

The Croll theory makes the orbit of the
Earth to change at regular intervals into a
long ellipse. By roasting one entire hemis-
phere it provides vapour to cover the whole of
the other hemisphere with snows v/hich do not
melt. Evidence is scratched up and made
the most of for previous ice ages. An imagi-
nary series of cosmic cataclysms is invoked to
explain one merely local unpleasantness.

Another theor}^ sinks Central America —
politically quite a good idea — and throws the
Gulf Stream into the Pacific, leaving the North
Atlantic to be frozen. It does not explain the
American lobe of the icefield which brushed
the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in a
region outside the influence of the Gulf Stream.

THE ICE-FIELD TO-DAY 17

It was never the business of Glacialogists to
notice that under the inland ice and the great
lava floods of Greenland lie pressed magnolia
leaves in the high Arctic. These tell me of
cloudy skies saving the summer's warmth all
through the polar night, of a vast cloud sphere
sheltering the whole Earth from a sun much
hotter than we know to-day. The Ice Age to
me is an incident in that clearing of the skies
which dried the world-forest, made the grass
steppes and deserts, and evolved the horse.

The Glacialogists make the Ice Age an
episode of the past. Without the slightest
relevance to any obHquity of the Orbit, or
vagaries of the Gulf Stream, the Ice-cap per-
sists to-da}^ as a living fact. I have been
there, have seen it, and cannot be persuaded
otherwise. The forces which created the Ice-
cap are still at work, and as they merely
strengthen or relax, the Icefield grows or
shrinks. These forces made the Ice flood to
plough the fields and train the folk for seeding
a crop of human empires — British, American,
Russian, and German world-powers. The ice
which prepared town-sites for Moscow, Petro-
grad, Berhn, London, and New York, may
come again to sweep them all awa}^ We are
not behaving ourselves so very nicely.

1 8 THE SOU '-WESTER

I have no theory as to what forces enlarged
or contracted the ice flood. The theme of
this study is the horse, a creature of grass and
water constructed by the forces in sunshine
and fresh air, and coloured by the skies. To
the skies we must look if we would trace his
origin, to the mechanism of the Ice-cap if we
would know how his varieties were speciaHzed
out of the general type. So let us have a look
at the machinery which made and maintains
the Ice-cap.

PART III. THE SOU'-WESTER.

We have to study four regions of one great
Sou '-wester wind, which is known to navi-
gators as the South-west Counter-Trade.

Western Region. The tropic sunshine
lifts masses of hot, tremulous vapour from
the surface of the Equatorial Pacific. This
vapour Ufts to a great height and there con-
denses into clouds. The clouds are swept by
the south-west wind and form their floor at a
height above the sea of about two miles. The
Rocky Mountains reach up bare and stony
hands to clutch at the flying moisture and
bring down w^hirling snowstorms. On sweep
the cloud fleets across the Canadian Plains
with rarely a drop of rain to spare through the
summer for the thirsting grass beneath. But

CENTRAL REGION 19

slowly the cl©ud-floor slopes downward until
at last the cloud-fleets come to ground, and
the breath of the sou '-wester becomes visible
as the Northern Forest. Beyond that forest
the wind trails its cold vapours over the sub-
Arctic tundras of North-Eastern Canada,
lashing bleak rains on Baffin's Bay, to spend
the last of its moisture in the form of snow
upon the Greenland Ice-cap.

Central Region. From the eastern part
of the Equatorial Pacific, about the neigh-
bourhood of the Gallipagoes, a second echelon
of the sou '-wester brings its immense load of
flying clouds high in the air across the United
States to slant down out of the skies and brush
the Atlantic in the Forties. Strong gales trail
their clouds along the Gulf Stream, taking a
deal of warmth out of that current. Exposed
trees in North-western Europe are slightly
bent by the stress of Atlantic gales, while all
the traihng clouds discharge their cargoes of
warm rain across the Baltic Region. The
British Isles, for example, get an annual ration
amounting to thirty cubic miles of water fresh
from the Equatorial Pacific.

These two large echelons of the sou '-wester
carried the vapour which once fell as snow to
form the Icefields of the Great Ice Age.

20 THE ICE-CAP

The skies were clearing. The planet was
being stripped of its cloud roof, so that its
warmth from the sun was radiated at night
and in winter directly into Space. Except to
leeward of the Gulf Stream, the lands of the
North Atlantic are still sub-Arctic as in
Labrador. These lands were more extensive
then than now, forming a bridge about a
thousand miles wide from Arctic Canada
across Smith's Sound to Greenland, and thence
by way of the Faroes to Scotland, which was
part of the European main. On this bleak
bridge which spanned the North Atlantic per-
manent snows heaped up to mountainous
heights forming the nucleus of the giant Ice-
cap. Its western lobe touched the Rocky
Mountains and the Missouri Valley, its eastern
wing covered the Russian plains as far as
Moscow, and southward flooded the German
Empire. It may be that the North Atlantic
bridge, remnant of an elder continent, sank
slowly until it foundered under its load of ice.
So the sea melted the ice and the cHmate began
to mend.

Eastern Region. A third echelon of the
sou '-wester comes from the equatorial belt
of South America down to 1 5®s. This does not
take up any great load of moisture, for the

BERING LAND 21

wind blows nearly dry across the heights of
air which overhang the Atlantic. It has httle
moisture to spare for the Mediterranean sum-
mer, none at all for the levels of the Sahara,
Arabia, Persia, and the deserts of Central Asia.
The lands to leeward of Brazil are deserts.

Far Eastern Region. In Asia, the move-
ments of the sou '-wester are complicated by
the south-west monsoon, and the immense
ranges of the Himalaya. Eastward lies one
more echelon of the South-west Counter Trade.
Just as the sou '-wester in the North Atlantic
is warmed by the Gulf Stream, so the sou'-
wester of the North Pacific is warmed by the
Japan current. Before the uplift of the St.
Elias Alps, the region of Alaska, and of Bering
Sea was a warm and well-watered lowland.
Alaska still grows gigantic timber in latitudes
where North Scotland and South Norway
have only scrubby bushes.

PART IV. THE STORY OF BERING LAND.

Any reader who is really and truly inter-
ested in tapirs will remember that some live
in the Malay States, and the rest of them in
South and Central America. Between these
countries there is a slightly flattened facet
of the planet filled from remote ages by the
Pacific Ocean. Nobody with the slightest

22 BERING LAND

liking for tapirs would suspect them of swim-
ming across, and since their family existed
there has been no land passage round the
southern edge of the Pacific. So, if w^e would
find the ancient tapir range which once con-
nected Malaya with Mexico and Brazil, we are
driven to search for a pathway round the
North Pacific.

The map of the ocean floor shows the Pacific
Deep as reaching northward to the sixtieth
parallel. Beyond that lie the new shoals of
Bering Sea, with a ground-swell so terrific in
winter that I have seen a hard-bitten middle-
aged seaman driven mad with fear. This is
the site of Bering Land, an ancient country
about the size of Scandinavia, which joined
the mainlands of Asia and North America.
The latitudes of this land were those of Nor-
way, and it formed the basin of the lower
Yukon.

Before there was an}^ polar cold on Earth,
when the magnolia blossomed in Greenland,
this cloudy rain-swept country was warm
enough for tapirs. As the sky cleared it managed
to harbour camels, and became a pasturage
for animals of the horse family. Let us see
then whether these were of the actual species
we call the horse.

THE LANDSCAPE 23

The Landscape. Warm lands with little
sunlight, such as Ireland, have green turfed
grasses. The polar summer which is one long
day covers all pastures with a blaze of flowers.
The bushes also yield a bounty of blossom and
wild fruit. The mosquito season is the great
event of the year.

So we may see the meadows beside the lower
Yukon, green pasture starred with flowers,
bushed, wet, mosquito-stricken range for the
bearded Celtic pony, utterly unhke the sun-
baked golden steppe of the Dun horse. We
must cast back to earlier times when Bering
Land was clouded, torrid, range for ancestors
of our modern horses, the pasture which
changed the browm tapir of Brazil into the
skewbald tapir of Mala3^a. At that time pre-
glacial America had seven species of three-
toed horse-ancestors, some of which may have
ranged westward across Bering Land into
Asia, and there given birth to the stock of the
Old World.

With the onset of the Great Ice Age the
growing weight of the American Ice-cap seems
to have strained the loose skin of the Earth,
w^hich, in the Columbia Basin cracked, pouring
forth floods of lava to overwhelm a region nine
hundred miles in length, eight hundred wide.

24 THE DELUGE

A series of rock waves folded, forming the
coast or island ranges from California north-
ward and culminating in the stupendous Alps
of St. Elias. There gathered a lesser Ice-cap,
pouring its glaciers down the Alaskan and
British Columbian fjords.

It was this barrier of ice which put an end
to all migrations of animals. The Alps of St.
Elias closed the path-way betw^een those two
groups of continents which so far had been
the common breeding ground for beasts and
men. Within the narrowed breeding ground
of the Americas the horse together with the
camel, and many other species, became
extmct.

Old Bering Land had become sub-Arctic,
the home of the Mammoth, a maned roan
elephant. Then the Pacific flooded the plains
of the Lower Yukon, and formed the shoals
of Bermg Sea. Both in Asia and in America
faint memories remain of a drowned world.
In Assyria and in British Columbia the legend
tells us of a hero, and of rescued folk in a fleet
of three hundred canoes.

So the tw^o groups of contments were finally
cut apart at Bering Straits. And now a ring
of flaming craters girdles the Pacific, the fit
finale to a tremendous drama.

MARKINGS 25

PART V. THE MARKINGS OF THE HORSE.

Darwin wrote of the probable " descent of
all existing races from a single dun-coloured,
more or less striped primitive stock to which
our horses occasionally revert."

The stories of the Great Ice Age and of
Bering Land have shown us a variety of
swiftly changing chmates in which the original
three-toed dun striped ancestors begat a special
type of horse for each kind of habitat. The
high lands and high latitudes, the low lands
and low latitudes, the tall grasses, the short
grasses, the open woodlands, the northern
downs and valleys, bred each their special type
of the wild horse.

Evidence of the Wind. It is not so very
long since the last clumps of timber vanished
from the steppes. Still on the North Ameri-
can range one finds the trunks and roots of
forest trees, which sihcate swamps have changed
into masses of jaspar onyx and chalcedony ;
and these have not had time to sink as stones
do into the soil. In a seven hundred mile ride
across the Canadian plains, I found a living
clump of three pines distant a hundred-and-
fifty miles from the edge of the shrunken forest.
Such shelters have indeed so lately disappeared
that the horse has not yet learned the trick of

26 AFRICAN BAYS

wind endurance. If his ears and nostrils were
not so fearfully sensitive, he need only face up
wind, and the hair of his body would be blown
down flat to protect him. As it is, the extreme
sensitiveness of his face compels him to stand
or drift with buttocks turned to the gale, tail
tucked, head dow^n. It is only in that position
that the hair is blown up from the skin and fails
to give him protection. We may conclude
then that he was inured to torrid summers
and even to polar winters before he had to en-
counter strong gales away from shelter. Long
after the three-toed ancestor had become a
horse, the steppes had abundant tree clumps
for wind breaks in heavy weather.

The African Bay. In every striped horse
it seems a general rule that the body stripes
are curved in such a way as to point to a spot
on the ground midway between the four legs.
The leg bands merely cut the upright lines
of the limbs so that these disappear. Some
natural process of colour photography has
made the body stripes a bold copy of the up-
ward and outward spread of the tussock grass.
It was for concealment then among the rich
forage of the tussocks that some of the parent
species wore a gorgeous livery which passed
on to the Zebra.

THE SAHARAN RANGE 27

From all accounts the Sahara is the bed of
a recent sea, but, possibly along its eastern
side, a horse range extended from the Soudan
to the shores of the Mediterranean. Such
range had not less than ten inches a year of
rainfall, carried by the sea breezes from sur-
rounding waters. There was moisture enough
for trees, and there are abundant traces of
quite recent timber.

The winds were drying, the clouds were
burned out, the light was increasing to a
terrific strength, and the tussocks began to
fail. On the American range I have noticed
that these tall grasses, abundant only thirty
years ago, have become quite rare since the
pasture was overstocked. As the tall grasses
perished and streaks of naked desert crept into
the dying pasture, all hope of concealment for
horses was at an end, the brilliant striping
ceased to have any value, and the need for
speed outweighed the need for sleep. Three
and a half hours for sleep, standing, suffices
the modern horse.

And as the cover vanished, every possible
military precaution became imperative against
surprise by lions. The gay striped painting
had become a danger, and whole colour was
the last chance of concealment for purposes

28 PAINTED HORSES

of rest. Close herding by the stalhons, a single
line formation with vedettes and flankers,
signals by cries and stamping, and, above all
things, speed, were needed to save the
horse under the new conditions. The arched
markings on the face of the striped horse
changed to a star, the leg bands to stockings :
white marks to identify members of the herd
on the darkest nights. Such markings are very
common among horses of desert descent.

As the deadly actinic rays of light poured
into the body between its bars of painting, the
natural dye secreted in the skin began to fill
the bright streaks with strong colour. So the
striped Dun became the desert Bay, with black
points and white markings, gifted with the
intelligence needed in family and tribal hfe,
but above all things endowed with a speed
which was the despair of lions and is the glory
of all honest horsemen. So entirely was the
danger from lions overcome that the Bay
horse has forgotten the art of bucking, which
once w^as needed in fighting beasts of prey.
Speed has given the steel-hard hoofs, the steel-
strong limbs, deUcate modelhng to cut the
resistance of the air, the tail set and carried
high for the finest steering, and almost every
other trait of our Barbs and Arabs. So

ZEBRA, QUAGGA, ASS 29

intense is the light in his native pasture that
even the refracted glow from the ground has
had to be met by dark colouring of the under
surfaces, wherein he differs from the horses of
higher latitudes.

Zebra and Quagga. Southward from the
great Desert the forest of Equatorial Africa is
bordered to the eastward and the south by
grass lands. In these a few patches of jungle
and tussock grasses have preserved the colour-
ing of striped horses down to our own time.
Their painting is most brilliant towards the
Equator, fades in the higher latitudes, and in
Cape Colony only the neck and shoulder
stripes remained in the Quagga breed. The
land does not continue into the latitude of the
Dun horse. It is quite possible that with the
coming of the Boers tame cattle ate off the
Quagga pasturage, but rifles have put the wild
stock to an end with the advance of human
settlement.

The Asses. These creatures of moun-
tainous deserts are coloured like the boulders
of a hillside, but rely for their safety rather on
high intelligence and sure-footed speed. Being
desert animals of course they are dry inside, so
that their efforts to produce the most beautiful
music merely rub leather against leather like

30 DUN HORSES

the sole of a creaking boot. They should be
petted like operatic tenors, and indeed there
are no animals in the world who improve
so rapidly in response to decent treatment.

There is a legend that the ass who carried
the Cross of our Lord Christ upon the way to
Calvary had ever afterwards its shadow on his
back, still worn by the African breed as a
special badge of honour. It is called the en-
durance mark, and this with the same leg bands
is the special brand of the Dun horse of Asia.

The Dun Horse. It was in the Yellow-
stone Park that I paid ten dollars for a thirteen
hand pony called Buck, a bright Dun with the
endurance cross and leg bands. Below the
black knees and hocks he w^ore white stockings,
and had black mane, tail and points. He
taught me the real protective colour for short
grass. His upper and lower body lines were
the curves of prairie ridges, while the limbs
were so cross-coloured that the upright lines
became invisible, save when he moved, at
about two hundred yards. It was lucky that
he always came at my call, because so far as
my poor eyesight went, he was lost to me every
evening so soon as I sent him off to graze. His
wall eye and game knee were acquired from
meeting Christians, but an odd trick of carry-

WILD SPECIES DYING 31

ing the lower jaw sideways while he was
thinking, an unusual sweetness of character,
and most uncommon pluck, may have been
primitive traits. He trotted with my pack
a thousand miles, until in Utah I gave him to
a cowboy rather than take him on into the
desert ahead, where he might die of thirst. I
did not know in those days that he was a
desert horse who knew a deal more about
finding water than ever I shall learn.

The horse became extinct in the Americas,
the Quagga in South Africa, the wild Bay in
Northern Africa. The numbers of the wild
asses and of the zebras are shrinking rapidly.
The wild Dun, or Tarpan, whose range was the
whole steppe of Russia and North Asia, is now
represented in three small districts of MongoUa
by the Prejevalski herds. So far, then, as wild
horses are concerned, the species is dying out.

Among tame horses, to judge from what
one sees in the larger stables, there must be at
least one hundred Bays, Browns and Chestnuts
to every real Dun. All breeders select from
the Bay type as distinguished from the Dun,
whose only special value is in endurance. In
the run-wild or feral herds, however, the Duns
have a fair chance, and form a large proportion
of the stock. They are not only hardy but

32 DUN AND BAY

also fertile. If man became extinct, the
steppes and prairies would breed Duns, and
gradualty kill out the other t^^pes.

From the fierce dr}' heat of the Gobi Desert
to the utmost rigors of Siberian cold, the Dun
will thrive wherever there is grass. His coat
is warm and cool for any climate, greas}^
enough to shed rain, and proof against every
weather except wet driving snow or a strong
gale. Through the longest winters he keeps
alive by grubbing through the snow to get at
grass. The droughts of summer may so in-
crease the journe}' between food and water
that he gets very little time for rest, but some-
how he manages to pull through, the last of all
horses to 3deld to difficulties. Lacking the
speed and beaut}^ of the Bay, he lives where the
Bay will die. In danger or difficulty the Bay
is a fool in a panic, w^hile the Dun keeps cool,
reasons, and uses common sense with a strong,
heart}'^ valour. One would select the Bay for
pleasure, but the Dun for serious work under
the saddle, for road endurance, for long and
rapid marches, and all that makes mounted
troops of value in campaigns.

Just as the working man may be rendered
irritable and even vicious by unfair treatment
in our social life, the working horse is made

CLOUDLAND 33

ill-tempered and dangerous to handle by bad
horse-mastership. So the Dun has a terrible
reputation, and in his defence I am a sort of
Devil's advocate. He is the typical range
horse whose manners and customs will be the
theme of the next chapter.

PART VI. CLOUDLAND.

We have seen the close resemblance of warm
winds and seas between the North Atlantic
and the North Pacific ; but it was only in the
North Atlantic region that the great Ice Age,
in long pulsations, widened and shrank its
Icefields. Ten thousand years ago (Wright) in
the Niagara District, and seven thousand
years ago (de Geer) in Finland, the edges of the
Icefield were withdrawn for the last time, and
the climate began to get warm and comfortable.

In America and in Europe, as the ice re-
treated, a belt of tundra crept closely in its
wake, and in the rear of that a belt of green
turfed grasses.

In Eastern Canada, and North-western
Europe these green turfed pastures are varied
with woodlands of such trees as cast their leaves
in winter. Amid these changes the horse
had vanished from North America, but survived
in Asia, and slowly extended his range as
the ice retreated from Europe. In Europe

34 CLOUDLAND

as in America, man also widened his hunting
grounds in the wake of the melting Icefield.

In the big region of the south-west wind the
lands which surround the North Sea and the
Baltic are different from all others, being under
a low sun, cloudy, with only one day's sunshine
out of seven. And Cloudland breeds a special
type of man with blue eyes, a ruddy skin, and
hair of chestnut, bay, brown, or dun, colours
like those of horses.

Under the grey skies of Cloudland, man
lacks the protective colour which in all other
regions of the world defends the body from
actinic light. I think we shall find this true
of the horse also.

The original striped colouring of the Bays
and Duns never developed in Western Europe
with its climate of cloudy skies and verdant
pastures.

The White Horse. Now^ let us study the
conditions following the Ice Age in Southern
Russia. Here the Dun horse has a white coat
for sunny snowy winters. Rumour says that
foals are not born white, and it must be re-
membered that snowy winters are recent even
as grassy plains.

This whiteness is not, like the summer
colouring, a paint issued by the body to tint

THE WHITE HORSE 35

the hair, but a mere absence of any colouring
matter. It is as though the animal saved his
stores to paint his inside to a warm red during
the cold season instead of wasting it in mere
vanity upon his outer clothing. At the same
time nothing could be more reasonable than
a white coat for concealment against a snowy
background. Hares, Eskimo, and lots of other
tribes are most particular in this matter, and
among the best people of all snowy regions a
white suit is the correct mode for winter. It
may be that some tribes of ponies neglected
to change in the spring, and so became con-
spicuous in summer, a fatal error where there
are wolves about. These were not likely to
prosper and raise children except under mean's
protection, so one suspects that white coats for
summer wear date only from the human period.
Men had a feehng, too, that the white horse
was so beautiful that he must be sacred, a
special gift of the gods. Without any special
merit, being indeed of lower stamina and en-
durance than any other horses, the white stock
were favoured by breeders. Left to them-
selves, they would die out rapidly in any sunny
climate. One notes, however, that the Persian
wild ass has a silvery white coat, the hue of his
native desert. There are many animals whose

36 BEARDED HORSES

dark hair is white at the tips, so that
they are really brunettes who masquerade as
blondes.

Bearded Horses. The ancient horse-
eating artist-savages of France have left us
portraits of ponies strongly bearded under the
lower jaw. In the earliest portrait we have of
the Celtic pony (Ewart), Odin's eight-legged
Sleipnir shows the coarse bearded cut of jaw.
The Celtic pony types are bearded to the north-
ward, clean-shaven towards the southward
parts of their wide range. The Prejevalski,
who is the Tarpan of Asia, is slightly bearded.
So is the Kiang or wild ass of Asia. One finds
the beard bristles in all the northern breeds
of horses, not in the desert stocks to the south.
Why then should northern horses want to
grow a beard ?

A horse has so small a stomach that his day's
work to get sufficient grass is seven hours. Up
to about fifty degrees of north latitude, he gets
seven hours of daylight even in mid-winter.
Northward of that he needs beard bristles to
aid him in feehng and selecting grass in the
darkness. Southward of that, if he is hunted
by wolves or tigers, he needs a few beard
bristles for night grazing except in cloudless
regions where there is always starlight. So,

SIZE 37

roughly, the range of bearded horses is that
of long dark nights.

The Register of Size. The size of horses
varies with their nourishment.

On the scattered but rich bunch grasses of
the desert, where there is much travel for a
little food, the pasture registers the stature
of the Bay as about fourteen hands two inches.

The scattered but rich bunch grass of the
American steppe makes horses prosperous in
summer but famished in the winter, so that the
pasture registers a smaller horse than that of
the desert — up to thirteen hands. Under the
same conditions we may take the register of the
Dun in Asia as up to thirteen hands.

The poor grass of the British moors registers
a pony of ten to eleven hands.

Strong feeding of grain and hay registers
stabled horses up to nineteen hands.

The great abundance of green turfed grass
the year round in North-western Europe
should, under its best conditions, register as
large a horse as either steppe or desert.

The Three Pastures. The Bay pasture
and the Dun pasture are each of continental
size, wheras the green pature is onl}^ a small
province. In the same way, the rock forma-
tions of the Bay and the Dun pastures are each

38 THE THREE PASTURES

continuous for several thousands of miles. In
sharp contrast is that Httle ragged edge of a great
continent known as North-western Europe, a
district which has many times been flooded
by the sea, each bath making new beds of rock.

The lowlands of Great Britain, for example,
have been frequently submerged, and the
island shows samples of almost every rock
formation known upon the earth. This Euro-
pean pasture then is not onty small, but also
varied in its rock formations, its soils, and its
landscape. One may get a standard horse of
registered size in the Bay range or the Dun
range, but would expect to find on the green
range of Europe not only many colours, but
also many types derived from the primitive
stock, strains of all sorts and sizes. A glance
at three formations will show how much the
build and size of a horse is varied b}^ the
rocks.

Granite. In North-western Europe the
granitic or speckled formations form upstand-
ing moorlands. The poor but abundant grass
maintains ponies both light and heavy of build,
derived from several kinds of ancestors. They
are so secured from attack by beasts of prey
that they do not need to run far and fast on
ground where running would be dangerous.

LIMESTONE AND CLAY 39

These are grouped under the general name of
Celtic pony.

Limestone. Allowing for some districts,
like the central plain of Ireland, where the Ice-
sheet has left the country very badly drained,
a limestone formation usually makes dry soil.
The vegetable mould may hold a little water and
make mud, as on the chalk downs, but the
rock is so porous that most of the rain soaks
down, and the waters run mainly underground.
Moreover, the vegetable mould gives chemical
qualities to this water, which is enabled to
dissolve the rocks and form caverns on the
underground water courses. At the same
time the water becomes ' hard ' with lime in
solution, so that the springs will petrify moss
and twigs.

The dryness of the ground tends to make
horses sound of bone. The carbonate of lime
in the water suppUes them with the material
for bone. As the result the bones are very
light in proportion to their strength. So this
pasture registers a well-built and very light
horse. If such an animal is of Bay blood, he
is larger and swifter than the Arab, lacking
only in soundness and in travel endurance.

Clay. As clay holds water, its soils provide
abundance to the grass roots, and so produce

40 HORSES OF CLOUDLAND

thick turf with a great weight of green forage
to the acre. Such heav}^ feeding without any
exercise in search of water, would, after the
kilhng out of the wolves, tend to produce a
large, heavy, slow-going gentle horse with
steady nerves such as our draught stock,
lacking in that soundness of feet and legs
which is limited to the breeds of arid
regions.

So far, the argument presents for the green
pastures of cloudland horses of several colours ;
and, for the varied rock formations in the North
Sea and Baltic basins, horses of many
types.

Professor Ewart traces among the ancient
wild horses of the forest species three very
distinct types :

1 . At the time w^hen the glacial drift of the
Rhine and Weser valleys had a climate like
that of the Outer Hebrides, of to-day, the con-
ditions of cold and damp matured the Diluvial
horse (Equus Caballus occidentahs). This ani-
mal stood fifteen hands, had a longer face than
the general forest type, was coarsely built, had
heavy fetlocks, a short upright pastern, a broad
round foot. This is the cart horse breed.

2. The Grimaldi Grottoes in the Riviera
preserve remains of a forest-upland horse,

FOREST VARIETIES 41

large, coarse, heavy in build, with a short,
broad face, and a flat profile.

3. The Solutre Caverns of France preserve
paintings made by ancient savages of a small
stout, chunky, bearded horse, rather like a
long, low Iceland pony, with a short broad face,
elk-like nose, and low-set tail, rough-haired
towards the root. He stood from twelve to
thirteen hands in height.

From these three forest varieties our draught
horses are mainly descended ; but there were
also in Ancient Europe two other species
besides that of the woodlands.

A. Siwalik type. A fifteen-hand horse,
lightly built like the modern thoroughbred.
The forehead recedes at an angle from the line
of the face, and there is a prominence between
the eyes. The limbs are long, withers high,
and tail set on high.

B. Prejevalski Tarpan steppe type, the
Dun of Northern Asia. The face is long,
narrow and straight. The nasal chambers are
large, causing a Roman nose. The limbs are
clean, with close hocks and narrow feet.
Height twelve to thirteen hands.

We must think then of such types afr the
Forest and Siwalik adapting themselves to the
soils of North-western Europe.

42 A VALLEY IN CLOUDLAND

PART VII. THE CHANGING LAND.

The North Sea is only a recent flood in an
old river valley. We must consider it not as
a tract of permanent water, but as a lost hunt-
ing ground of our own ancestors, a pasturage
for horses not very long ago.

In the year 5200 B.C. the Scandinavian
glaciers, shrinking at the rate of about one mile
a 3'ear (the rate of shrinkage in the Alps of
St. Elias), withdrew from the province of Fin-
land and the Baltic Lake. Let us suppose
that, in that year a traveller from civilised
Egypt made his way down the Rhine, and so
entered the valley of North River, which is
now flooded by the North Sea. At first this
river wound its level way between low chalk
downs, but presently the Thames came in
from the West, and forested swampy clay-
lands extended northward. Abreast of Aber-
deen came the last chalk downs, and beyond that
lay Arctic tundras where the delta widened
to an ice-drifted sea nearly abreast of Faroe.

The whole valley was as varied in rock and
soil as Eastern England, with little lakes,
ridges of boulder clay, and downs of gorse and
bracken. Northward across this verdant land
crept succeeding waves of the fir, the oak, and
the beech.

CLOUDLAND HORSES 43

Out on the delta coast, far to the right,
beyond a deep sea channel, rose the white Ice-
cap of Sweden, whose Ice-flood filled the Nor-
way fjords w^ith berg-breeding glaciers. Far to
the left rose the ice-clad Grampians.

The Delta people and those of the Baltic
Lake were poor savages living upon shell fish,
and making mounds of shell refuse round their
hearths. Inland were stronger peoples who
had lake villages or trenched encampments on
headlands of the downs.

As the grass followed the advancing fir
woods, the primitive stock of Cloudland re-
turned to pastures from whence it had been
driven by the cold. These were not Duns,
Bays, or striped, but native Cloudland horses
adapted to this region of little sunshine.
Strong Dun was not needed to guard them
from the actinic rays of sunlight, so their dull
colour had yellowish, brownish and reddish
tones which blended with the landscape, such
colours as are worn by the Celtic ponies of
Britain and other Atlantic isles.

The wild horses were evolving three utterly
different types. On the chalk downs, and on
the limestone tracts north of the Humber,
there were lightly built, slender, graceful
horses of fair height. On the clays there were

44 THE DELUGE IN CLOUDLAND

horses, heav}^, coarse, and slow. On the
Breton, British and Scandinavian moors there
were Celtic ponies.

It needed but little sinking of this land to
flood the Delta, and open a long channel up
the North River valley. The sea washed out
the clay foundations of the forests. The sea
breakers wielded boulders of the glacier-drift
and hurled them like battering rams against
the dissolving limestone of low cliffs. The
tide swung gravels to tear out bays in the fore-
shores. Winter frosts cracked the headlands,
and summer rains melted the ice cracks so that
the capes fell into the sea in landslides. Thus
the sea widened, biting its way deep into
Europe until men began their losing fight with
dykes for the saving of doomed netherlands.
The North Sea cut its way through chalk dov/ns
into the English channel. The tribes who held
fortified headlands of the chalk downs and set
up temples at Stonehenge and Avebury on
the mainland of Europe, about 1800 B.C. found
that their countr}^ had become an island.

The old horse pasture of North-western
Europe was split into sundered provinces by
the advancing sea, but the breeds, native to a
lost valley are still almost identical on either
shore. The Breton and British moors have

THE HUMAN INFLUENCE 45

one type of Celtic pony whose ancestral range
extended across the Straits of Dover. The
clay fens of Lincolnshire and of Holland still
have draught horses alike in build and in
colour. The hmestone districts north of the
Humber have the same tall horses as the similar
provinces across the water in Schleswig, Hol-
stein and Jutland. The granitic lands of
Scotland and Norway have one type of the
Celtic pony. (Low's Domesticated Animals.)
It is none of my business, but I cannot help
feeling that the flooding at about the same
period of the Lower Yukon and North River
Valleys is something more than a coincidence.
The Geological people are always cocksure that
the sea cannot rise, that an hemisphere — the
Southern, for example, cannot be flooded,
and they assume quite blandly that lands
have sunk, without explaining why. Their
theories never seem really to fit that mighty
wilderness, to which I have seen them comiC as
visitors or strangers. Science will never under-
stand until it learns to love.

PART VIII. THE HUMAN INFLUENCE.

We have now reached a stage of the argu-
ment which shows for Europe no continental
type like the Bay or the Dun, but a horse stock
of varied colouring, of diverse heights and

46 SHUFFLING OF THE HORSE PACK

builds, and most curious dispersions as native
to the green pastures of Cloudland.

The problem in nature was intricate as a
jigsaw puzzle, before man's interference broke
that puzzle into little pieces. Our ancestors
were not such fools as to import Duns from
Asia for purpose of breeding, but in their wars
and migrations drifted Asiatic Duns and South
Russian white horses across the face of Europe.
No wars of invasion brought Bay horses out of
Africa ; but as each tribe needed a better
strain of horseflesh, the Bays were carried in
the courses of trade to Europe.

THE HUMAN INFLUENCE IN CROSSING HORSE
STRAINS.

The Chestnut. This colour is possibly
bright Bay from African blood crossed with a
slight proportion of golden Dun. Both in the
humans and the horses, chestnut hair goes
with a certain temper described as sanguine,
generous or fiery if we happen to be in a good
temper, or untrustworthy and vicious if we
disHke the person. Setting aside the cold
sorrel, or light chestnut, which in my own mind
is associated with commonplace horses and
with one or two very bad women, the real chest-
nut, with its red-gold glory, makes most of us
catch our breath with its beauty. In human

SCALE OF COLOUR VALUES 47

hair it so appeals to artists as to be generally
reserved for the most sacred portraiture. In
horses, it so appeals to horsemen as to rank
next bright Bay in the scale of values.

The Brown Horse. This is a colder,
washed-out tone of Ba3\

The Black Horse. Among feral and range
horses, those of the very darkest bay and brown
become brown-black under the summer sun-
light. True black is unknown among outdoor
horses, and can only be due to special selective
breeding.

The Grey Horse. All greys are obviously
crossed between white and the various whole
colours.

The primary horse colours are Dun and Bay.

The secondary colours are white, black,
grey, chestnut, and brown, whole colours
shared by human and horse folk.

The tertiar}^ colours are crosses of white
with Bay, Dun, black, chestnut, brown, which
produce the various roans. Beyond that the
human hair withdraws from competition.

The quarternary colours are crosses of white
with whole roans, producing strawberry and
cream roans, and roan-balds ; while a peculiar
mixture of white with black, bay or chestnut,
gives us the piebalds and skewbalds.

4S CORRECTING BY SUNLIGHT

The white horse has been saved from the
wolves by man, but the secondary tertiary
and quarternary colours are also very largely
the result of man's work in crossing the primi-
tive strains of Europe with the imported African
Bay within the last couple of thousand years.

Migration. The Romans imported millions
of negro slaves who have not left a trace of
their blood in Europe. Wave after wave of
Blonde Migration from the Baltic has conquer-
ed the Mediterranean states, but left no fair
descendants. The negroes become extinct
in Europe. The blondes become extinct on the
Mediterranean.

And so with horses. Imported horses fail
to breed healthfully in the damp provinces of
India and Brazil, while horse sickness makes a
clean sweep of them in man}' parts of Africa.
It is probable, with horses as with men, that
no sudden importation to regions outside their
native zone of sunlight results in permanent
healthy breeding. The imported strain dies
out unless it is constantly renewed. Hordes
of Asiatics with Dun horses have swept from
time to time into Europe, and into India, but
Dun horses are scarce in both regions, and do
not exist in large numbers except in Scandi-
navia and in Katywar.

THE BRAND OF EUROPE 49

So the strong action of man in sudden flood-
ings of Europe with Bays from the desert,
Duns from the steppe, is outweighed by a
stronger law of nature. With strains of horses
as with tribes of man, the penalty for sudden
migration from their native zone of light is
gradual extinction.

Yet is there one difference between Bays and
Duns. The Dun is not worth renewing, and so
dies out unnoticed. The Bay is worth breed-
ing and so persists.

PART IX. THE BRAND OF EUROPE.

In nature's immense and gentle processes,
throughout the amazing story of the Europe
horse, the bewildering actions of forgotten
tribes of men, and the sun's own slow adjust-
ments, a single force persists in branding the
stock wdth a sign of ownership.

A partial echpse of the sun had made his
figure that of the crescent moon. Standing
under some oak trees, beside the road puddles
made b}^ recent rain, I noticed that the bars of
reduced sunlight which came down through the
leafage shone upon the little patches of water.
The image of the crescent sun was reflected
upside dow^n.

The bar of sunlight coming down through
leafage acts as a lens to the sun's image. The

so THE BRAND OF EUROPE

woodland glade is a camera. The coat of a
woodland animal is coloured by the direct
action of light, is sensitive to light, is a sensi-
tized film for colour photography. To the
peculiar reversed and condensed rays shining
through leafage into the woodland camera, the
coat of the horse responds, forming rings of
deeper colour limited to the parts of the animal
which are exposed to direct light. In the
course of many generations, the rings become
permanent and are known as dapples. The
dappling in the dappled light of woodlands
gives concealment both to hunting leopards
and to hunted horses.

Since dapples have not been traced to any
other country, and may well be native to wood-
lands of Western Europe, it seems fair reasoning
which gives that special quality of colour to a
type we will now define as the European horse.
I do not contend that the woodlands were more
extensive than the open downs, or that an}^
large proportion of European horses developed
dapples. I do contend that a certain stocky
build and well conditioned heaviness of type
more or less dappled is characteristic of Western
Europe, just as a more or less striped Dun is
typical of Asia, and more or less striped Bay
typical of Northern Africa.

PROFESSOR RIDGEWAY'S THEORIES 51

I am nothing more than an old rough-neck.
My poor httle theories about the Europe horse
have the impudence to contradict a great au-
thority. Professor Ridgeway brings historic
proof that the Tarpan, who is the Prejevalski,
the wild Dun of Asia, inhabited the green pas-
ture of Europe, that he was a small scrawny
and foul-tempered person unfit to ride, and
that his crossings with the slender imported
Bay produced our gigantic sturdy and gentle
draught horse. I have ridden so many Duns,
packed so many, loved them so much, that I
am sure they would agree with me in bucking
hard against Professor Ridgeway. I do not
beheve that the Dun wore his tawny colour in
green pastures where he would be a target. I
do not beheve that the wild Dun in an average
district was small, scrawny or vicious. I do
not beheve that a horse of the Dun type could
be an ancestor to draught stock. History is
the lens through which we sec the past — out
of focus.

Against the evidence of history and the
proofs of science, I have nothing to offer ex-
cept the common heritage of sight and reason,
with that experience which trains a fellow to
interpret landscape and to care for horses. I
cannot expect others to ride as I have through

52 SENSING THE COUNTRY

the green pasturage of Cloudland seeing as I do
under the combed, trim countryside of to-day
the fierce rough wilderness of prehistoric times
and of outlandish frontiers. It is not by
asking the way or reading sign-posts that one
reasons out the route of a day's journey, but
by a vivid sense of light, form, colour and at-
mospheric distance, the old familiar structure
of the rocks, the slopes of drainage, the course
of running waters, the shape of woods and
trees as fashioned by the wind, the ancient
dangers deflecting trails and roads, and the
phenomena which result in forts and churches,
villages and towns.

So one senses the radiant perfumed land and
sees how it shaped and coloured its native
horses. It was from that raw material the
breeder wrought just as a sculptor models clay
into his statuary Under his hands the wild
traits disappeared, the short-sighted pon}^
grew into a long-sighted hunter, sound hoofs
and limbs were softened to unsoundness, the
language of signs gave place to understanding
of human speech, while discipline of the harem
and the herd became obedience in the fields of
sport, of labour, or soldier service.

I would not have my reading take the place
of thinking, but rather use books to inspire

THE DAPPLE SIGN 53

thought and be thankful to them for correcting
blunders. Thus, aiming at the truth, no matter
what I hit, I see in Western Europe a horse-
currenc}^ which is of striped extraction, and,
hke a coinage in bronze, silver and gold, has
evolved its moorland ponies, its lowland
draught stock, and its upland running breeds.
The measure of Bay blood stamps out its
values ; and, where one can decipher a device,
it is to read the dapple sign for one of the sun's
ow^n kingdoms.

. CHAPTER III.

HABITS OF OUTDOOR HORSES.

I. THE RANGE.

The North American range of the run-wild
herds enlarges northward out of Mexico and
covers the region between the Mississippi and
the Pacific Ocean up to the edge of the North-
ern Forest in Canada. This gives an area of
three milhon square miles, a range much the
same size as Europe, the United States, Aus-
tralia, Brazil, or Canada. The eastern half is
a prairie, the western a desert shaped like a
swell of the sea about eight thousand feet high
at the top, and laced all over with a skein of
mountain ranges thrown like fisherman's net
and broken all to pieces. Moreover, the
southern or higher half of this desert is cleft
to the roots by sheer abysmal chasms known
as the Canons.

It has been my good fortune to ride from the
edge of the Canadian forest along the general
hne of the Rocky Mountains to a place just

54

THE WILDERNESS SS

twenty miles south of Zacatecas in Mexico,
which is the southern boundary of the Stock
Range, on the Tropic of Cancer. I have also
ridden from Regina in Saskatchewan to Red
Bluff in Cahfornia. These two routes cross the
grass from north to south, and nearly from
east to west, making a rough total of seven
thousand miles.

The land as I knew it first had just been
stripped naked by the hunters who swept
away almost the whole of its native stock of
bison, deer, and antelope, wild sheep and
goats, together with the hunting animals, such
as wolves and panthers who earned a living
there. The land as I saw it next was over-
stocked with ponies, cattle and sheep, so that
the grass w^as poor. The land as I saw it last
was being fenced, watered and ploughed by
pioneer settlers. In thirty years I witnessed
the passing of the wilderness and its frontiers-
men.

A meadow gives a totally false idea of the
herbage which built up the strength and
vigour of the ancient pony herds. It is a
mixture of many grasses and other plants all
closely turfed together so that a horse cannot
readily select what he likes best. The grass
contains a deal of water, stays green throughout

56 THE NATURAL PASTURES

the year and tastes sour between the teeth.
One finds turfed pasture in forests and their
outskirts, and usualty where there is rainfall
enough for crops, as in Western Europe and on
the eastern half of South Africa. That, I
think, is not the pasture which made the
hardy range horse.

Where there is less than eight inches of rain
one finds the range grass, of separate plants
with the bare earth between. The three
American kinds are the bunch grass of the
hollows, a tall tussock with tap roots reaching
down to moisture ; the little buffalo grass
from tw^o to four inches high ; and the gramma
grass of the same size which inhabits Mexico.

One ma}^ presume that the tussock fed the
oldest herds and that, as it failed, the pony
took to eating the shorter grasses.

The horse in a meado\v pasture does not eat
the ranker growths, but grazes the shorter,
smaller kinds of grass. From this we may
reason that the little buffalo grass of the ranges
is the typical food of the species. The leaves
of this plant are green in the spring but soon
cure to a golden tawny colour, which changes
to brown in the autumn, and a washed-out,
greyish brown in winter. As the}' cure, the
leaves curl downwards one by one until the

CONDITIONS OF THE STOCKRANGE 57

plant becomes a ball or tuft exceedingly
springy underfoot, sweet as a nut in taste,
and equal in food value to standing oats.

As one approaches the desert the land is
sprinkled with bushes which protect them-
selves from being eaten v/ith a very strong
nast}^ taste, or deadly thorns. Of these the
sage brush comes first, a thousand miles wide
followed by a thousand miles of greasewood
and acacia varied with forests of cacti. The
grass becomes more scanty as one forces a way
onward into the heart of the desert, where
there are regions of naked rock and belts of
drifting sand.

As the annual rainfall varies from year to
year the desert tracts expand or shrink by
turns. As the winds swing from side to side,
or wax or wane in their supply of moisture, a
fertile region is made desolate for a few cen-
turies as Palmyra, or a desert shrinks before
the spreading pasture. In cycles the desert
blossoms or withers, but with the millions of
years it slowly widens.

Such, then, w^ere the conditions of the stock-
range to which the ancient herds had to adapt
themselves, learning to dispense with the
shrunken meadows, and make the most of
varying crops of bunch grass.

58 THE GRAZING RULES

The taste for green pasture is so far for-
gotten that range horses will swim rivers and
break fences to escape from the richest of
meadows and get to the desert hillsides which
seem to grow nothing but stones. Where
sheep tear the bunch grass out by the roots and
leave stark desert, the horses' lips and teeth
are so delicately adapted to this feeding that
they never uproot the plant.

It is a sound rule that range ponies do not
travel beyond their necessities of grass and
water. Leaving the water, they graze out-
wards, forming a trampled area which widens
daily as they feed at the edges. So, riding
across the rich and untouched grass lands of
the south-western deserts, I have come to a
line where the pasturage ended abruptly, and
beyond were innumerable pony tracks leading
from six to ten miles to a water hole. The
wild horse looked upon that ring area as the
tame horse does a stable, with water and feed
conveniently arranged. That was his home,
and if man or the storm, or wolves drove him a
couple of hundred miles away to better feed
and water, he would always break back at the
first chance, travelhng steadily with little delay
for grazing.

A horse's neck is exactly long enough for

RULES IN GRAZING 59

grazing on level ground, but I never saw one
try to graze downhill. Neither does he readily
graze directly up any steep place, preferring
to quarter along the hillside, rising very
slightly.

His first rule in grazing then is to crop uphill.

But the moment the air stirs he applies his
second grazing rule, which is " feed up wind."

If he had the man's way of reasoning, he
would argue thus, " If I graze down wind I
smell myself, the grass, and the dust. But if
I graze up wind I get the air clean to my nos-
trils, and can smell an enemy in time to fight
or run."

His third rule is to graze if possible home-
ward or towards shelter.

If the grass is plentiful he feeds quickly,
and has time for rest on warm sheltered ground
or in the lee of timber. If food is scant, he gets
no time for rest.

On the natural range there are hollows to
which the surface waters have carried the ashes
of burned grass. These alkali licks are needed
to keep horses in health ; but rock salt in the
stable seems to meet their wants. Failing that
they will lick brick walls. Even the licking
of a man's hand is a means of getting salt from
the skin rather than making love.

6o HORSES ON CLIFFS

II. BETWEEN GRASS AND WATER.

The best way to measure the distance and
the sort of ground which the ancient herds
were accustomed to traverse between grass
and water, is to study the conduct of a horse in
deahng with steep places.

I was dining with some friends at Gibraltar
when the story was told of long ago times when
a couple of mad midshipmen rode ponies for a
wager up the Mediterranean stairs. This is a
stone stairwa}^ up the eastern wall of the Rock
which is sheer and some thirteen hundred feet
high. The story had special interest for me
because my father was one of the two mad
middies. He had told me that the ponies
were not frightened, except at the last flight of
all when the Atlantic wind was blowing into
their faces over the summit. There a step was
missing, the ponies reared, and both lads had to
dismount, losing a wager for which the leader
had undertaken the ride.

The ponies were Spanish, of the type which
re-stocked North America.

I frightened an English horse into hysterics
with such small rock walls as I could find in
Wales, but have never known an American
range animal to show very much alarm. My
worst climb was made in twelve hours, with

SLOPE CLIMBING 6i

three horses up a 3,600 foot diff where a trail
would have been a convenience. The pack
and spare horses pulled hard at times because,
although ambitious animals, they would have
preferred some other way to heaven. That is
why the lead rope got under the saddle-horse's
tail, which made him buck on a ledge over-
hanging blue space where there really was no
room. A httle later the led horses pulled my
saddle horse over the edge of a crag. I got off
at the top, and the horse lit on his belly across
a jutting rock about twelve feet down. He
thought he was done for until I persuaded him
with the lead rope to scramble up again. Near
the summit the oak and juniper bushes forced
me to dismiount, leading the horses one at a
time under or round stiff overhanging branches
on most unpleasant ground. They showed off
a httle because they wished to impress me, but
I found out afterwards that horses or even
cattle, held at the foot of that cHfT until they are
hungry, will climb to the top for grass. The
place is known as The Gatew^a}^ and leads up
out of the Canon Dolores in Colorado to the
Mesa la Sal in Utah.

Much more dangerous w^as a 4,000 foot grass
slope dowm from the Mesa Uncompaghre into
the Canon Unaw^ep. I managed that by

62 BAD GROUND

leading the horses and quartering the slope in
zigzags. I was much more frightened than
they were.

Many times I have ridden along the rim rock
of cliffs of any height up to a mile sheer, and so
far from being afraid, I found some horses pre-
ferred the very edge. One may ride slack rein
where one would never dare to venture afoot.

But although range horses like cliffs, they are
poor climbers. One may ride them up any
place where a man can chmb without using his
hands, but they will never face a step above
knee high. Sometimes I have been obliged
to pass my rope round a tree and pull my horse
down walls that he dared not jump. Even
then he would argue the point.

American railway bridges have no pathway,
and when one leads a horse, stepping from tie
to tie, he thinks he has five legs. With two
legs down, and a train expected or a bear
sauntering ahead, he looks so damned patient
that one begins to reahse an obscure trait in
his character which needs explaining. It is
easier to take him across bridges than to ride
or lead him through a waterfall. He prefers
a waterfall to a corduroy-timbered swamp road
when it happens to be flooded and afloat. I
have tried him with quicksands and moss

HORSE SENSE 63

holes and glare ice on the mountain tops.
Because I cannot swim I have stayed in the
saddle swimming lakes, rapids, and rivers
which run sand. Still worse are beaver
swamps under a tangle of deadfall timber, and
old avalanches. All these and sundry other
kinds of evil ground a horse accepts as fate so
long as he trusts his man. It is not his busi-
ness. It is the man's affair. One begins to
think that, like a savage, he lacks continuous
purpose of his own and is merely the meek
victim of his destiny. And that is exactly
where the man is fooled. When a horse really
wants grass, water, or to get home, he rivals
the white man in sustained purpose, and does
his own job with an intelligence and courage
which he never gives to that of his employer.
In other words, the difficulties of travel
between grass and water gave to the ancient
ponies the highest possible quahties of endur-
ance, valour and skill. These qualities are
latent in every horse.

There is a more important lesson to be
learned by practical study of wild range.

The range has two types of herbage, the
bunch grass and the thorned or aromatic
bushes. The bunch grass is the staple food, the
bushes a reserve in time of drought The use

64 THE TRAIL TO WATER

of the reserve food has taught the horse to
adapt his stomach to a change of diet.

Compared with farm land the range has
ver}^ httle food to the acre, supports only a
small population of grazing beasts, and, in its
distances between food and water, has trained
the horse to a deal of exercise as well as to
endurance of thirst. On the other hand the
needs of travelling for water and of grazing
have reduced his time for sleep to about three
and a half hours per day, which he takes
standing, however weary, unless he is quite
confident as to safety and kind treatment. In
brutalh^ managed stables horses are apt to
sleep standing, because they are not off guard.

At first glance, too, the water on level range,
however distant from the edge of grass ma\^ be
safely visited. Yet as one approaches the
stream by slopes of the usual coulee, densely
bushed with poplar and wild fruit trees ; or,
coming down open grass, enters a grove of
Cottonwood along the level bottom, one begins
to note that the horses appear to be nervous.
A bunch of loose ponies will let the wisest mare
scout ahead while they string out in single file
to follow all alert, picking their way most
dehcately, pointing their ears at all sorts of
smells and sounds, and glancing backw^ar^j

RACE-MEMORIES OF PERIL 65

often as they go. Again one watches tame
horses watering at a trough, ahva3^s alert, on
guard. If one of them makes a sudden move-
ment the rest will at once shy backward. Some
horse are so nervous that the}^ have to be
watered singly. Alwa^^s a horse drinks while
he can hold his breath, lifts his nostrils to
breathe deep and fill his lungs, then takes a
second drink, perhaps a third, and turns away
abruptly. There is no lingering at the water-
side. At the bank of lake or river no range
horse goes deeper then he need, or offers to take
a bath.

Here are race-memories of mortal peril from
a daily watering in face of instant danger and
of sudden death. I have seen so many horses
piteously drowned in moss or mudholes that I
understand why the}' tread cautiously as they
approach wet ground. The bush beside the
w^ater is apt to be full of snakes who come down
as horses do, to drink in the gloaming, and are
not easily seen. The bush beside the water
is the lurking place of every beast of prey, and
everybody knows how horses go stark mad at
the smell of bear. What chance had the
ponies, strung out on a bush trail, against grey
timber wolves ? What thoroughbred fighting
horse would ever have a chance against the

66 THE HAREM

Siberian tiger, or the African lion ? Cougar,
puma, jaguar, leopard — the cats of all the
world with their sudden spring at the v/ithers
or throat of a range pony, have taught his
descendants their art of self-defence. That
we must deal with later.

III. THE FAMILY.

We have broken up the family life of our
horses, and are apt to forget that they ever had
private affairs of their own.

Twice on the range I have met horse families.
On the first occasion the family happened to be
grazing near the trail as I passed. The stal-
lion was furious at my intrusion, trotted up to
me and stood glaring, pawing the ground, his
great neck arched and splendid mane and tail
ripphng astream in the high wdnd. My saddle
and pack beasts, a pair of gentle geldings,
were rather frightened, disposed to halt, even
to run away but for my voice keeping them to
their duty. The stallion's mares had stopped
grazing to admire their master, each with an
observant eye cocked at me and an expression
of smugness not to be beaten in any Bigo-
tarian chapel. Then, as I laughed, the stallion,
with a loud snort of contempt, swung round,
lashed dirt in my face for defiance, and trotted
off to round up his harem and drive them out

THE COMMANDING STALLION 6-]

of reach lest my evil communications should
corrupt their morals.

On the second occasion I took a half-broken
pack-train into a pasture on the bench of a
canon, so that the spring grass might cure an
epidemic of strangles which had killed seven
and sorely weakened the rest. The pasture
belonged to a wild stallion who lived there with
his family of young mares, colts and foals.
He stole my twenty-five mares, added them to
his harem, and made off. I was obliged to
build a corrall, round up the whole bunch, cut
out my mares, and drive the harem out of the
district. Meanwhile my stock had lapsed
from civilised w^ays and become wild beasts
who had to be broken all over again before it
was possible to use them for pack-train work.

They say that a horse family depends in size
upon the powers of the strongest stallion, who
rises to com.mand by fighting and defeating all
competitors, and holds his command by single
combat with the leaders of rival families who
try to rob him.

The commandant stallion is able to hold a
family of fifteen to fifty head, but there must be
some who b}^ conquest of rival leaders, and
stealing of their harems, rise to commands on
a much larger scale. Ranging his familX

68 THE FIGHTING HERD

between grass and water, he is most particular
to close herd his mares, to hold his own pasture
which he never leaves except under dire stress,
and to have special places where he casts his
droppings. In range hfe the geldings have
separate famihes, and their own private runs.
There is not very much known about the
internal arrangements of wild harems, but a
good deal can be guessed from watching the
Red Indian's pon}- herd, the Cow outfit's
bunch of remounts, the Mexican remuda, the
Argentino tropilla, the stock of a horse ranch,
or even a herd camp of Mounted Police, all
units of horses living more or less the wild life
of the range. From these it is known that a
feral pony herd keeps a certain mihtary forma-
tion while grazing, with the weaker animals
ringed by the stronger, and a few vedettes and
flankers thrown out to watch for danger. At
the assault of a wolf pack the formation closes,
the fighting horses and mares making an outer
ring, close-set and facing outwards. When a
w^olf comes within range, the nearest horse
swings round and lashes out with the hind feet
to kill. As American wolves only pack in
winters of famine this event is rare, but in one
case an Indian boy who was herder to a Black-
foot tribal camp, was, with his mount, placed

SELF-DEFEN'CE 69

by the fighting herd at their centre for his
defence, and was able to watch the whole
battle until his people came out to the rescue.

In breeding and fighting the Commandant
stallion is sole authority, but it has been noticed
that some wise old mare usually decides the
time for moving and leads the marches.

It is said that a foal is able to keep with the
travelling herd from the day of birth. It is
said that the foal will outlast a hard day's
journey — and dies afterwards. To what ex-
tent this may be true I have no means of
knowing, but I believe that the leggy foal does
keep up with a moving herd. It is one more
bit of evidence as to the desperate emergencies
of drought or storm survived by the ancient
herds.

IV. SELF-DEFENCE.

There is a general belief among horse that
man is vicious. If he were a httle more inteih-
gent we could explain to the horse that appear-
ances are deceptive, and that we are not really
vicious vv'hen we throw things at each other
such as shells, torpedoes and bombs, or lay
mines to blow each other to pieces on land or
sea. As it is, he bases his belief that we are
vicious upon our methods of dealing with him,
in the use for example, of bearing reins, of

70 SELF-DEFENCE

branding irons, and instruments which dock
tails.

My own impression, after many ^^ears of
experience with both, is that man, and especi-
ally civilised man, is much more ferocious than
the horse. May I venture then to quote the
wisdom of a gentle Bengali Baboo who wrote
an essay as follows :

" The horse is a highly intelligent animal,
and, if you treat him kindly, he will not do so."

The discovery was made in Arabia, also in
Kentucky, in Ireland and elsewhere, that if a
foal is handled as a pet, and so brought up that
he remembers nothing but kindness and con-
stant care at the hands of men, it never
occurs to him that he needs to defend himself
from his master as from an enemy. He never
develops the arts of self-defence. As a colt he
learns that to get at his feed he must jump over
a stick on the ground. As he grows the stick
is raised inch b}^ inch until jumping over it
becomes a part of his accomplishments in
which he takes a natural pride and delight.
So with the rest of his education. Horses can
learn a great deal of the language we speak, to
enjoy music, to select colours, to add up
figures, to take a vivid interest in sport, to
share with us the terror and glory of battle.

VARIETIES OF CHARACTER 71

They will set us an example in faithfulness^ in
self-sacrifice, and every finer trait of character.

But if we teach a young horse nothing but
distrust, making fear and hatred the main
traits of his character, it is the last outrage
upon common sense to call his honest methods
of self-defence by such a name as vice. We
have the power to raise up angels or devils, but
if we breed a horse to be a devil, we cannot
expect the poor beast to behave himself like an
angel.

Horses vary in character almost as much as
we do, and there are with them as with us a
small proportion of born criminals whose
warped or stunted brains cannot be trained
aright by any means we know. What we do
not and can never understand is the mysteri-
ous power of saints who charm wild men and
beasts to tameness, and of certain horsemen to
whom the worst outlaws are perfectly obedient.

Among ourselves there are certain dreams
such as the falling dream, the fl3dng dream, and
that of being eaten by wild beasts, which are
supposed to be race-memories dating from the
time when man w^as a forest animal like an ape,
before the immortal Spirit entered into his body.

Among horses there are race-memories dat-
ing from ancient times in the wilderness when

72 RACE MEMORIES

the pony was driven to self-defence on pain of
a violent death. These race memories take
the form of habits, and explain the various
methods by which the horse defends himself
from human enemies.

Pawing, for example, is the subject of many
theories. Not that the habit really needs
explanation, because we fidget ourselves when
we have nothing better to do. Yet when a
horse paws the water at any drinking place, the
learned are apt to say he does it to clear away
the mud. I doubt if any horse is such a fool.
Other observers note that the action is really
stamping, a motion of race-memory dating
from the time when thin ice had to be tested
to see if a frozen river could be safely crossed.
That sounds most reasonable, until one wonders
dimly how it accounts for either pawing or
stamping on dry ground.

If then the fidgets must be explained by any
theory of race memor}^, one would suppose that
the gestures used in killing snakes or in scraping
through snow to get grass might very well have
come down through the ages. I think though
that if I had four hoofs and an irritable temper,
I might be allowed to indulge in cow-kicking or
striking without my symptoms being used as a
pretext for abusing my dead ancestors.

HORSE MASTERSHIP 73

We have seen that the old range harem
adopted miUtary formations, and went into
action well organized for defence against
wolves. They kicked, but any range cow,
addressed on the subject of milking, without
hereditary training as a kicker, can give points
to the average horse. Yet where the cow is
merely obstinate the horse is reasonable.

He is marvellously swift as a critic of the
horseman, ready to kick the same abundantly
at the slightest sign of ineptitude or nerves, or
to render a cheery obedience to one who under-
stands. The man who walks nervously through
a stable making abrupt movements to avoid
possible heels is sure to be criticised with con-
tusions by any horse with a decent sense of
humour. Yet if one understands the signs of
thrown-back ears and balancing in readiness
for the kick, one has only to tell the animal not
to play the fool, then watch his shamefaced
grin at being found out. It is so easy to charm
the most irritable horse with a httle hay while
one is busy with him in the stall. He cannot,
like a man, think of two things at once, and in
mihtary stables, horse-masters who have their
grooming done while the horses feed will find
that even dangerous kickers become gentle.
That is of course contrary to much theory and

74 KICKING

more army practice ; yet it is not forbidden,
and being easil}^ tested is well worth trying
before it is condemned.

Having nearly cured my horses of kicking, I
am still extremely anxious to persuade young
horsemen to get as close as possible to a horse
while grooming him, so that no kicker has
room to deliver the full force of the blow,
which may be fatal. Horses are very careless
among themselves, kicking each other for fun
while they forget that the iron shoe may break
a leg. I have noticed also that a horse who
deliberately gets himself disliked will very soon
be the victim of organized attack, a comrade
being told off by the rest to lay for him. In
this way during the last six months I have
been obliged to have four horses shot for
fractured legs.

Horses in pasture will often stand in pairs,
head to tail abreast, so that each with his
whisk of tail can keep flies from the other's face.
One will nibble and lick along the other's neck
and withers out of kindness, adding a bite or
two for fun. So in the stable, horses bite one
another for fun, but if they apply the treatment
to a man it is a sure sign they are badly educa-
ted, and liable to get their noses smacked for
their pains.

FAULTS AND REMEDIES 75

Pig-jumping is the plunging action which
civihsed horses suppose to be genuine bucking.
It is not so much self-defence as an expression
of joy.

Kangaroo-jumping is unusual, but must be
great sport for a horse who knows the trick.
It never fails to astonish.

Rearing. To cure a rearing horse, throw
him on his near side. When ready to throw,
draw the rein taut, the off rein tightest ; then
as he rears, keep the left toe in the near
stirrup, but get the right free of the off stirrup
with the knee on the horse's rump, for a
purchase as 3'ou throw your bod}^ suddenly to
the left. The Horse loses his balance and
crashes to the ground while you step clear.
As you do so draw the taut off rein back and
low to the pommel. So you will raise the head
and prevent horse from rising.

Never strike a horse on the head for rearing.

Bolting and Stampedes. Horses were
trained by wolves and other dangers of the
range to run at the warning neigh of their
stallion commanding. Sudden and blind panic
is a trait innate in the horse character, and the
best preventive is the human voice. Singing
hymns or any familiar songs in chorus is the
very best way of preventing a stampede ; but,

^6 BALKING

judging by my own voice, is rather apt to
panic any horse who has a good ear for
music.

Balking. There is a story of a New Eng-
land farm horse drawing a load of hay, whose
master had no influence with him. After
trying for an hour to persuade the animal to
move, he made a bonfire under its belly. When
the flames caused him discomfort, the horse
moved on — eight feet, exactly enough to bring
the bonfire underneath the hay.

Tap quickty with a whip behind his knees,
hitting them alternate^ . He will mark time
then walk to get away from the whip. I
heard lately of a stranger who walked up to a
balking horse, rolled a cigarette paper and
placed it carefully in the animal's ear, then
led him unresisting along the road. Mr.
Horse was wondering, " Why the deuce did
he put that thing in my ear? " He forgot
to balk. No horse can think of two things at
the same time.

Balking at a Gallop. Whereas refusing to
start is evidence of a misguided past, the
sudden refusal to take a jump may indicate
that the horse lacks confidence in his rider, or
that the reins are very badly handled, giving
him no chance of taking off with head free.

LITTLE WAYS jy

To balk at a gallop means throwing the
body back and bearing against the ground
with all four feet, head down.

Propping. This is balking at a gallop and
taking a series of springs in that position, each
with a rigid crash on all four legs. The rider
has a tendency to continue his journey alone.
Propping is much favoured by range horses.

This completes the list of defensive measures
remembered by civilised horses.

Treading. They have also invented a few
methods of expressing their feelings. When a
horse presses his hand on m}^ foot, and adds to
the tenderness of the greeting b}^ waving his
other hand, I know^ he means to impress me,
although I may not have leisure at the moment
to hear what he has to say.

Taking in the Slack. When a horse takes
the seat of my breeches firmly between his
teeth as I try to mount, he may not wish me to
ride, or possibly he wishes to criticise the
English riding costume. Breeches with puffed
sleeves are perhaps an acquired taste.

Crowding. A horse may corner or crowd
me when I try to leave the stall after feeding
him, and if he hugged me he could do no more
to express his pleasure. But if he will not let me
re-enter his stall while he feeds, I suspect some

78 BUCKING

groom has been stealing his oats from the
manger.

Joggling. Soldier horses on the march are
obhged to keep the pace set by the leading file.
If that pace is be3^ond their walk, they keep up
by joggling. To break a jogghng horse to a
walk, stand in the stirrups, place the free hand
on his neck, and bear with the whole weight
of your body.

To return now to defensive methods.

Bucking. To lower the head, and spring
into the air, humping the back, drawing the
feet close together, and coming down on all
four rigid, for the next spring. Repeat. It is
useful when starting a spring with the head
north to twist in the air and come down facing
south ; or to make the series of jumps in a
narrow circle and then bolt at a tangent ; or to
buck on the run, dislodging the rider first, then
the saddle which can be kicked to pieces. If
the rider is dragged his brains can be kicked
out.

SuNFisHiNG. To buck, coming down on
both hind feet and one fore, while doubling up
the other free limb. This brings one shoulder
to the ground, and to sunfish is to drop alter-
nate shoulders. Very few horses know this
exercise.

ACTS OF PASSION 79

Scraping. To run or buck under low
branches or against trees or walls. Some
civilised horses know this.

Backfalls. These may be used to add to
the general effect of either rearing or bucking.
I once bought a black mare seven 3^ears old,
snared in the forest, who had probably never
seen a man. When ridden she bucked, and
while bucking threw herself seven times on her
back, three falls being over a cut bank on to a
rock}' river bed. Towards evening she cricked
her neck, and showed blood at the nostrils,
making an awful picture of despair. During
the night she slipped a foal, of which there had
been no sign. Before dawn she died — a case of
broken heart. The horse breaker, an English
gentleman, sta^^ed with her throughout, and
was not hurt.

So far we have dealt with acts of hot-blooded
passion, culminating in suicidal rage. The
fiercest buckers, having dislodged the rider,
will turn at once to grazing and wait with
cheerful defiance for the next bout. Almost
all horses are sportsmen and there is nothing
that they dread more, or are so careful to
avoid as treading upon a disabled man. Even
in cavalr}' charges a man down has onl}^ to lie
still so that the horses can see exactly where he

8o MAN KILLING

is, and the}^ will all leap clear. They dread
placing a foot on anything which might col-
lapse or roll, and so cause a dangerous fall.

There remain extreme cases in which horses
are guilty of dehberate, planned murder.

Savaging is practised by civilised as well as
by range horses. It is a sudden, and often un-
provoked, wide-eyed staring rush with teeth
bared, an attempt either to inflict a dangerous
bite or to get a man down and trample him to
death.

Holding wind. The only case I know of
was that of a fine buckskin gelding for whom
I paid a rifle, a suit of clothes and ten dollars
in trade with an Indian. It seemed impossible
to get the girth properly tight until, after three
days, I concluded that my suspicion of his
holding wind was merely foohshness. All the
same I used to regirth a mile or two out on each
march. I had regirthed at the top of a moun-
tain pass, and was mounting, when he suddenly
let out all his wind and bolted over rock heaps.
The saddle came down with me on the off side,
I was dragged, and afterwards woke up to find
myself maimed for life. Then we had a fight,
which he won. It turned out afterwards that
holding wind until he could catch out and kill
his rider was an old accomplishment for which

SPIRIT OF THE HORSE 8i

the horse was famous. This is the only case I
have known of unprovoked, carefully planned,
and deliberate crime, as distinguished from
self-defence.

Vices are human quaUties. The worst
possible vices with regard to a horse are,

To show fear.

Meanness or neglect in fending for him.

Cruelty or ill-temper.

v. THE SPIRIT OF THE HORSE.

The young of the church and of the uni-
versities who know all about everything, and
attach a deal of importance to their funny httle
opinions, are quite agreed that the lower
animal is an " it " as automatic as a slot
machine. Put in a penny and the machine
utters a box of matches. Put in food and the
animal develops energy. So much is per-
fectly true of animals and men, for our bodies
are automatic.

Moreover, the animal has " instincts " which
impel '' it " to beget a foal or a Utter of
puppies. Humans, with the same instincts
are impelled to beget a bumptious young
bacteriologist, or a pair of curates.

In a hke way the wolf, the Christian, or the
tiger mates with one wife, while the horse and
the Moslem both prefer a harem.

82 THE HORSE SPIRITUAL

Shall we say, then, that the wolf is the more
religious, or the horse not quite so respectable ?

A certain Sergeant Parker, of the North-
west Mounted PoHce, went on patrol with a
saddle horse. They got lost in a blizzard, and
in the succeeding calm the man became snow-
bhnd. On the seventh day, the horse saw an
outfit of freighters passing in the distance. He
ran to their sleighs. He whinneyed to the
horses, who understood his talk, and he
beckoned to the men, who were not so clever.
Then the men noticed that his belly was terribly
swollen b}^ long pressure of the girth. They
followed him. At a distance of one and a half
miles they came to a tract of prairie with the
snow grubbed up where the horse had been
scratching for grass. In the midst w^as a heap
of snow like the mound of a grave, on which
lay Sergeant Parker in seeming death. His
long delirium, beginning with visions of angels
and closing with a dream of meat-pies, had
ended in coma just at the verge of death ;
while the horse stayed on guard until it was
possible to get him rescued. So much was
told me afterwards by the man.

The other day in France a British soldier
was killed, whose horse remained with the
body for two days, out in the zone betw^een the

THE HORSE IMMORTAL 83

opposing armies, exposed to a hurricane of fire
beyond example, refusing to be rescued, moved
by a love stronger than death.

The young of the clergy will tell us all about
the lower animal who does not subscribe to the
tenets of the church, and so must perish ever-
lastingly despite the Father's care. Yet if
they read the Prophets and the Revelations
they will find chariots of fire, and see in visions
the deathless chargers ridden by Archangels.
Are all the Hosts of Heaven infantry ? We
have the full authority of the Holy Bible for an
idea that horses may be immortal.

But then the young of science have assured
us that the clergy talk a deal of nonsense, and
that the Holy Scriptures are so much folk lore.
Our modern teachers, unused to sleeping out-
doors, have never seen the great heavens
thrown open every night. They believe in
nothing they have not seen, and those I meet
have not seen very much. To them the lower
animal is hardly a personal friend, but rather
an automaton steered by instincts, built on
much the same principles as a dirigible torpedo.
The " instincts " have to account for deeds
which in a man would be attributed to love or
valour.

I often meet young people who gently wave

84 THE HORSE PSYCHIC

aside my life experience while they crush me
with some religious or scientific tenet to which
they attach importance. Sometimes this bias
has caused total blindness, more often they
lack sympathy ; but any horse can teach
fellows who have eyes to see with, and hearts
to understand. Then the}^ wdll realise in him
a personality like that of a human child.

I do believe that there are men and horses
in whom the spirit burns with so mighty and
secure a strength that it cannot be quenched
by death ; and that there are others in whom
the flame burns low or has been blown out.

Ever^^body has acquaintances who possess a
certain sense, not yet quite understood, which
enables them to read unspoken thoughts ; to
see events in the past, the distance, or the
future as happening to their friends ; or to be
conscious of certain states of the atmosphere
produced by strong human emotions ; or to
see or hear phenomena which some folk attri-
bute to discarnate spirits. Such people are
called psychic, and, if they use their powers as
a means of earning mone}^ they are defined as
frauds. As a bhnd man does not deny the
existence of eyesight, so, if I am not psychic
myself, I have no call to decry the honest
people who possess this gift. I have heard

SENSE OF HUMOUR 85

stories told in all good faith of dog* and horses
showing uneasiness and alarm at apparitions
which men failed to see, of so-called ''ghosts,"
for example, in places which had been the scene
of a violent death. Without careful investiga-
tion one can scarcely treat such tales as evi-
dence ; but it is quite possible that some
horses, hke some women, are strongly psychic.

That horses have a crude sense of humour is
known to every horseman. To rip the cap off
a groom's head and drop it in the water is the
sort of joke which appeals to a horse or a little
boy. Once I was standing beside a friend who
sat in a dog-trap, and each of us enjoyed a
glass of beer while we passed the time of day.
Just for fun the pony drank half my beer, but
when I brought him a bowl of the same, pre-
tended to be an abstainer. That pony would
visit his master's dining-room of a morning to
remove the covers and inspect the dishes for
breakfast.

Another friend of mine once had a horse
named Kruger, black roan with a white star
on each flank. It had been his hfe's ambition
to be a skewbald, and disappointment had
lopped both ears over a glass eye, so that he
looked hke the very Devil. A greyhound body,
long legs and a mincing gait completed his un-

86 THE HORSE COMRADE

usual list of beauties. Some fourteen years
after my friend had sold out and left that
country, accident brought me to Fire Valley,
British Columbia, and dire need of a new pack
animal constrained me to buy the horse. Per-
haps for political reasons, or to evade the
pohce, by this time old Kruger had changed his
name to Spot. Frightened of him at first, my
partner and I discovered his great talents as a
pack-horse. Besides that, he was brave, loyal,
and gentle, and above all things humorous. A
rough passage of mountains brought us to
settlement, where men would laugh at Spot,
but horses never dared. One had onty to say
" Sick 'em ! " as to a dog, and Spot would
round up all the horses in sight and chase them.
His face was that of a fiend save for a ghnt of
fun in the one eye he had for business. For
about fourteen hundred miles he spread terror
before him, stampeding bunches of loose horses
but alwa^^s coming back Vvdth a grin, as though
he said, " Now, ain't I the very Devil ? "

In the North-west Mounted Pohce, a de-
tachment of us used to ride down bareback
with led horses to water at the ford of Battle
River. Close by was a wire cable for the
ferry. On one occasion, my horse as he left
the water turned under the cable to scrape me

LIMITATIONS AND TRICKS 87

off his back. Failing in that, he returned
higher up the bank, and this time I was
scraped off into a pool of dust. Out of that
brown explosion of dust, I looked up in time to
see his malicious pleasure in a successful joke.

And so one might set forth instances by the
score, all to the same monotonous effect, that
humans and horses have a sense of humour.

Please imagine a man to have his hands and
feet replaced by boxes of horn such as the hoofs
of a horse, and that, so disabled, he is tied by
the head in a cell. Reduced to the conditions
of horse-life in a stable, the man would be as
clever as a horse in the use of hps and teeth.
He would slip his headstall or break his head-
rope, open the door and escape until such time
as the need for food and water drove him back
to prison. When asked to go to work, he
might give a clever impersonation of a lame
horse. He might also copy the trick of the
beggar horse who gives the love call to every
man who enters the stable, fooling each of
them with the flatter}^ of special homage, a sure
way to gifts of sugar, apples or carrots. Or
he might copy the horse who whiles away dull
times by keeping a pet cat, or bird, or puppy.
It seems odd, too, that the most dangerous
human outlaws and riian-sla3dng horses are

88 THE HORSE MUSICAL

gentle with small animals and children. So
long as we punish unoffending horses with im-
prisonment in dark cells, we may expect them
to show traits of character evolved by the
treatment of prisoners in the Middle Ages.

Horses, dogs, and men are oddly ahke, too,
m the w^ay the}'' dream, with twitchings of the
limbs to illustrate great exertion, and snort-
ings, murmurs and groans, w^hich take the
place of speech.

So horses just like humans are dour or
cheery, truculent or cheek}^, humorous or
stolid, some with a lofty sense of dignity, while
others behave like clowns. Some horses are
like some children, exacting until they are
petted, while other children and horses hate to
be pawed. Both will sulk or quarrel, pla}^ the
fool or grumble, make intimate friendships or
bitter enemies. I think, though, that the love
of sport, and the desire to excel are much more
general with horses than wdth children.

In a military camp I asked some women to
tea, and turned loose a few Beethoven records
on the gramaphone. At the first tune all the
horses in pasture assembled at the fence, stood
to attention while the nmsic lasted, and when
it was over scattered off to grass. They
certainty love music. At the same camp, by

SIGNALS 89

some mysterious means they got wind of the
fact that twenty of them were to be sent away.
Until the detachment actually marched off,
their conduct, for twenty-four hours on end,
was sulky and mutinous. Afterwards both
groups immediately mended their manners.

Everybody who lives with horses learns that
they exchange confidences, arrange for con-
certed action and try to tell us their troubles.
Nobody knows how they talk, few of us can tell
what they are talking about, but so far as the
evidence goes they seem to express their feel-
ings rather than their thoughts. Here then are
a few of their signals :

(i) When a horse throws his ears to point
forward and down, and he makes a short,
sharp snort it means " Wheugh ! Look at that
now ! " If he throws himself back on his
haunches while he points and snorts, it means :
" Oh, Hell ! " If he points, snorts and shies a
few yards sideways in the air, he is pla3dng
at being in a terrible fright. It means :
'' Bears ! " He is not really frightened, for
when he is tired out he will pass a railway
engine blowing off steam without taking the
slightest notice.

(2) One ear lopped torwaid and the other
back, head sideways, gait sidelong, may be

90 HORSE SPEECH

defined in the words of a learned Hindu :
" Sir, the horse with which your Honour
entrusted me has been behaving in a highly
obstreporous and devil-may-care manner."

(3) The love call is a little whinney, soft,
sweet and low.

(4) The demand for food is a rumbling
neigh.

(5) A cheery neigh greeting other horses
in passing means : " How d'ye do ! "

(6) A loud trumpet peal of neighing at short
intervals is a demand, sometimes a piteous
appeal to other horses to join company.

(7) The groan of great pain is the same as
that of a man, and may be attended by crying,
when tears run from the nostrils. The sound
is heart-rending, beyond endurance.

(8) The scream is only uttered in sudden and
mortal agony as from burning, or from some
kinds of wounds received in battle.

(9) Ears throvvn back even ever so slightly
express anger, but thrown back along the neck
mean fighting rage. In wild life the fights
between stallions are mainly with the teeth,
and horses forced to fight as a sport for men, as
in ancient Iceland, rear up against one another,
striking as well as biting. The ears are thrown
back to save them from being bitten.

SIGNS AND PROTESTS 91

(10) Rage and pretended anger are expressed
by a sudden squeal, the signal of attack.

(11) Gestures of pain.
Stamping is merely impatience.

Pawing may be due to colic. If also the
animal sweats and keeps looking at his flank,
there is certainly pain in the abdomen.

Pointing with a forefoot. When standing, a
horse rests his hind legs by changing weight
from one to the other at intervals of a minute.
As he has no mechanism to do this with the
fore Umbs, he expresses pain in one of them by
pointing the foot forward. He rests better
facing dowm a slope then facing up as in a
stable, and when in pain may be relieved by
tying to the stanchion instead of to the manger.

Dragging the fore foot means injury to the
shoulder.

Head out, chin up, feet apart, and sweating,
mean that the chap is choking.

Head down and tail tucked in, mean misery
or sickness.

{12) Gestures of joy.

Bright eyes, a glossy coat, head carried
proudly, and tail high, dry nostrils, hard
droppings, free moVement, and a willing gait
are signs most eloquent of health. To pass the
time of day with other horses, shy at the

92 THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE

clouds, paw the moon, and dance, with pig
jumping or even a Uttle bucking after break-
fast, are signals of youth, joy and good fellow-
ship.

Then one may watch the play of the nostrils
making a thousand comments on scents borne
in the air, while the ears will point and quiver
to all sorts of sounds beyond man's hearing.
The mood will change from sober thoughtful-
ness in the shadow of clouds or trees, to sheer
intoxication of delight with sparkhng frost,
dew on the flowers, sunshine in the skies. No
creature on earth expresses feeling w^ith sweeter
quickness than a happy horse.

(13) NuzzUng is sometimes an appeal for
help, more often an expression of loving
sympath3^

(14) Nothing so far explains how a couple of
horses will put their heads together, touch
nostrils, and in a second come to some sort of
mutual underst-anding, which leads to immedi-
ate concerted action such as the bolting of a
team. In one or tw^o cases I am not sure that
the nostrils actually touched. In many cases
w^hen I saw nostrils rubbed together or the
beard bristles in contact, no sound was made
within the compass of my hearing. Neither
were there such lip movements as would be

THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE 93

made b}^ speech, nor was there any self-
conscious, found-out expression in the faces of
conspirators caught plotting against the white
men.

When I have been in company with some
very dear friend, and one of us would answer
out loud to an unspoken thought of the other,
or both of us were moved to say the same
thing in the Uke words, we called that thought-
transference. When my horse came to me in
camp, and standing behind caressed my neck
or ear with his lips or nostril trying by thought-
transference to tell me all about his pain or
sorrow, he might get his face slapped before I
realised exactly what he said. Only as I
learned to welcome horses when they came to
me, I seemed to sense their feelings. They
converse among themselves by thought-trans-
ference, and try to speak that way to men they
trust.

The barriers between horse and man are
tremendous. Think what it is for a fastidious
creature, with powers of scenting which can
descry clean standing water at nearly five
miles without wind, to come near a meat-
eating creature like a man, powerfully and
offensively scented. Suffering from nausea
without obtaining the relief permitted to a

94 HIS POINT OF VIEW

man, the horse must overcome an intense dis-
like before he accepts our friendship. He
senses our defects of cowardice, cruelty or
selfishness, perhaps drunkenness, vices out-
ranging his capacity for evil. He knows that
we are physically small, slow, sometimes even
lacking in muscular strength. Yet taking us
all in good part, he submits his will to an
intellectual force, grasp and speed v/hich seem
to him supernatural, and to an authority
which he venerates as divine.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CONQUEST OF THE HORSE.

We have now some vague idea of the ancient
horse ; so it is well we should know what
manner of man was the savage who caught and
tamed him.

Living a great deal, and travelling much
alone among savages I have been more or less
tolerated ; and the savage has told me what he
thinks of the white man. He looks upon the
scientist as an amateurish unpractical sort of
person who cannot ride or cook. The mission-
ar}^ can be profitably humbugged. The tourist
is a source of revenue but apt to be intrusive
and ill-mannered. As to the cinema folk, one
tribe of savages refused to play any more
because they were defeated in every film.
They were granted one massacre of the whites
to cheer them up.

So the scientific men, the missionary, the
cinema people and many others bring home
impressions which would amuse the savage.

95

96 THE SAVAGE

Our people are so badly informed that they
suppose the savage to be dirty, ferocious,
immoral and uncouth as the Sydney larrakin,
the cockney rough, the New York tough and
other poor degenerates of our race. It is true
that the Fuegans were dirty, but w^e should not
speak ill of the dead. Some South Sea island
tribes are cheerfully ferocious, and make much
of the white man at table although he does
taste salty. The Pathan, if one calls him a
savage, takes a deUght in immorahty. But
uncouth ? The commonahty of the English-
speaking nations have a deliberate preference
for ugly costume and decorations, foul speech
is usual among men, vulgarit}^ is a privilege of
both sexes, and awkwardness of bearing is
almost universal. Who are we to call the
savage uncouth ? Compared with a white
man, the savage is a gentleman anyway and
usually sets us an example in purit}^ of speech,
often in cleanliness, chastity, and good faith.
He differs from the healthier types of white
men in having slight^ less energy and vitaUty,
in lack of sustained purpose and in being never
quite grown up. Except in Africa, our mi-
crobes and not our valour conquered him, and
his failure to rival us in material progress was
due to lack of material rather than want of

THE SAVAGE 97

brains. The ferocious savage of fiction could
not have tamed the horse.

It is quite hkely that men killed and ate
ponies for ages before it occurred to our
ancestors that the creatures would be a deal
more useful alive. But how was Four-feet
overtaken and killed by Two-feet ? Science
has nothing to say on that point. We are not
told.

Science has discovered that in Western
Europe there were various phases of culture
which are called (i), the EoHthic, when men
used natural stones for weapons, (2) the old
Stone Age, when flints were flaked to make
spear and arrow points, (3) and the new Stone
Age, when stones for weapon heads were
ground and polished, (4) the Bronze Age, (5) and
the Iron Age. It is true that flaking flints for
flint-lock guns continues in England in face of all
theories of the NeoHthic, because a flaked flint
will make sparks, whereas a ground flint won't.
It is also true that Europe is the only part of
the world with flints for flaking. The general
application of the theory is also a little difficult
on the Western American range, where there
are fine silicate stones ; but, in defiance of the
Neolithic culture, the savages persist in flaking
them for spear and arrow points while they

98 THE HUNTER

deliberately grind stones for club heads, axe
heads, and mortars. Still worse, the debauched
Eskimo grind and carve stone lamps, but in
their heathen bhndness use bone and ivory
for the heads of harpoons and bird darts. The
savages I have known belonged to the Old Bone
Age.

How then with his slow feet and poor
weapons was the hunter to surprise the alert
sentries of a pony herd, get within range before
they fled like the wind, or drive a bone-tipped
spear through the shagg}^ hair ?

It seems to me that man, like other hunting
animals, despairing of getting meat from a
pony herd on the range, would lie in ambush
near the watering places, and where the ponies
had to string out on a narrow trail they were
caught at a disadvantage. There spear and
arrow could earn abundant meat. Outside
the bush, too, the valley ^dr canon walls had
caves and defensible places where a tribe could
lodge within easy reach of game, water and
fuel.

In the South-western desert of America I
have seen hundreds of cave and chff villages,
some even occupied by surviving tribes whose
methods of hunting and location and defence
would correspond with those of the more

THE HUNTER 99

primitive pony hunters of prehistoric France.
It seems, too, that those hairy aborigines who
spht pony bones for marrow may possibly have
known the daintiest dish of Red Indian
cookery, Crow entrail, more poHtely known as
Absaroka Sausage.

In savage tribes there is a rule that a man of
the Smith sept may not marr}'- among the
Smiths, but seeks his bride among the Browns
or Robinsons. But the septs are usual!}'
called after some animal, so that for Smith we
may read Pony, for Brown we may read Eagle,
for Robinson say Wolf. Moreover, the chil-
dren play a game of two sides in which Master
Wolf impersonates a wolf with cries and
dances, and if the rival side laughs they pay
forfeit. So Miss Pony plays at pony, and
Master Eagle plays at being an Eagle. Out of
this game perhaps comes a play of the grown-
ups ; in which I have seen a candidate for the
secret societ}^ of the Healers impersonate his
tribal Bear or Beaver before the Doctors of the
order who admitted himi to their circle. This
play may be the origin of a mystic rite known
as Calhng the Game. For certain Doctors can
wear a wolf skin, and give so beautiful an
imitation of a wolf that all the deer and bison
are deceived. His job is to excite their

lOO THE TRAP

curiosity so that, as he draws slowly away, the
herds will follow him. The nearer animals
draw back with misgiving, but those in the
rear press on to get a view until, as the wolf-
man gathers speed, the moving herd runs hard.
It is then that they find themselves running
between converging lines of stone piles, and
women jump up from behind these cairns
waving their robes and yelHng. The herd
stampedes to the edges of a sheer cliff, too late
to check their pace after the leaders have seen
the peril ahead. The rush of the herd drives
onward into space, and hundreds, even thou-
sands of great beasts fall headlong to He dead
or mangled in heaps on the rocks below. So
the tribe assembles for great feasting, and
heavy labour.

The hides were needed for clothing, shields,
tents, and rope ; the brains for dressing skins ;
the sinews and guts for bow-strings, lashings
and thread ; the hoofs and horns for weapon
points, hafts, handles, spoons, cups, window
lights, and glue, which mixed with oil made a
dressing for leather ; the gall for cleansing ;
the hair for felting or weaving ; the fat for
lamp oil and candles. The meat in large
flakes was sun-dried for storage. The dried
meat, pounded, mixed with berries and filled

THE TRAP lor

with melted fat made pemmicaii, the best of
winter foods.

Where there were no chffs over which a herd
could be driven, the practice of calling the
game was just the same, but the narrowing
avenue of stone heaps led to the gate of a ring
fence into which the big game were penned
for slaughter.

This ring fence has many countries, many
names, being the pound or corrall of North
America, jaral of Mexico, kraal of Africa,
keddah of India, circus of Rome, bull-ring of
Spain and old England. With the advancing
ages the perching of spectators on the fence
became the Auditorium of the circus. Stadium,
and Colosseum, and the baiting of beasts and
men, the wild beast fights, the mimic battles,
and martyrdom of saints, varied the savage
programme with racing, tournaments, and
athletic sports

So far as our subject is concerned, however,
one need only note that herds of wild animals,
the fighting males, the mothers and their young
of many species much too swift for men to run
down in the open, w^ere captured alive and un-
hurt. Among these w^ere ponies with their
mares and foals.

The pity for young animals and the love of

I02 PETS

pets are native traits in human character, and
universal among savages.

The savage hunter brought kittens and
puppies into camp to be the playthings of his
wife and children, and from these pets descend
the whole of our cats and dogs. And in the
tribal captures at the corralls were all sorts of
young animals claimed by the women and
children because they were not worth killing.
These ponies, cattle, deer, sheep, goats and
antelope grew up with human kind, glad to get
shelter from the wolves at night, allowed to
graze in safet}^ outside the camp by day. If
the}^ proved useful the men were tolerant.
The useful kinds were even protected at grass
by boys told off as herders, to run them into
camp at the first sign of danger.

The mother who ran dr}^ of milk, saw foals
getting milk from the mares, and would have
mare's milk for her child. The mares who
gave most milk were preferred to others.
From this came the natural idea of breeding
from good milch mares to improve the strain,
and get a larger yield. And thus the use and
value grew of mare's milk with its many prepa-
rations as a staple food for children, then of
grown-ups, until the practice of herding tame
horse stock became general among the hordes

MILCH MARES 103

of Asia. Since then it has been found that
cows gave more and better milk than mares.

As the wild game migrated between their
high summer range and their lowdand wintering
grounds the savage tribes followed in search of
meat. With the. beginning of the pastoral age
the need was urgent of moving the flocks and
herds between the summer and the winter
pastures. But as yet there were no beasts of
draught or burden to carry the tribal camp.
That meant the keeping of two camp equip-
ments, or maybe a camp upon the highlands to
supplement the village in the lowlands ; and
it was doubtful policy to leave valuable tents
as a prey for marauding rivals. A larger and a
bitter need arose when the tribe must move,
and old folk who lacked the strength to travel
must be left behind. There is nothing so
terrible in savage hfe as the necessit}^ of leaving
old men and women exposed upon a hilltop
after the tribe has moved. The poor old thing
is provided with warm, robes, a fire, fuel, water
and some food, but as the days pass the last
cinders, carefully raked together, sink to dust,
and the cautious wolves close in for the final rush .

Savages love as we do, think as we do, and
their life which has for us some glamour of
romance is full for them of sordid reaHsm. So

I04 THE TRAVOIS

we may reckon well that some good matron
grudged the loss, at moving time, of tent poles,
the cutting of which had cost her heavy labour,
done as it was without steel tools hke ours.

She saw the tent poles left behind when the
milch-pony herd moved off. She told the
herders to lash a pair of her poles, one on
either side of each pony's neck with the ends
trailing astern. The next idea was to lash a
couple of cross bars across the trailing poles
behind the pony's hocks, and that was enough
to keep them at a proper angle. It was easy
then to lash a skin robe in position between the
trailing poles and the two cross bars, making a
sort of basket, something to carry the old
mother, who must otherwise be left behind to
perish. Here then was transport which en-
abled the tribe to march with its tent poles, old
folk and baggage. One can imagine how the
medicine men protested against so shocking a
violation of the laws of nature, which decree
that the aged shall be left as a meal for our
hunting companions, the range wolves. But
here the priests w^ould find themselves opposed
by the common sense of ever}^ man and woman ;
so they would doubtless yield with an ill
grace, after enacting a law that this new means
of transport was a special privilege for aged

THE CART 105

clergymen. The travois came into general
use for transport.

The next step was less obvious, an idea which
w^ould appeal to men of inventive minds ; and
I have noticed that it is onl}^ in civiHsation that
the inventor is treated as a public enemy. The
savage actually admires a man with new ideas.
The travois frame was a heavy drag, and the
draught pony was apt to delay the march.
Why not have a round log as a roller under the
trailing ends of the poles ? Too heavy. Cut
away the bulk of the roller, fining it down to a
mere axle bar, with a disc at either end to roll
along the ground. The larger the disc the
better it rolled, so disc v/heels were built, with
a hole in the middle into which the ends of the
axle bar were bolted.

As one may see in the many countries where
disc wheels are used by farmers, the first idea
of lightening the disc was to cut out four large
holes, leaving the timber shaped like a rough
cross with a rim. But that cross was too weak
to carry weight, so its arms had to be strength-
ened with four spokes, lashed on with raw-hide ;
next the four spokes replaced the arms of the
cross, and a rim was built enclosed in a raw-hide
tyre. The raw hide, put on wet, and shrinking
as it dried, made a quite serviceable tyre. So

io6 THE CHARIOT

was the wheel invented, and the first four-spoke
pattern gave place to the six and eight-spoke
methods of strengthening the rim. The whole
process from roller to four-spoke wheel would
easily occur to one inventor in his experiments.

Meanwhile the skin basket in the travois
frame was changed to a floor of raw-hide lacing,
on which a man could stand with bent knees
driving. He needed shelter, so a dashboard
was made of oiled bull-hide, quite translucent
but proof against spears, arrows and pony
kicks. As a curved surface made weapons
glance when they hit, this dash-board was
rounded at the front, and carried along the
sides enclosing the driver's stand.

So far a one-horse vehicle, a sort of sulky,
had been invented ; and it ma}^ be worth noting
that the creaky old Red River cart of Mani-
toba, although made with steel tools, contains
no trace of metal. Its gait is a walk. But it
was obvious that by using a pole instead of a
pair of shafts, two ponies could be driven, and
trotting became quite possible so far as the
grass extended. Still one hesitates to use the
stately name of chariot for a vehicle on three-
foot wheels, drawn by shaggy ponies from the
milch herd. Yet it had use in war because the
machine could be driven by a charioteer, leaving

THE CHARIOT 107

the warrior free to use his weapons. At least
it brought the warrior, after a long march,
at a decent speed fresh into action ; and,
although he fought afoot, he had the chariot to
rally upon, for cover and a position when hard
pressed. The British warrior ran along the
shaft to the attack, retreated behind the dash-
board for defence.

The Ridden Horse. Many a time have I
seen the pony herd drift out to pasture, or trail
dowm of an evening to the water hole ; but I do
not remember a herder going afoot. For boys
to ride on herd was only natural, and I have no
doubt that ponies were both ridden and packed
from very earty times. We may find guidance
here from Red Indian practice.

The Blackfoot nation were a woodland
people, and, as first known to the white men,
lived on the head waters of the North Sas-
katchewan at the southern edge of the Great
Northern Forest. In the earliest years of the
nineteenth century some Kootenays crossed
the Rocky Mountains from the west, and
arrived in the Blackfoot hunting grounds with
the first ponies ever seen there. They made a
good sale to the Blackfeet, which started a
stead}^ trade. Moreover, the Blackfeet made
no bones about taming and riding these feral

io8 RED INDIANS

ponies, and holding them on herd. For better
hunting and convenience in herding, they
moved about three hundred miles to the south-
ward out on the open prairies, but well within
sight of the Rocky Mountains, which made a
stronghold in the event of disaster, a hunting
ground in seasons of scarcity. The}^ took to
bison hunting for a livelihood.

The daily bathing, winter and summer, in a
very brisk climate, the sweat baths which
preceded all rehgious rites, the freedom from
vermin, the chastity of the women, the valour
of the men, the purit}^ and spirituahty of their
life, their wonderful psychic development, and
hypnotic medical practice distinguished the
Blackfeet even am^ong the glorious tribes of that
region. In grace and endurance as horsemen
they have not been equalled in our time.
Young warriors were trained in the ordeal of
fasting and prayer in soHtude until they had
contact with the unseen ; next in the ordeal by
torture ; and last in the ordeal of war. A
warrior assembled a party of young men, and
after they had been purified and blessed, they
took the war path, mounted, or more often
afoot into the territory of some neighbouring
tribe, such as the Gros Ventre, Absaroka,
Sioux or Crees. Their mission was to enter

RED INDIANS 109

the hostile camp at night, loose and drive off
the war horses tied at the lodge doors, or
stampede the tribal herd, and drive straight
for home. These little excursions, practised
by all the tribes, led to occasional unpleasant-
ness between them, and engagements were
fought when one side could lure the other into
an ambush, cut off a hunting or war party of
the enemy, or surprise a hostile camp. Fight-
ing mounted with lance or bow and arrows,
the Blackfeet developed fort}^ thousand cavalry
within twenty-five 3'^ears from the day they first
saw a pony. Shock action w^as unusual, and
the tactics were generally those of cavalry in
reconnaissance. A raw-hide string round the
pome's lower jaw, and a robe tied on the back
with a surcingle completed the equipment ; but
the warrior, whose costume was a breech clout,
would usually be attended by a pack pony to
carry his war kit and face paint for use on oc-
casions of high ceremonial, or a full dress battle.
It is a superstition of running and jumping
horsemanship that a big horse and a little man
are the right combination for travel. The Red
Indian of the Plains would average five foot
ten, and his pon}^ say thirteen hands, a big
man on a very little mount. The United
States cavalry were on the average smaller

no BARBARIANS

men on very much larger horses. The}^ some-
times intercepted Indians on the march, but
rarely overtook them. Closel}^ pursued, Chief
Joseph commanding the Nez Perce tribe,
marched with his women and children
fourteen hundred miles, before the United
States forces succeeded in intercepting their
flight. In the case of the Blackfoot out-
law Charcoal, up to a hundred-and-sixty
Mounted Police were engaged for four
months catching him. So on the whole the
primitive savage, once he had a pony, was not
deficient in mobihty. And given the pony,
he became the Mounted Barbarian whose
Hordes pla3'ed havoc with the elder civihza-
tions. At the very dawn of Histor}^ three
hundred thousand head of Turanean chariotry
romped down on the Persian Empire. They
are said to have been very haughty and op-
pressive to the poor Persians.

The fact that range men travelling are
usually attended by a herd, change ponies at
every halt, and so ride fresh mounts two or
three times a day, gives them a mobilit}^ with
even the smallest ponies which has never been
matched b}^ one-horse cavalry. It was not the
foray, but shock action which had to wait, until
the crossing of stocks produced the war horse.

CHAPTER V.

THE HORSE IN HISTORY.

I. THE DAPPLED HORSE OF EUROPE.

The Baltic People. The Baltic, which
once drained through Lapland to the Arctic,
became, as the icefields melted, a land-locked
lake until a local sinkage of the rocks opened
its Danish channels into the Atlantic. At the
same period the North Sea was eating its way
up the old vale of North River.

The melting of the icefields had left these
Baltic and North-River Provinces of Cloudland
an ill-drained country of hare rock wastes, of
boulder tracts and clay, cluttered with lakes
and swamps. It w^as long before its damp and
frosty soils yielded a scanty crop, eight
bushels of wheat, for instance, in Plantaganet
England as compared with thirty-six bushels,
the present average. The only wealth was that
of fisheries in cold and deadly shallows.

Here, in a rapidly improving climate, was a
school of manhood which educated poor
savages who lived on shell-fish, driving them

112 THE BALTIC FOLK

by straits of famine to exercise a varied skill as
fishers, hunters and farmers with the changing
seasons. As these people always bred more
bairns than the}'' could feed, their overcrowd-
ing led to bickerings, and mutual recrimina-
tion weeded out all but the best fighters, while
pestilence swept awa}^ those who were not
not quite hardy. The blue-eyed, fair-haired
ruddy folk of Cloudland grew tenacious of life,
and very hard to kill, thrifty, austere, fiercely
self-governing. Never has the world known
men more formidable, adventurous, abler or
more daring than these Vikings of the northern
seas, and pioneers by land who set forth out of
Cloudland to find homes. The}^ had a strong
preference for other people's homes.

To reahse the temper of the Baltic, glance for
a moment at the old quest for cod, and the
curing stations for stock-fish which formed a
series of stepping-stones to bridge the North
Atlantic, and so led to the discovery of North
America. The founding b}^ blonde adventur-
ers of the Hohenstaufen and Romanov dynas-
ties, and of the British kingdom, are Baltic
roots from whence have grown the German,
Russian, British and American world powers
holding dominion over half the Earth. All that
steam is to the mechanism of the planet, or to

LIMITATION TO CONQUESTS 1 1 3

our own industrial engineering, the Baltic
Force has been in histor}^

Long before the dawn of historic times the
Baltic region was brewing human storms, which
swept outward in all directions, but mainly into
regions tow^ard the sun. It is not blind acci-
dent which leads the modern Prussians to seize
the coal and iron fields of Belgium, the oilfields
of Galicia, or the copper mines of Serbia ; for,
not only are Baltic storms of overwhelming
strength, the}^ are organized by strategists, led
by tacticians and concentrate attack upon
the most useful countries.

Yet there is always a limitation to the
Baltic conquests. When the blonde conquer-
ors seized Grreece or Itah^, Spain or Asia Minor,
districts enclosed by sea and mountain bar-
riers they always held their own. When on
the other hand they conquered a country open
to attack such as Germany or Russia, Hungary
or the Balkans the next wave of the Tartar
Hordes has overwhelmed them by sheer
weight of numbers. So the early Balkan con-
quests on the Mediterranean were cut off from
the homeland by swarms of Asiatics v/hose
dark haired descendants, known as the Alpine
stock still hold large mountain regions from
the Black Sea to the Rhone.

114 THE BALTIC FORCE

Wherever the Baltic people hold their con-
quests in Asia, Europe, or America, a nation
arises of mixed blood from their marriages with
black-haired natives or fellow emigrants. A
few centuries after the settlement, four hun-
dred years or so, the austere repubhc, or
monarchy of free men with a king as Leader,
blossoms mto a grand emipire, ablaze with
genius, rich, corrupt, decaying.

But, if the Baltic colonists have settled to
sunward of the 49th parallel, the sunlight
begins to affect the nerves of the blonde
emigrants, to weaken the children, to give a
feverish energy to business, to kill off the
unsheltered outdoor workers, and emasculate
the sheltered aristocracy. A few centuries
later the dark-haired natives of the region have
time once more to resume their ancient habit
of sitting in the sun. They made the statues
and portraits of fair gods and saints, blonde
kings and heroes. " Once upon a time," they
sa}^ " we had Otympic games. Our cavalry
were irresistible. We ruled the entire
world ! " But the race of the blonde
conquerors has perished from among them,
gone like last winter's snow save for a
few surviving aristocrats, and some poor
melting drifts of peasantry up in the moun-

HELLENIC HORSEMEN 115

tain valleys where there are clouds for
shelter.

The Hellenic Horsemen. While the Baltic
region itself was still sub-arctic, perhaps with no
horse-stock as yet much better than Celtic
ponies, the oak woods of the Danube valley
were breeding sturdy Dapples, while the
Tartar hordes with each invasion scattered
Duns as far as central France. Even the
white horse of the Southern steppes, rare and
held sacred by the Northern people, was known
in Central Europe. So when the fair Achaeans
came to Greece they brought not Celtic ponies
but Duns, and a few Dapples picked up upon
their journeys.

In the sagas of the Northmen as in the
legends of Achaean Greece the blue-eyed,
ruddy, tawny hero makes love or war to wor-
ship a fair woman. The vein is epic, but there
is a difference of mood ; for in the North its
atmosphere is one of gloom and terror shadowed
by awful Fate, but in the south of sunny
splendour, gallantry, and joy. The theme of
the winged horse has its weird Valkyrs riding
to find the slain through battlefields at night,
and its gay flying Pegasus in the Sahara, who
will not be caught save with a golden bridle
made by magic.

ii6 ACHAEAN HORSEMEN

The Ocean God gave Peleus a chariot team
" Dapple " and ' Dun " by name, both with
great flowing manes, " swift as the winds, the
horses that the harp3% Podarge bare to the
West Wind as she was grazing on the meadow
beside the stream of Oceanus " Peleus lent the
team to his son Achilles. Then Achilles'
charioteer was killed in battle, and the horses
mourned. " Hot tears," says Homer, " flowed
from their eyes to the ground as they mourned
for their charioteer." The fellow used to oil
their manes, poor dears. They wept from the
eyes, and not, as modern horses do, from the
nostrils. But then 3"ou see they were not
ordinary horses, because their mother was a
harpy {vide books on Unnatural History), and
their sire was the West Wind. They were
foaled on the shores of the Western ocean :
Dapple of the woods. Dun of the grass lands.
And Pegasus was a Bay from Africa. So one
finds in the oldest myths of the Hellenes record
of the three primary stocks from whom all
modern breeds are descended.

To these Hellenes the hearth, the log cabin
and the mother were sacred, the bases of all
religion. The hearth became an altar, the
cabin a glorious temple of white marble, the
mother a goddess whose statue was ivory and

ACHAEAN HORSEMEN 117

her robes of massive gold. Outside their holy
faith nothing was taken very seriously, and the
people had special delight in nonsense animals.
The centaur or man-horse was a prime favour-
ite, and they did not worry over his stable
management, a most revolting job. The man
mouth w^ould refuse the forage urgently re-
quired by the horse-body, and if they compro-
mised on oats as porridge, even that would
pall. Still centaurs would be gentle, and less
likely to butt, than the buck unicorn of our
own mythology. The Centaur Cheiron indeed
was not only gentle but the eminent headmaster
of the earliest pubhc school. Solving the diet
question with fish, game, fruit and wine, he
lived to a good old age.

For a people of so lively a mind as the
Greeks, progress was rather slow in the use of
horses. Supposing the siege of Troy to have
happened about 1000 b.c. they were solely
dependent on chariotry in war while King
Solomon had 12,000 cavalry.

Three centuries later the Greek colonists of
iVfrican Cyrene, that " city of fair steeds and
goodly chariots," sent home shipments by
direct sea trade of desert Bays for breeding.
With the improvement of the horse stock four-
horse chariots began to compete in the Olympic

ii8 HELLENIC HORSEMEN

Games of b.c. 680. By b.c. 640 the ridden
horse had become of consequence enough to
share the great honours of the Otympiad, but
still the tactical use of cavalry was delayed.
Greece is a small rough country much broken
by sea channels, and no more suitable than
Scotland for the effective use of the mounted
arm in war. So, even as late as the Battle of
Marathon, the Persian Horse found the Hellenic
army afoot ; not until the fifth centur}-' was the
Greek Cavalry of any consequence.

In the Greek statuar}^ of the Great Age we
see the Hellenic horses clearly as though they
lived. The chariot horse was a noble half-bred
carriage animal standing at least sixteen hands.
The cavalr}^ remount stood about fourteen
hands with a head of unmistakeable breeding
from the Bay, and a general chunky comfort-
able build which suggests the Dapple, but
certainly not the Dun who had served with the
heroes of the Achaean age. The Welsh pit
pony, used as a yeomanry remount, exactly
corresponds with Xenophon's careful descrip-
tion of the ideal cavalry horse. " A double
back," says he, " that is, when the flesh rises
on both sides of the spine, is much softer to sit
upon, and more pleasing to the eye than a
single one." That was before the days of

ANCIENT HORSEMEN 119

saddles, and horsemen had tender interest in
the double back — the characteristic back of
dappled horses. Of the Hellenic seat we will
speak in the chapter on straight-leg riding.

Among all ancient horsemen the great
problem was to reserve both hands for the use
of weapons. This involved a life training in
steering by pressure of the knee or calf, but
dressing in military formation was still im-
possible without control of the horse's mouth.
Many nations used a nose-band, or a twitch
round the lower jaw, and a head-rope for steer-
ing ; but still in practice the formation would
be that of a mob. So Xenophon seems to have
borrowed the bitt from the chariot harness,
using a rough one for breaking, and a smoother
kind for trained horses. His illustrious cavalry
owed their prestige and power to a proper
formation, and ingenious tactics.

The Roman Horsemen. The Romans of
historic times were descended from a fair race
of the Baltic region, and the blonde aristo-
cracy still ruled among a dark Mediterranean
population. Their culture was adopted, and
mainly Greek. Their original Dun and Dapple
horse stock was crossed from early ages with
African blood, and as time went on they com-
manded the use of everv decent horse strain in

I20 ROMAN HORSEMEN

the world. Their officials were Curules as a class
from the word Curriis for chariot, whose seats
of office were chariot chairs, and their state
allowances included chariot horses . Their gentry
were known as equites or horsemen. They
developed a mania for chariot racing, and their
four factions known from the racing colours
blue, green, white and red, outlasted the
Western Empire to be a pubhc nuisance in Con-
stantinople. And yet a people ma}^ have money
to bet on racing who in their hearts care nothing
more for horses than does the sporting cockney.

Rich youngsters might swank on horseback
to impress the girls, but one does not read very
much about a mounted aristocracy hke our own,
with gallant games like polo or manly pleasures
such as modern hunting. At heart the Romans
of the Empire were anything but horse-proud.
In their militar}^ practice they never aspired to
the glories of the old Greek Cavalry, or bred
a horseman tactician to compare with grand
old Xenophon.

Some fifty years before the Christian era,
Livy described the heav}^ cavalry only as using
bridles. This being interpreted means that
the Roman dragoons were able for shock action,
while their Hussars steered b}^ the knees and
fought in open disorder.

GOTHIC HORSEMEN 121

On the whole it is difficult to ascribe to the
Romans any advance in the art of horseman-
ship except in the matter of draught. The
heavy engines which correspond to a modern
siege train required not only draught beasts —
oxen possibly, but also the paved causewa}'.
The Roman road for horse traffic was as big an
invention in its effect on civilization as the
steam raihvay of our modern transport.

The Northern Let us turn back to the
Northern Ancesiors of both Greeks and Romans.
The Heimskringla shows the ancestral home
of the Norse to have been in Russia. B3' the
time they colonized Scandinavia, they were
discarding the chariot, were fighting on horse-
back, and had waggons as well as sleighs. A
Bronze age waggon at Copenhagen differs little
in structure from those in use to-day. This
waggon confirms the stories of gods heroes and
kings riding and driving powerful horses at
least as large the big Duns of modern vScandi-
navia. The theory/ of scrawny little ponies
appears to the sheer nonsense. The evidence
points indeed to a more general and more
advanced practice of horse management than
than either the Greek or the Roman.

The Gothic Horsemen. While the Romans
made no special advance in horsemanship the

122 THE PACK HORSE IN HISTORY

fair Barbarians of Germany and Gaul evolved
a notable idea. The gentleman rode to war
attended b}^ a couple of mounted serfs who had
a remount for him if his charger fell, or even
replaced his loss in the fighting line. In late
times the Gothic gentleman became a knight,
and his attendants were esquires in training
until they won their spurs.

See then how the Latin word equus for a
horse gives us equites as the rank of the ancient
gentry of Europe, and Esquire the rank of our
modern gentleman. The French word for
horse : cheval gives us Chivalry and Chevaher.
The Spanish word caballo gives us Cavalry,
Caballero, and Cavalier. The horse has taught
us more than ever we taught him.

The Pack Horse. While chariotr}* and
cavalry were mainl}^ engaged in killing civiliza-
tion, the unobtrusive pack pony did almost as
much as the ship in spreading culture along the
channels of commerce. From the port of
London for example a pack trail starting at
Tower Hill ran westward along Newgate,
Holborn, Oxford Street, and Bayswater Road,
crossed the Thames at Oxenford, then branched
to the gold mines of Dolgelly and the tin
deposits of Cornwall. Along this artery flowed
the Phoenician culture.

PACK TRAILS 123

A little later the merchants of North-
western Europe in search of salt, landed at the
Cinque Ports of Kent. Their pack trails con-
verged to drop down Blackheath Hill. From
thence the one trail coasted the southern
edge of the saltings of Southwark by wa}^ of
Old Kent Road and Bedlam, striking the first
firm ground in the river bank at Lamb's
H^^the (landing), where the Bishop of Canter-
bury afterwards built his town house. From
Lambeth at low tide there was a ford to Horse-
ferry Road on the Isle of Thorns in mid-river.
From the island site of the City of Westmin-
ster, there was a broader but ver}^ shallow ford
across the north arm of the Thames. One
ma}" see the north bank of the Island at Great
George Street, Westminster ; but the site of
the pack trail is lost. It took up the ridge
between the Tyburn and Bayswater brooks,
avoiding the mudholes of both, along Park
Lane. At Marble Arch it swung into the
Bronze trail, to leave it presently at Tyburn
Tree, and strike up Edgeware Road, and so via
Watling Street to the salt wells in Cheshire.
It was along the Bronze trail and the Salt trail
that civilization found its way into England.

Were I a merchant I might see in wool the
single origin of my country's v/ealth ; were I a

124 THE DUN HORSE OF ASIA

broker I might see in stocks and shares the
origin of prosperit3^ Each to his trade ; but
as an old packtrain captain I have ridden many
a hundred miles, noting the grass-grown bridle
paths along dry ridges, the hesitating down-hill
curves of ancient roads as they approach wet
ground, the outer hedging and the inner hedg-
ing as highw^ays narrowed down when they
were paved, and public house signs, such as the
Packhorse, dating from the recent centuries
when still the traffic of old England was done
on cargo ponies. It needs but a httle scouting
to show clearly the story of some fifteen hundred
years of England's progress down to the time
when Caesar's strength was taxed on joining
battle with the British tribes. Our people,
like the Gauls, had roads and chariots, armour
of bronze and gold, old trades, and industries
and towns before the Romans came.

II. THE DUN HORSE OF ASIA.

As the Earth reels through the Dark, and on
her journey spins like a sleeping top, we only
notice the changing of the seasons while she
swings round her great orbit, and the swift
passage of fl^^ing nights and da3^s. It is only
when one is quite alone in the far wilderness
that one begins to feel the Earth in motion, and
after sunset to watch her shadow climb the

THE DUN HORSE OF ASIA 125

eastern sky. To roll one's bed down beside the
waning camp fire, to turn in and smoke the
evening pipe, to lie looking up at the stars, is to
know that one is only a speck of loose dust on a
flying sphere, flung eastward at a thousand
miles an hour, j^et held down by the pull of the
Earth's weight safe from being whirled away
into space. Loose adventurers like me, loose
air, dust, water, and loose tribes of men are all
being flung with the surface, pulled by the
centre of the Earth, and drifted about aU the
time without our knowing why.

Of course the weaker tribes have been flung
eastward so far as there was land, and stay
where they were thrown in China, Indo-China,
Burma, and Bengal. Only the stronger races
have thrust against the motion of the planet.
These dark-haired sallow Asiatics, Scythian,
Hun, Tartar and the rest were bred in regions
of strong sunlight, filling their native steppes
until they were overcrowded. They were
harmless shepherds and herders who did a little
hunting. But for the Dun pony we might not
have heard much about them. When they
tamed the pony the savages became bar-
barians, the little scattered tribes were welded
into formidable hordes. And then they
swarmed like locusts eating up the world under

126 PACK HORSE TRAILS

some ruthless Caan a Genghis, a Timour,
burning all civilization, trampling out the
embers of human reason. And in their wake
came twilight — the Dark Ages.

History is a jade. She has a glad eye for
soldiers and sportsmen whose business is
destruction, but turns a sour face from lousy
pilgrims to the shrines of Faith, poor crafts-
men and scholars burdened with the tools of
Progress, drab merchants who carry Culture
in their packs, and all the messengers of civili-
zation. Of these her annals are curt and
negligent. She has plenty of gossip about
Kings more or less human as advertised by
scribes more or less venal ; but keeps no
chronicle of the pack trails on which the little
Dun ponies carried all that made civilization
to the camps of the barbarian and the savage.
She told us nothing about the hundreds of
opulent cities which now lie dead and buried
in the Mongolian deserts. One does not like
to speak ill of a lady, but her sense of truth is
always moderate.

Adventure is not official!}^ authorized as one
of the Muses, but she is as truthful as History,
and a deal more amusing as a guide.

History says that nations who had no horses
used to be terrified at the first sight of horse-

DRAGON BEAST 127

men, and cites the instances of Peru and
Mexico when Empires collapsed in super-
stitious fear. It seems quite natural then that
the first mention of the horse in China should
call him Dragon-Beast. He was not really
formidable, being only a Dun pony carr^dng no
doubt the good Mongolian pack apparel which
consists of a saddle, and a detachable cargo
rack, the oldest rigging known. His cargo was
a lodestone, a rock of magnetic iron which
served the Chinese Emperor as a compass.
When the pony wanted to go west, and the
magnet insisted on north his celestial majesty
probably saw a jolly good bucking match.

From China to the Atlantic, and from the
northern Taiga to the Indian ocean the old
world was threaded all across with pack trails
snaking from water to water over the deserts
and pastures, the forests and the hills. Except
in the very dr^^ districts where camels,
asses and mules were employed for transport,
the Dun ponies did all the carrying over-land.
From China to Europe was a three years'
journey, not because of the distance but by
reason of the robbers who made the trail un-
safe. At each market town the packtrain
captains waited, perhaps for months, until a
caravan assembled sufficiently large to under-

128 THE ADVENTURERS

take the journe3\ There were periods when
great Tartar Caans controlled the whole of
Asia north of the Himala3^a, together with the
grass land known now as European Russia.
These monarchs from Zenghis to Kublai and
later had post trails with post horses, and
horses in relay for ambassadors and despatch
riders bearing a golden tablet of office. Old
Kublai for example was busy building Pekin
w^hen he sent the Polo brothers as envoys,
riding post with the golden tablet, to visit the
Pope in Rome and ask for a batch of priests to
teach him the Christian faith. For 3^ears
young Marco Polo, nephew of these merchants,
rode past as envoy, visiting every realm in
Asia. Ver\^ different were the ramblings on the
pack trails of that rare scamp Fernao Mendes
Pinto who in the sixteenth century worked as a
slave on the Great Wall of China, travelled
with marching armies, and as a fugitive tramp
found his way b}'- m3"sterious Lhassa, to the
coasts of further India. Another colossal
journey was that in the eighteenth century of
Vitus Bering the Dane with his Russian
trappers, and Stellar the German naturalist
trekking on horseback to the sea of Okhotsk.
There the3^ built a shdp, and sailed in search of
the mysterious straits of Anian leading through

THE BAY HORSE OF AFRICA 129

Meta Incognita to the Atlantic. They found
America, but were wrecked at the tail end of
the Aleutians. The surviving trappers built
a ship and loaded her with sea-otter skins.
These they sold in Pekin for wealth beyond
dreams of avarice, and so returned riding as
rich men home to their native Russia.

It was in the da^'s of Queen Elizabeth that
Enghsh envoys and merchants found their way
by water and the trail of the Dun pony from
the White Sea to Persia and on even to Goa on
the Indian Coast.

The trail of the Dun horse always led to
adventure. Daring traders went to swap gems
for silk at the Court of the great Mogul, or sold
white ladies of the Caucasus to Haroun al
Raschid down in Bagdad, or to Suhman the
Magnificent at Stamboul, or offered purple
shell-fish dyes of Tyre to tempt the young
Prince Siddatha, or came from the East with
gold and frankincense and myrrh and laid
them at the feet of a Child in Bethlehem, or
journeyed from Sw^eden with swords for the
Prophet of Islam.

III. THE BAY HORSE OF AFRICA.

Apart from the sacredness of the Old Testa-
ment as deahng with the origin of a religion,
we may, without offence to fellow Christians,

I30 ISRAEL

read this collection of Hebrew books as the
secular histor}^ of an able but unhoty people.

The collection of stories known as Genesis
consisted mainly of heroic ballads, cast in the
form of verse which can be easily and accu-
ratel}' remembered. These ballads were re-
cited until at the time of the Bab3donian
Captivity in the fourth century b.c. the people
learned to write and set down their annals in
the form of manuscript. We may find the
stories lacking in the salt of humour ; we may
doubt that singers and scribes were apt to
improve on the original words, piling a deal of
exaggeration on the naked facts ; but at the
very worst these legends of old Israel are
terse, clear, consistent and gloriously true to
human hfe and character. I had read the
story of Jacob the Sneak, and Joseph the Prig,
of gallant Esau, and gentle Ishmael in camps
of live Red Indians, before I reahsed that
Genesis is true to primitive life as a whole, and
that, after forty centuries, the legend still
glows and burns in its immortal truth, beauty,
and power.

The story deals with wealthy Arabian stock-
men. They and their neighbours bred she
camels for milking, rode camels and asses, and
used both for pack animals. They seem to

THE BARB 131

have valued oxen for heavy draught as well
as for beef and hides, or they would scarcely
have bothered to winter the cattle in stables.
As any stockmen sees at a glance the sheep and
goats were handled by experienced owners.

The stock would not have paid without a
market, so, as these Arab sheiks had plenty of
gold, we ma}^ presume that they dealt in wool,
beef, hides, and draught animals with the
fortified trading towns of the watered farming
districts. No doubt they sold pack beasts also
to the trading caravans.

There were no horses in the world as known
to these folk. Abraham visited Egypt some-
where about the nineteenth century b.c. and
found no horses there.

Be3^ond the sk3dine of the western desert
from Egypt to the Atlantic ranged the Bay
horse, the Barb of times to come. He was a
delicate, swift creature, very brave and gentle.
His arched neck bore a black and streaming
mane, his tail was set high and carried clear
of the rump. His eyes were set low, wide apart
from which the daint}^ muzzle tapered, to
sensitive nostrils and to lips like velvet.
Legends of later times, and other countries
made him son of the west wind, while custom
gave each of his families a surname. They

132 THE LIBYANS

have always been exempt from labour, attend-
ed by human servants, treated as a nobility.
From very early times they were admitted to
the private family life of the Lib3^an people,
and driven with the four-spoke wooden chariot
until both men and women learned to ride
them.

In much the same spirit as our country folk
go to town for shopping, it was the pleasant
custom of these Libyans to raid Egypt.
Between war and commerce the Egyptians
brought Bay horses into their own use at some
time later than the visit of Abraham, but prior
to that of Joseph. This might be about the
eighteenth century b.c. the era of Stonehenge.

Shortly afterwards horses and chariots began
to appear in the painting and sculpture of
Eg3^ptian artists. Horses must still have been
scarce when the Pharoah gave to Joseph a
signet and royal robes, but only lent him his
second best chariot. It is true that the people
already owned a few horses, for in the great
famine Joseph accepted them in trade for
grain.

It was in that generation that the dying
Jacob, speaking from knowledge common
among the civilized Egyptians, mentioned both
ships and horses. He was frank enough to call

THE RIDDEN HORSE 133

his son Dan " an adder in the path, that biteth
the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall back-
ward." Here is the earliest mention of the
ridden horse. It was in Jacob's funeral pro-
cession to his native stock range east of Jordan
that there appeared " both chariot and horse-
men, a great company."

One suspects a trace of swank in the story
of that " great company." Jacob's countrymen
were sheep herders, destined to go afoot for
centuries to come. The Egyptians used
chariots, but never took to riding as a habit.
Merchants were trading horses to the Hittites,
but that (until Ptolemy Philadelphus made
water holes, and a highway in the second
century b.c.) was done in face of extreme
difficulty. The week's passage of the Desert
of Sin could be made only in the first two
months of each year, and even then the horses
must be refreshed from water bags carried by
camels. On the whole it is hkely that the
great company of chariots and horsemen was a
poetic device for making the most of Joseph's
posthumous importance.

According to Manetho, the well-known
Egyptian historian, somewhere about the
tv/enty-first century B.C. a most objectionable
sheep-herding tribe of Arabs began to infest

134 HORSES IN GENESIS

lower Egypt. Manetho is prejudiced ; but
iust as in modern Western America where the
sheep herder is rated among cattle men as
something rather lower than a dog, it is amusing
to see how the poet in Genesis admits that
shepherds were an abomination in the eyes of
the Egyptians. If one dates Abraham's visit
to Egypt in the twenty-first instead of the
nineteenth century B.C. old Manetho and the
Hebrew poet are perfectly agreed as to the
Hyksos-Israelite invasion.

The Genesis narrative shows the insidious
way in which the children of Israel drifted
down into Egypt, then how they made them-
selves agreeable as office holders, and by intro-
ducing frogs, flies, fice, cattle sickness and other
improvements until at last the Egyptians
waxed desperate and ran them out of the
country. Manetho says that these Hyksos
people occupied lower Egypt east of the Nile
from Memphis to the sea, and later on estab-
lished a dynasty with six Kings in the succes-
sion. After five centuries the Egyptians com-
bined under the Thebaid Kings of upper
Egypt, and drove the Hyksos across the Desert
of Sin into Palestine. It is quite possible that
in Genesis, and Manetho 's History we have the
two sides of one story, and that it was the

CHARIOTS AND HORSEMEN 135

possession of the Libyan chariot which made
the Egyptians powerful enough to rid them-
selves of the artful but not very warlike
children of Israel.

It is amusing to note the ways of the tribal
poet in Israel who describes the murrain of
cattle as killing off every horse in the length
and breadth of Eg3^pt, then out of spite kills
them all over again by drowning in the Red Sea,

Setting the date of the Exodus at b.c. 1580,
it would be about b.c. 1540 that the Israelites
were afraid to attack the Canaan ites who had
good iron chariots. In the same way a nation
armed with muzzle loading guns might hate to
molest an army with quick-firing artillery.
Forty years later, about b.c. i 500, horses began
to appear in Mesopotamia, a bad lookout for
Israel, destmed some six centuries afterwards
to be trampled under by Babylonian chariotry.

Some day we shall have a science of compara-
tive chronology to guide us in our studies, and
so be able to see hov/ little improvements in
horse-breeding, or the use of iron in building
chariots, affected the rise and fall of nations.
In the meantime some known facts of Red
Indian history may help us to understand
events in ancient Asia.

In primitive Red Indian life the tribes were

136 THE MOUNTED NATIONS

seated too far apart to get at each other for
serious pitched battles. In lack of horse
transport trade was limited to the waterways,
and warfare to minor internecine pleasantries
which kept young men in training. From the
sixteenth century the pressure of white men
driving in from the Atlantic began to affect
these almost civilised people, forcing them to
abandon their farms, fisheries and towns,
reducing them to savagery and compelling
them to trespass on occupied hunting grounds.
All nations were set by the ears. Then they
began to get ponies, and the rest was chaog.

So perhaps in Asia, the movements of tribes
afoot ma}^ have been gradual overflows from
crow^ded districts, and warfare a matter of
cheery little fora3's to please the young. The
possession of ponies gave a tremendous impetus
to war and trade. From that time onward the
tribes which were best m^ounted had a political
future, and there was a slight handicap in
favour of nations with Libyan Ba3^s of fourteen
hands two inches as compared with tribes using
the Duns of Asia.

The Egyptians had horses in the eighteenth
century B.C., the Israehtes a few in 1580, the
Hittites and Canaanites in 1540, the Assyrians
not until 1500 b.c. Now Egypt, Canaan,

HEAVY STOCK AND STRONG FOOD 137

Syria, Mesopotamia and Arabia had no native
horses. The Egyptians got horses from the
Sahara, the Asiatics mainly through Armenia.
I cannot beUeve tliat the crossing of small
Duns with small Bays in any region bred heavy
horses for the needs of war.

A practical nation in the breeding trade
would not rely for heavy stock upon the cross-
ing of light strains. The way to get heavy
stock is with strong food. Such oases of great
deserts as Egypt and Mesopotamia had very
Httle pasture, so long as their nations pros-
pered. Every acre then was needed for strong
grains. The well-mounted conquering nations
were not those with splendid pasturage like
Northern Africa or Southern Russia, but those
v/hich had no pasturage at all, who were com-
pelled to feed horses on fodder more potent
than any natural grass. The King's people
might go without, but one may be perfectly
certain that the King's horses lived on corn.
What tribe or race of folk inherited Egypt or
Mesopotamia mattered nothing, what strain
of horses they owned mattered ver}^ little, but
the people and the horses, for the time being in
possession of irrigated oases walled about by
deserts, raised the chariotry or the cavalry
which ruled the surrounding world.

138 CHARIOTS AND CAVALRY

Each nation passed through a phase when
chariotry were the only mounted troops of
tactical use in war. The importing of the
largest and heaviest horses to be had, the
feeding of these with grain, and cross-breeding
of the Dun types with the Bay produced by
slow degrees a remount for use by cavalry.

Earliest in the running were the Hebrews,
for about looo e.g. King Solomon built stables
for 40,000 chariots, and as many as 12,000
cavalry. As early as 700 b.c. Armenia, being
in contact with the ^Asiatic and Russian horse
stocks, became a large horse breeding estabUsh-
ment, suppl^dng remounts southward to Asia
Minor, where in b.c. 560 King Croesus of Lydia
had good cavalry, to Syria and Palestine, to
Assyria, and to Persia down to the fourth
century. But in the meantime shipping had
grown in the Mediterranean, and ships of
sufficient burden to carry African Bays began
to supply the Greeks. From the pony
chariots of the fourteenth century e.g. a
steadily improving stock marked the rise of
Hellas. The Achaeans of 1000 e.g. had
imported Bays. The Greeks of 400 e.g. had
cavalry. Then came the breeding of fine
horses in Macedonia, and, after the death of
Philip in e.g. 336, the mounted troops of his

THE CHARIOT 139

great son Alexander swept like a whirlwind
across the Eastward deserts to where the
monsoon rains made India populous. By this
time cavaW had replaced the chariot. At the
era of the Christ a chariot was still used when
a victorious general entered a city in triumph.
But the use of chariotry in war was limited to
remote barbaric tribes such as the British.

The chariot for practical purposes was
extinct before a single horse had found his way
over the long dry marches leading out of the
world to the remote oases of Arabia. Strabo
the geographer, who at the era of our Loi'd made
a survey of the known world, found that the
horse had not yet entered Arabia. A land
indeed where no water can be had except from
wells was not a possible range for pastured
horses, and the horse has not sufficient thirst
endurance to be of much use for transport
between the oases, whereas asses and camels
were to be had much cheaper.

It was in the earliest Christian centuries that
Arabian chiefs began to import Bay horses
from Egypt. It seems likely that the begin-
ning of their sea-trade enabled them to do so.
While almost all nations of Europe and Asia
were compelled by the need for heavy war
horses to feed grain and to cross the imported

I40 THE ARAB HORSE

Bay with their native stock, the Arabs tried to
preserve the purity of the desert breed. Even
at this time eighty-five per cent, of high caste
Arabian horses are Bays ; and there is only
one strain of any importance, the Hamdani so
crossed with Russian Tarpans as to be white or
grey. It must be remembered, how^ever, that
the demand of the Indian and European
markets for gre3"s and for heav}^ cross-breds has
led the Arabs to breed extensively from their
low caste strains. Moreover, the neighbouring
regions of Syria and Mesopotamia sell cross-
bred horses as " Arabian " regardless of colour,
and of honesty. The Bay mares of the real
Arabian aristocracy are never sold, and of the
horses very few reach the market as compared
with the numbers of low caste animals forming
the ruck of the trade.

Down to the seventh century a.d. the Arabs
were busy breeding from a very few imported
Bays their meagre supply of horses. So far as
the possession of horses went the}^ would not
have attracted much attention but for the
coming to Arabia of steel weapons.

From prehistoric times the Swedes had been
mining iron, and their trade routes led by
river, to Novgorod, where lived a trading
family the Romanovs, from whom descend

A RESULT OF ISLAM 141

the Emperors of Russia. B}^ river boat and by
pack trail the Swedish iron found its way to
many markets. Towards the seventh centur}^
the iron reached the Arabian oases to be forged
into weapons of Islam. When the Arabian
horsemen v.^ere armed and inspired b}^ Mahomet
they set out to conquer the world in the name
of x-^llah. With the Moslem conquests east-
ward to Delhi, and westward through Spain to
Poictiers, the Bay Horse passed into the com-
merce of mankind, adding to the endurance of
the Asiatic Dun, and the strength of the
European dappled horse that touch of gentle-
ness and fire which quickens a dull animal into
a living spirit.

CHAPTER VI.

HORSEMANSHIP.

I. THE STRAIGHT LEG.

The Seat. Among the Red Indians I have
known, the mounted people were the Blackfeet,
Stonies, Crees, Yakimas, Navajos, Moquis, and
a few tribes in Mexico. So far as I can learn
no Indian was ever taught to ride, or heard of
riding as an accomplishment to be learned.
The commonest equipment was a blanket and
surcingle ; but all the horse apparel used by
white men was eagerly played for in the gam-
bling games. The riding seemed to be natural,
with a perfection of grace one rarely sees among
white men.

The man rode down to his crotch, yet the
forward slant of the thighs gave rest to the
pelvis bones upon the horse's back, while the
lower leg hung vertical and loose.

At halt or walk the whole seat was loose, but
as the pace increased at trot or canter the

I4«

THE STRAIGHT LEG 143

thighs locked with a grip of tremendous power,
rigid save for the play of the skin. From the
waist upward the poise was quite erect, and
supple, with the shoulders shghtly eased.

At a gallop the low^er legs wrapped round the
horse's barrel, and the movem.ent of the man
as seen behind an edge of skyHne was like the
flight of a bird.

For pony racing bo^^s rode instead of men.
Since the boys' legs were not long enough to
wrap round the horse, the thighs were lifted,
nearl}^ horizontal, the lower legs bent sharply
back, and a surcingle was strapped across the
knees. Still the perch was on the animal's
back, and not on the withers, as in the negro
gait so much admired under the name of the
American racing seat.

Was the Red Indian seat straight leg or bent
leg ? With stirrups it was straight leg. For
boy jockeA^s only the racing gait was bent leg.

A reference to the sculptures of Pheideas,
and Praxiteles (fifth century B.C.) shows that
the Greeks rode at slow gaits wdth the same
leg as the Red Indian, but like him bent the
knees very sharply at racing speed.

At first sight these Greek sculptures from
the Parthenon rather remind one of the Red
Indian seat. A httle closer study shows that

144 THE GREEK SEAT

the models chosen by the sculptor were not
horsemen, but carefulty selected athletes.
They were no more horsemen for example, than
the glorious athlete represented at high tension
by Watts in his equestrian statue of Physical
Energy. The back is too much curved for that
of the Red Indian, who earned a living on
horseback from his childhood, and kept a pro-
fessional watch on the horizon rather than an
amateur's nervous observation of the pony's
ears. So one turns away from the misleading
splendours of Greek sculpture, to the pro-
fessional guidance of General Xenophon, a
horseman who knew his business. " Whether
he uses a cloth or rides on the bare back we
would not have him sit as one who drives a
chariot " (bent knees), " but as if he were
standing erect with his legs somewhat astride,
for thus his thighs will cling closer to his horse,
and he will be able to wield his lance and shield
with more force."

This seems to show that for freedom in the
use of weapons the Greek cavalry adopted
straight leg riding before they had saddle or
stirrups. So far as I can learn the Hellenic
seat passed on into Roman practice, but
through the Dark Ages which followed the fall
of Rome there seems to be no guidance as to

THE WAR SADDLE 145

the conduct of horsemen. Horses were not
saddled in England until 631 a.d., and the first
pictures we have which reveal the horseman-
ship of the Middle Ages are the Bayeux
tapestries of the Norman Conquerors. Now for
the first time horses were used b}^ farmers to
till the land. Chain mail had replaced the
scale armour of the Barbarians. A perfectly
straight leg locked the horseman aft against
the cantle, forward against the stirrup of a
weight-distributing saddle.

The War Saddle. During the live centu-
ries in which body armour slowly increased in
weight, and horse armour was added to the
burden, the dappled woodland horse of Northern
Europe was bred from strength to strength to
take the growing load. So we came by our
Destriers, now known as the cart horse breeds,
such as the Percheron, Cleveland Bay, and
Suffolk Punch, and the heav}^ draught such
as the Shire and Clydesdale.

Plate armour is still worn a good deal on the
stage, in pageants and in military tourna-
ments. Men used to this armour tell me that a
horseman who rides less than his weight while
his limbs are free, rides more than his weight
when he is cramped in movement.

Suppose then that a 190 pound man in 90

146 THE WAR SADDLE

pounds of armour makes a dead weight of 280
pounds. Add harness and horse armour, and
the total weight is about 400 pounds. At a
canter this load would certainly need a
draught horse weighing not less than 1,500
pounds. Using the Enghsh saddlery one
would prefer the heaviest draught animal.

Now take a load of 350 pounds in mining
machinery and add 50 pounds for an apparejo
pack equipment. This total dead weight of
400 pounds would make a light cargo for a
1,000 pound mule or horse, who w^ould carry
it without distress a day's march up a range of
mountains.

But note well that the bearing surface of the
equipment on the horse's back is about two
square feet with the English saddle, and nearly
eight square feet for the usual apparel of horses
in heavy packing. As anybody would rather
carr}^ two buckets of water than one, because
the load is halved by being properly dis-
tributed, so will the horse prefer a heavy load
distributed over the whole rigid area of the
ribs to a light load concentrated on a few square
inches. The distribution of the load is of
greater importance than its weight.

In the days of light chain mail a special
saddle was evolved with a deep seat wherein

ARMOURED HORSEMEN 147

the rider was locked against the cantle by the
straight thrust of his legs against box stirrups.
As chain mail gave way to the heavier plate
armour, the saddle bars were more and more
widely padded until they covered every avail-
able inch of the rigid ribs.

Nobody seems to have noticed that with
every kind of armour a chamois or buckskin
lining afforded a rough-grain leather strapping
for the unarmoured seat and thighs, and this
gave a greasy grip against the oiled saddle.

As the use of gunpowder advanced, piece by
piece the armour was put aside, until now
nothing remains but the cuirass ; but the
leather lining retained its usefulness, and
leather breeches are still in very general use
among modern horsemen because they give an
excellent grip on the saddle.

Armour had reached and passed its greatest
weight when the Spaniards conquered the new
world, and the Conquistadores took to Peru
and Mexico their weight-distributing saddle,
buckskin grip, high cantle and box stirrups.
The strays from their horse and cattle stock
bred feral herds which spread into North
America. So stock riders were engaged to
handle the Spanish cattle on Andalusian
ponies. They kept the old war saddle quite

T48 THE STOCK SADDLE

unchanged, with its weight distribution, high
cantle, box stirrups and oiled leather seat.

Next came the American of the North to
learn from Texans their art of handling stock,
and almost throughout the Western States the
Vaquero was replaced by the Cowboy. Both
were abstemious and hard-working men. In
their valour, gentleness, skill and power as
rough-riders they were equals, and hardly sur-
passed. The methods of both in horse-
breaking were altogether vile, and the horse-
mastership almost as bad. But there the
equality ends ; for the cov/boy had endurance
and vitality beyond all comparison in the
modern w^orld, was master where the Vaquero
of Mexico is servant, had the brains and
character, the chivalry and high initiative of a
ruhng race. Without the Red Indian grace
in horsemanship, the American cow^-puncher
takes rank with the knight-at-arms and the
cavalier among the greater horsemen of all
ages. It is well to give him the credit for
experienced and practical good sense in matters
of horsemanship and equipment.

The Ranche hand as Horsemaster. While
a pony sold at ten dollars he was not con-
sidered worth educating. A professional
broncho buster took him in hand for five

HORSE MASTERSHIP 149

dollars, and smashed him. The pony was a
wild ammal, timid but ferocious. The broncho
buster was not at all timid, but he was fero-
cious to an extent which horrified the animal,
and intelhgent to a degree which reduced the
victim to abject obedience. So the horse
surrendered and came into the care of a cow-
puncher. They started out together on the
range, and if they felt fresh of a morning there
would be a bucking match w^hich both of them
rather enjoyed. There was no ill feehng, for
after all a horse is as good a sportsman as any
man. Then came the work of handling
cattle, and the horse enjoyed that sport which
taxed all he had of courage and skill and en-
durance. It made a partnership between two
persons who loved sport, and dealt with cattle
as mere lower animals. There was hearty
good fellowship between horse and man, which
sometimes ripened into a love stronger than
death.

Of horsemastership as understood in civi-
lized life there never was a symptom. When
the puncher, after long months of abstinent
living, happened to ride into a town, he stepped
off his horse, threw the rein to the ground and
left the animal standing in the street while he
got drunk. Afterwards the pony would carry

ISO THE COWBOY

him homeward unless he became dead drunk
and fell off. The pony went to camp anyway,
to get himself unsaddled and join the herd.
Sometimes the puncher didn't even get drunk,
being broke, or in love, but that made no
difference to his meticulous neglect of the
whole practice of horsemastership as explained
in books.

And the ponies prospered, usually fat as
butter because they lived a perfectly natural
hfe.

The Ranche Hand as Horseman. Nobody
taught the budding cowboy any art of riding.
It was merely a habit. When the saddle
taught him to sit well down and ride straight
leg he ceased to tumble off. When he left off
interfering with the rein the horse steered clear
of holes, and there were neither stumbles nor
falls.

From camp gossip he knew that a horse can-
not buck if one keeps his head up. If the
novice did amiss the foreman or some elder
cowhand advised him. The pride of a great
calhng made him a stickler for exquisite form
in riding, and the emulation to beat rival
outfits imposed on each a high standard of
efficiency. The work w^as usually done at a
canter to allow of the lightning swiftness in

RANXHE HORSEMANSHIP 151

turning to head off cattle, wherein the punch-
ing of cows closely resembles polo. Travel on
the other hand was alternate trotting and walk-
ing. The seat at the canter was almost Red
Indian in its grace. The seat at the trot thrust
the buttocks against the cantle, and raked the
body at a slant ver\" stiffly forward, the back
forming a straight hne, and the head thrown
up so that the eyes were level to the horizon.
This trotting seat was ungainly, but, hke the
more graceful Enghsh trotting, was supposed
to ease the horse. Undoubtedly the horse-
manship was fine, especially in the delicate art
of roping, and never more so than in the
occasional use of a pony as pack animal on
journeys. The single-hand diamond hitch in
loading a pack horse is a ver}' fair test of a
man's all-round skill and deftness with the
hands. Other signs of fine horsemanship
might be noted in the suppling of leather work,
the pride in a clean gun, and a youthful delight
in silver ornament of belt and spur and bridle.
In the study of American range horseman-
ship it is well to remember that the experts who
contributed to the practice were not limited to
ranche hands, but included scouts, the military',
forest, fire, game and other types of rangers,
trappers and wolfers , express riders . prospectors ,

152 EQUIPMENT OF HORSEMEN

traders, the Rocky Mountain outlaws, the
sheriffs and marshals and Mounted PoUce.
The equipment is mainly of Spanish origin, and
named with Spanish words.

II. EQUIPMENT OF HORSEMEN.

The healthfulness of a horseman's Ufe has
developed to the fullest extent his natural
passions both in love and war, and it is a notable
fact that the males of nearly all species who
love and defend their mates go very bravely
dressed. So in all ages both military and
civilian horsemen have worn an honest
bravery and gallantry of equipment suited for
loving and fighting, for quests of bold adven-
ture and of conquest. Much that in a clerk or
craftsman would be grotesque is seemly for
mounted men.

The Sweat Pad. In Queensland, Argen-
tino and pack train practice, it is usual to lay
on the horse's back a soft sugar sack, a crash
towel or other fabric not likely to slip or crinkle.
This is called the sweat pad. Its first purpose
is to receive the special marks made by any
turning or chafing of the horse's hair which may
be the beginnings of a gall. Its second purpose
is to take the sweat, hair, scurf, grease and dirt
which would not be noticed on a dark blanket,
but is easily seen and rubbed or w^ashed out of a

THE BLANKET 153

sweat pad. The third purpose is to keep the
blanket perfectly clean for the man's use at
night. With saddle and pack horses the
horseman gets two blankets, a canvas pack
cover and his rain coat, enough material for
a luxurious bed.

The Blanket. Because the numnah makes
poor bedding one prefers a blanket. If one
cuts a hole in a numnah to ease an mcipient
blister on the horse, the edges of the felt are
apt to cause more bhsters. Another advant-
age of a blanket is that it can be folded in a
great many ways to make the saddle fit more
perfectly, or to reheve some part of the back
which shows signs of galhng. The usual size of
blanket folds once lengthways, then once, or a
fold of three crossways. Take care to have a
fold, and not edges of blanket to the front, lest
it ruck under the saddle.

The American Stock Saddle. As the
Mexican wooden tree was never strong enough,
the American has rivetted to the fore ends of
the bars a fork of wrought steel which is sur-
mounted by the horn which takes the strain
in roping. In the twentieth century this arch
has widened to make a larger opening clear of the
withers, and it gives heavy shoulders to the
saddle. To save weight the old square skirts

154 THE STIRRUP

have been trimmed and rounded. The seat
still slopes sharply from front to rear, throwing
the rider's weight against the cantle. The
horse-hair cincha (girth) is replaced by one of
lamp wick, which causes less irritation. The
latego or strap to take the purchase in cinching
up the saddle has been replaced b}^ the English
strap and buckle to save time. There is a
loss, however, in efficiency, because the old
double-rig saddle with two cinchas (the second
for mountain use and for bucking horses) had
two pair of rings, and one was able to sling
a single cmcha forward or aft in case the skin
showed chafing. A centre-fire rig is never so
adaptable for various kinds of use.

Stirrup. The word means mounting rope,
and the ideas of adjusting the rider's balance,
and of locking him against the cantle are only
after- thoughts. In great cold a steel stirrup
would cause dangerous freezing of the feet,
and in great heat the metal is apt to burn them.
Hence, in Mexican practice, the use of a hard-
wood stirrup with a leather floor, and to guard
against acacia thorns this is enclosed in a
leather box called the tapadero. American
practice has dispensed with the leather, and
lately reduced the bent-wood stirrup to a
mere ring, so large in some cases that the foot

THE AUSTRALIAN SADDLE 155

will go through, and thus expose the rider to a
risk of being dragged to death. The men of
to-day are less practical than those of the old
real frontier.

The Australian Stock Saddle. The
Australian stockman has done all that was
possible to enlarge the bearing surface of the
Enghsh saddle. He has also added pads, on
the same principle as those of a lady's saddle,
to retain the knees. The first flight of horse-
men have their saddles made with the leather
inside out, because the inner surface gives a
better grip. By removing the stuffing down
the middle of the panel they make a groove to
take the leg. Thus by ingenious makeshift
they have evolved a practical equipment for
their sound, straight-leg horsemanship. As
horsemen their best stock-riders are certainly
not surprassed by any men of our race, and
when one considers that their walers are
larger and more powerful than the general
stock of North Artierica, Australian rough-
riding must be rated even above the American.
I notice, however, that when they use American
equipment they seem to hke it better than
their ow^n.

The Recado. A careful analysis of the Argen-
tino equipment shows that it is the home-made

1 56 THE BITT

effort of a first-rate horseman to produce
a practical, weight-distributing saddle. The
best and most improved forms, however, lack
the strength of the Mexican rigging, which the
Mexicans themselves reject if they can afford
the North American.

The McClellan Saddle. So far as I
remember this model it made no pretence of
weight-distribution, while it was coloured
black, an excellent device for hiding defects in
leather. The saddle was much praised in the
United States Army, and may account for the
failure of mounted troops to rival the mobiUty
of range horsemen.

The Bitt. Because our own eyes are in-
tended for long sight, we are apt to imagine
that the horse has the same habit of studying
the horizon. Yet when one lives with a range
horse one discovers that he has never seen or
imagined an}* such thing as an horizon. Every-
thing beyond a hundred yards is blurred ; but
if he were in the habit of reading the newspaper
he w^ould hold it about six feet from his eyes,
for within that distance his sight is in better
focus than our own.

His eyes differ from ours in having also a
much wider angle of vision. One might com-
pare our eyes to a brace of guns in the fore

HORSE'S SIGHT 157

barbette of a warship ; and the horse's eyes to
two guns thrown out on sponsons wide of the
ship, so that they can be swung round to cover
the whole horizon. See how the horse's head
is raised so that his own bod}^ does not inter-
cept his backward sight. See how the head
widens to place the e^^es as far apart as possible,
while the skull tapers upwards to give him a
clear view of the sky, and tapers downwards to
give a clear view of the ground. There is
nothing in the whole sphere of possible vision
which the horse cannot see by Hfting and
lowering his head.

The intention of the eyes, then, is not to see
the distances ahead, but to scrutinize at close
range all overhanging branches of the trees, the
minutest details of surrounding bush, and most
especially with microscopic detail everything
underfoot.

Everybody knows that the horse is clever
in avoiding the earth heaps made b}^ burrowing
animals, but I think there is also reason to
believe that he can distinguish by relative
dampness or dryness, and plant growth of the
soil those tunnels and chambers of badgers and
other ground game which do not reach up to
the surface. It is only at full gallop that he
fails to see the surface indications of blind

158 THE SLACK REIN

burrows, and is apt to blunder into them with
disastrous results both for himself and for his
rider.

But what has all this got to do with bitts ?
We must advance the argument to a further
stage.

In the eighteenth century the Evangelist,
Richard Wesley, rode on his preaching tours
some seventy thousand miles on EngUsh high-
ways. Because he could buy them cheap he
always used stumbhng horses. As he rode he
would let the rein drop while he read the
Bible, and presently would find the stumbler
cured. There are some horses, he said, who
will stumble over their own shadows, but
nearly always a slack rein will cure them.
Then one can sell them at a better price,
and so make money to pay the expenses of
travel.

To prevent stumbhng, the range man trains
his horse to slack rein, and in this matter
reverts to an old war practice. The steering
of horses by the knee is most excellent horse-
manship.

Because I lacked the suppleness for steering
by the knee it has been m}^ practice to let the
rein lie on the horse's neck. If any steering is
needed, it is easy to have the two sides of the

VOILE AND REIN 159

rein tied in a half hitch, and, holding the knot
between thumb and finger, to slap the rein on
the side of the neck to show which way one is
going.

Only if the horse needs handling one rides
him on the rein with the utmost possible
gentleness of the hand. But if the bitt comes
into serious use it is better to have one which
will lock on the lower jaw. I find my broken-
bar snaflile pulls up a bolting horse in about five
jumps, but so far only one or two out of many
horses have needed so much severity. The
range horse rarely pulls, and I scarcely re-
member seeing a double rein in use among
range horsemen.

The greatest disadvantage of the rein is that
it serves like a telegraph wire to carry the
vibrations of fear. I prefer to use a voice which
I can control rather than a hand which is apt
to betray me. A low-pitched, quiet voice is
very useful if one's hands are rough ; and the
training of hands is a grace limited to civilized
horsemanship.

There is a certain pattern of headstall which
has the cheek strap coming down to a piece of
brass which is best described as a D or squared
ring. The nose band ends at the front side of
the squared ring. The chin piece ends at the

i6o THE HORSEMAN'S DRESS

after side of the squared ring, and carries the
end of the headrope. From the bottom side
of the squared ring hangs a snap to take the
ring of a snafifle. So one keeps the headstall on
the horse, and snaps the bitt on or off.

The advantage of curb bitts seems to be
mainty in dealing with dangerous, or very
powerful horses, or for an additional delicacy
in steering ; but range men prefer to make
appliances as simple as possible, and rather
dread a complicated gear which may go wrong
in sudden emergencies.

Saddle Wallets. For the general pur-
poses of travel I carry in the wallets a tin of
gall cure, a medicine case containing chloro-
dyne, and tablets of quinine, carbolic acid,
cascara, a sahcylate and permanganate of
potash, with a lancet, forceps, surgical needles
and silk, and a dressing ; a mosquito salve
such as oil of pennyro3^al, and some nettmg ; a
toothbrush in a case, soap in a tobacco pouch,
and a towel ; toilet paper ; a little sealed
bottle of matches for emergencies ; an emer-
gency ration such as cake chocolate ; luncheon ;
something to read ; notebook and pencil.

THE horseman's DRESS.

Protection from Light. In the history
of the North American wilderness there are

THE HORSEMAN'S DRESS i6i

three ver}^ distinct phases. The buckskin
period of heroic adventure ; the period of blue
shirts and overalls marked b}^ chaotic disorder
and the period of yellow khaki and brown
clothing with orderly progress.

The period of blue clothing, however, was
one of perfect law and order in the wildest
parts of Canada ; of comparative disorder in
the North-Western States, and of total chaos
in the South-Western deserts. Even in West-
ern Canada, suicide was common, and terrific
drunks would seize in a moment upon whole
communities ; but the Mounted Pohce, wear-
ing scarlet, kept their discipline so that homi-
cides were almost invariably hanged, and
robbers imprisoned with prompt efficiency.

In the North- Western States, the suicides,
drunks, iynchings, robberies and homicides
were considered as privileges of a free citizen-
ship. There were vestiges of government.

In the South-Western States, the onty law
was that of the revolver, and duelling took the
place of government.

In the three regions the amount of disorder
varied precisely with the intensit}^ of the sun-
light, and lawlessness ceased with the intro-
duction, at the turn of the twentieth century,
of yellow, khaki and brown colours in clothing.

i62 COLOUR AND MORALS

All this may be coincidence. The latitudes
of the South-Western desert in the Northern
hemisphere correspond with those of the South
African veldt in the Southern hemisphere.
Moreover, the population of the American
desert region was about equal to the British
Field Force in South Africa. The American
frontiersmen wore blue, the British soldiers
khaki. Passing from one region to the other,
I was astounded by the contrast between the
blue-clad frontier supporting four hundred
riders by the single industry of robbery-under-
arms, and the khaki-ciad army which in
three-and-a-half 3xars scored only one act of
robbery. The peaceful civil population was
engaged in blood feuds, promiscuous homicide,
and every kind of violent crime ; while the
fighting army won the hearty confidence of the
Boer field force by its chivalrous protection of
the Boer women. In the one case crime was
universal, in the other almost unknown.

And this may still be all coincidence.

The Great War is fought, mainly in
latitude of scant sunlight. The German forces,
clad in blue-grey, have made a practice of
rape, slaughter of women and children, torture
and murder of prisoners, sacking and burning
of cities, bombing of unarmed folk, fighting

CLOTHES AND LIGHT 163

with liquid fire and with poisonous gas.
The khaki clad armies have not as yet
been charged with military crimes. The
blue-clad French army has not fought among
a foreign population, has not in fact been
tempted or found a motive which makes crime
attractive.

It is be3^ond the limits of coincidence that
where large numbers of white men hve an un-
sheltered life and wear a single colour, those
dressed in blue are guilty — except the French
— of violent crime, from which those dressed in
compounds of red and yellow are altogether
free.

To the blue, indigo and violet rays of light a
white man's bod}^ is transparent as so much
water. When he lives outdoors his health is
normal so long as his body is sheltered by
colours which beat back the actinic rays of
light. If he wears blue, white, grey or any
other colour transparent to these ra^'s, they
burn right through him, destroying all germs
of disease, and so allowing the body to develop
tremendous energy — the keynote of frontier
life. After a fev/ years of this, the actinic rays
begin to destroy the tissues of the body, and
nerves break down. The symptoms of neuras-
thenia are :

1 64 DRESS FOR CONCEALMENT

(i) Hysteria, expressed in wanton crime.

(2) Dipsomania, expressed in tremendous

debauches following long spells of
abstinence.

(3) Suicide.

Every range man will remember how these
three forms of nervous disorder have wTecked
the lives of his friends, and how the best men
were taken, not the w^eakhngs. If so much
disaster is avoided by wearing colours which
protect the body from actinic burning, it seems
a reasonable conduct to avoid blue clothing,
and to copy the hues — such as dun, bay, or
brown, which nature provides to guard the
animals.

Protection from Chills. To absorb sweat,
all underwear should be woollen.

Concealment from Enemies. Man is the
only animal whose figure is upright, cutting
the lines of the landscape, and therefore con-
spicuous at a great distance. A single colour
is therefore more easily seen than two blobs
of colour such as a khaki shirt and brown
trousers, or a bay shirt and dun trousers. As
armies paint their guns in broken splashes of
colour, men's uniforms should not be whole
coloured if they are to blend with the landscape

The Hat. The Red Indian calls the white

THE HAT 165

men '' hat-wearers," and takes notice of our
baldness. Savages who wear no hats are never
bald. Why then should we wear hats ? I
think that on the range, if we began early
enough, we should do well to let our hair grow
for the protection of the head and the nape of
the neck from the sun. On the old American
Frontier the pioneers did grow long hair
because a man with no scalplock was not worth
kilHng, and therefore barred from councils of
the Indians.

The primitive hat of the range was a disc of
bison skin, sodden, and the middle, thrust into
a hole in the ground, was filled vvdth stones.
A leather string laced round the edge kept the
brim from flopping. A leather band fitted the
crown to the head.

Later came a Mr. Stetson of Philadelphia,
with a copy of this range hat in beaver-fur felt
soaked in shellac, and so felted that the edges
did not flop. A bootlace round the front of the
hatband passed through an e3'elet above each
ear, and w^as tied with a hard knot behind the
head. This prevented the hat from blowing
away and let in air behind the head to ventilate
the crown. Pinching the crow^n with four
dints for the words North West Mounted
Pohce, branded the cowboy Stetson as a

1 66 THE MEASURE OF WARMTH

soldier's hat which was adopted in South
Africa by most of the mounted Irregulars of the
British Empire, and b}^ the Boy Scouts who
copied the design in felt of rabbit fur.

A rival type of slouch hat which flopped down
all round was used by the ancient Greeks.
Looped on one side it was worn b}^ the
Cavaliers of the British Civil War, looped on
three sides it became the cocked hat of the
eighteenth century, and on two sides, of the
Napoleonic era, surviving in diplomatic uni-
forms and those of naval officers and civic
functionaries. Looped on one side again it was
worn in the American Civil War, and by British
Africanders and Australasians. Softened and
not looped it replaced the stiff-brimmed
Stetson on the American range.

Shirt. It was among the Eskimo that I
learned the philosophy of the shirt. These
very practical folk wear a hooded shirt, close-
fitting at the throat, wrists and waist. For
summer the material is cotton or serge, for
winter the warmest furs ; but in any case it
forms a bag of air warmed by the bod3^ The
shirt then consists of an outer garment of skin
or a textile fabric, and an inner garment of
heated air protecting the vital organs. Opened
at neck and wrists it is the coolest of garments,

SHIRT AND BREECHES 167

closed it is the warmest for any given weight.
In contrast a coat or jacket is open at the
bottom, the front, the neck and the wrists, so
that four times the w^eight is needed to produce
the warmth of a shirt.

Mihtary dress is always a belated copy of
the civil costume in each period.

It is designed by a contractor whose motive
is to obtain the handling of public money.
It is approved by a military official who has
never done a day's labour or a day's fighting
with the weapons of the enhsted man. Hence
the persistence of the Roman tunic which
excels all known garments in cost, weight, the
cramping of the lungs, and the disabHng of the
arms and shoulders v/hose perfect freedom is
needed for wielding weapons and tools. For
working or fighting it has to be rem.oved.

The mounted civilian rides for pleasure in a
coat, the mounted soldier rides for duty in a
tunic, the range horseman rides for a living
and wears a shirt. By the exercise of human
reason the range man protects his vital organs
at a fourth part of the cost, weight, and en-
cumbrance to which the fashions have sub-
jected the sportsmen and the soldiers.

Breeches. The dress of a gentleman has
always been that of the mounted warrior.

i68 PHILOSOPHY OF TROUSERS

When plate armour had to be given up because
it was no longer bullet proof its lining survived
in the form of leather breeches. These
leathers are usually whitewashed, but they are
still worn by the British Household Cavalry,
who are " Gentlemen of the King's guard " ;
by hunting men ; by the mounted servants
who used to be armed retainers and still wear
livery as such ; and in the charro dress of
Mexico. They belong to the tradition of
aristocracy.

The principle of breeches is a close fit for the
inner surface of the knee and thigh, because
with heavy material such as leather or cloth
any wrinkles against the saddle will tear off
one's skin and cause a deal of pain. With bent
leg riding, the outer surface of the thighs had
to be loosened, and this loosening has developed
into monstrous puffed sleeves which expose the
Englishman to ridicule on an irreverent stock-
range.

Trousers. During the French Revolution,
gentlemen in the town dress of the period,
with knee breeches and silk stockings, had
their heads chopped off, and all who valued
their health took to trousers as an expression
of liberal opinions. Trousers to the heels as
distinguished from trousers tucked into boots

TROUSERS AND BOOTS 169

are still worn in Russia to indicate liberal
views. An ultra-royalist is not content with
long boots, but must add rubber overshoes to
make his feet look large.

Away from the influence of English fashions,
the horsemen of the world w^ear trousers ; of
cloth in the Russian Empire and South
Africa, of moleskin in Australasia, of duck in
North America. Any kind of tight clothing
which cramps the limbs is looked upon as an
abomination.

Boots. Long boots were recommended by
Xenophon to the Greeks, low shoes are older
still. Both save the natural strength and
spring of the ankle which is needed in mount-
ing a horse, useful in ridmg him.

Towards the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury the increase of town hfe and improved
paving made boot-tops worn under trousers
appear superfluous in weight, cost and dis-
comfort. Thus came the ankle boot as an
economy and a comfort, but coupled with it
was a lacing to " support " the ankle. To
lace a man's ankle or a woman's waist is to
replace with a merely stiff material the strong
elastic muscles of the natural body, and sap the
necessary health and strength which God has
given.

I70 THE LOGIC OF BOOTS

In all outdoor life long boots ensure dry feet,
and the top should reach the knee-cap to be of
real use in wet ground, or when one kneels
cooking beside the camp lire. The boot legs
guard one against venomous reptiles and
insects, and protect the shin bone which, for
lack of any muscle, is hable to be broken by
many kinds of accident. Lacing either a long
or an ankle boot puts an end to free ventilation
of the foot, making the skin to sweat, to soften,
and in man}'' cases to become offensive.

For horsemen the boot leg is a useful pro-
tection from the chafing of stirrup leathers.

In war the soldier who wears laced boots is
obliged to sleep in them, whereas long boots,
kept properly greased, are so quickly put on
that it is safe to remove them at night. For
infantry, the world's marching record was
made by Colorado miners as volunteers for the
New Mexico campaign. They wore long boots,
as do the Russian and Germanic armies whose
marching is said to be better than that of the
French and British who have laced the ankle.

The boot leg should not be shaped like a
bucket to catch rain as with the United States
Cavalry, or like a stovepipe to cripple a man
afoot as with British horsemen. Without
being tight like the puttee for the production

THE BOOT-LEG 171

of varicocele, the boot leg should fit close. The
ankle should be supple as a stocking, and
" bellowsed " to make sure of suppleness.
The counter should be of the hardest possible
leather, thick, but fining upwards to an edge,
and so made that when the man's foot spreads
the foot of the boot, this fine upper edge,
closes over the ball of the heel to prevent
chafing. For the horseman the heel should be
broad and flat, or high and tapering to prevent
it from getting through the stirrups.

The boot-top of the seventeenth century
came well up the thigh, but v/as turned down
in sum.mer for coolness, showing the brown
inside of the leather. Later on this turned
down top was replaced for smartness by a use-
less detachable cuff. For smartness also, the
English leg was made rigid, disabhng the
wearer. Lately I went to a smart London
maker for boots to suit my need of a supple
ankle, flat heel, and modelled counter. The
sales gentleman made me feel acutely that I
was a cad, the workmen struck, and the pro-
prietor corrected my design, revenging himself
in his bill for the dela}' he caused me. It is in
details such as this that one feels that the
whole art of horsemanship in England has
become a frozen convention, and is dying.

172 SPURS

Spurs. The spur was a prick or goad, from
Roman times down to the thirteenth century.
With plate armour came a row^el on a long
shank. This rowel has shrunk in Europe to a
small sharp weapon which draws blood, but on
the American stock range it has increased in
size to an average of three inches. The larger
the points are the more they can be blunted,
and the less they hurt a horse. On the old
American range an Englishman removed the
rowels from his spurs or adopted the blunt
rowel before he w^as considered fit for human
society.

The rowel should be loose enough to rattle,
so that at night one may go to one's horse in
pasture, and, knowing the sound of his master,
he will not run aw^ay.

A gentle spur is used to encourage and not to
hurt a horse, to bring him to attention, to aid
in fine steering. It may be locked in the
girth so that, holding on by one leg one may lie
behind the horse's neck w^hen under fire, or
pick up a rope from the ground.

Neck Cloth. A kerchief loose round the
neck saves the top of the spine from sunstroke.
It should be of any colour not containing blue,
of the hghtest silk for use as mosquito bar at
night, and twenty-six inches square for use as a

SHAPS 173

sling, bandage, or tourniquet in case of acci-
dent.

Shaps (from Chapareras — protection from
chapparal or thorns of acacia). These are
leggings reaching from waist to heel of heavy
oiled leather. They differ from trousers in
having no seat or fly, but consist of two trunks
each laced or buckled down the outer seam of
the leg, and attached at the waist to a half belt.
The two half belts are tied together in front
with one turn of a leather string, read}^ to
break apart if they get caught on the horn of
the saddle in bucking, and fastened again with
buckle and strap behind.

The woolly or hairy fronted shaps made for
snowy or wet districts are more plentiful among
tenderfeet, showmen and cinema actors than
they ever were upon the modest stock range.
The usual pattern is of plain brown leather,
nearly black with use. It is sometimes fringed,
or ornamented with silver dollars or even
twenty dollar golden pieces down the outer
seam.

The uses of shaps are to give a grip in the
saddle, to shelter the legs from heat, cold, rain,
snow, to serve as armour agamst kicking,
biting, scraping, backfalls, rolling and oth^
diversions of horses, the horns of cattle, rocks,

174 ARMS AND MORALS

thorns, snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, rope
abrasions, grass fires and other Uttle dis-
comforts. Their excellent comfort in the
saddle, and in lieu of blankets at night, would be
enough to justify their use, but without them
one would be hurt or even seriously killed in
course of the day's work. As the}'^ make walk-
ing difficult they are useless for all the purposes
of w^ar.

Arms. On the great ranges Romance is
just as prevalent as sunshine, and Emotion
blows as freely as the wind, but in this stud}'
we have to do with Reason. In cold blood we
are trying to study equipment and methods of
men whose lives depend upon sound, practical,
unbiassed common sense.

When a fellow takes to the range what are
his motives ? If he goes out to hunt for
trouble he will do w^ell to buy a large, well-
balanced, accurately-sighted, blued revolver of
a simple pattern not readily clogged or dam-
aged. He will devote his leisure for man}^
months to practice at all ranges, in all sorts of
weather, in light and darkness, afoot and
mounted until he can fire a double-roll fusillade.
If he gets killed at practice, so much the better
Jor the pubhc. If not he has only to take to
the range and make himself a general nuisance

SELF-RELIANCE 175

until he meets a better shot than himself. 1
never met a man with more than twent3^-
seven notches on his gun-stock, but have
known plenty who took an honest pleasure in
blotting out unnecessary gun-fools.

If a fellow takes to the range, who is not in
search of trouble, but merely intends to earn
an honest living and make a decent home, he is
better without a weapon. When I was a
younger fool than I am now, and took a delight
in revolvers, and bluffed with a gun, it nearly
always got me into trouble. I found that it was
a poor thing to shirk the first obligation of
manhood, which is self-rehance, and sink to
mere dependence on a weapon.

Nobody who can possibly run away is fool
enough to encounter single-handed a homicidal
maniac on the war path, a gang of vigilantes or
desperadoes in a nasty temper, or a hostile
tribe of savages. Against such odds the use of
a weapon in the open is merely suicide. The
first thing needed is an inward pra3^er which
makes one's nerve quite steady. A serene
manner fills the enemy with misgivings that
one has unseen support. To throw one's
weapon to the enemy as a gift is to surprise him
into talking. Once he begins, the more
vociferous he is, the sooner he talks himself out.

1/6 RANGE WEAPONS

A maniac temper will evaporate in talk in
about forty-five minutes, but savages will
sometimes last two hours or more before they
are quite run down. After the first laugh one
may walk away in safety. It is not safe to be
seen in the state of collapse which follows the
overstrain.

The kilUng of five creatures or even men has
always been abhorrent to me. I am not
sure of having murdered anything bigger than
a crow with a broken leg, who had to be knocked
out with a stone as an act of mercy. Not being
a sportsman I may not advise on the use of
weapons for sport.

Weapons. There are three weapons used
only by range horsemen. The lasso, known on
the range as The Rope, consists of a noose
which is spun by a delicate play of the thumb,
thrown to its length, and the strain taken by
saddle and horse as it catches a running beast.
We share this practice with the ancient Peruv-
ians, Sarmatians, Sagartians, and Scythians,
and the modern Tartars of the Asiatic steppe.

The bolas are three egg-shaped weights
connected by as many plaited strings with a
rawhide rope, and thrown like the riata to
catch wild animals. This instrument belongs
to Patagonia and the Argentine pampas.

THE STOCK-WHIP 177

The stockwhip. This is an Australian develop-
ment of the switch. It consists of an 18-inch
wooden tapering handle, a keeper of kangaroo
hide, a lo-foot thong of kangaroo hide in a
tapering 12 or 16 plait, an 18-inch tail of green
hide, and a plaited cracker of sewing cotton.
At a range of twenty feet one flick knocked a
revolver out of my hand and lashed my wrist
to the thigh, making me a disarmed prisoner,
yet causing no more pain than the brush of a
fly's wing. It convinced me as to the useful-
ness of this weapon.

III. THE WAYS OF RANGE HORSEMEN.

On one occasion it was my privilege to
assemble seventy horsemen whose united ex-
perience of the stock-range covered the grass
lands of Asia from Mongolia to Hungary,
Eastern and Southern Africa, all states of
Australasia, Patagonia, the Argentine, the
Llano, and every state and province of the open
pasture in Mexico, the United States and
Canada. Among us we compiled a brief text
defining our ideas of range as distinguished from
civilised horsemanship. The text was printed
as a chapter on '' The Horse " in " The
Frontiersman's Pocket Book " (John Murray),
which I compiled and edited on behalf of the
Legion of Frontiersmen. The present volume

178 PLEASURE HORSEMANSHIP

is merely an application of these range prin-
ciples to the study of horses and horseman-
ship.

The pretension of range horsemen as a class
is to earn a living by the use of cheap working
horses, riding with a weight-distributing equip-
ment and pack transport, while we base our
mobihty upon a herd of remounts.

For pleasure horsemanship our feehng is one
of admiring env}^ No men are better able to
appreciate the incomparable gallantry and elan
of the hunting field, especially in Ireland, the
beautiful spectacles afforded by racing, horse
shows, and tournaments, the grand pageantry
of state functions in European capitals. Even
such prett}^ futilities as Portuguese bull-baiting
and the Haut Ecole of France appeal to us as
horsemen. As to military horsemanship we
have an unbounded admiration for the fine
driving of the Ro3'al Horse Artillery, and the
obstacle riding of the Mexican Regular Cavalry.
On the other hand we are not stricken with awe
at the circus tricks of the Cossack, although we
may be surprised to see a luggage strap used for
girth. Nor are we emulous of the horse-
killing man-endurance rides which used to
be considered good sport by European cavalry.
We can do the little circus tricks ourselves.

HORSEMANSHIP 179

and make our endurance rides without killing
our horses.

Among ourselves we are more critical. The
Mexican ranchero for example wears a revolver
on the belt, a sword on the saddle, a silver
bridle, a suit of leather beautifully laced with
gold or silver, and a most prodigious hat. But
do these fine feathers make him a fine bird ?
Or is the prancing arch-necked horse made
sprightly b}^ pinched shoes and a spade bitt ?

By contrast the Boer is the most slovenly
of horsemen, both in his old slop suit and in his
flapping gait, but in scouting and fighting by
far the best instructor we ever met, and either
as enemy or friend we love his manhood. If
horsemanship is an expression of manhood, we
do not mind the form if we can get the fact.
More manhood goes to the making of one Boer
than to a hundred Mexicans.

Searching for the elements distinctive of
range horsemanship, as contrasted with the
pleasure, the mihtary and the working horse-
manship of civilization, a few essential things
come clearly into view.

Rough Riding. When a range man is asked
if he can ride, as a matter of course he says
" No." But if he really wants to come up
against the champion outlaw horse of the

i8o ROUGH-DRIVING

neighbourhood his denial is not emphatic.
Like a professional singer asked for a song, he
excuses himself, and pleads to a certain dry-
ness in the throat, but, when the money induce-
ments are sufficient, owns up that he thinks he
can ride.

The rough riding of the range is incompar-
able, but as the broncho buster is usually
smashed internally if not killed outright within
three 3'ears of practice, this worst possible
method of breaking a horse is lacking in
practical value.

Rough-Driving. Our rough-drivers are
perhaps the greatest horsemen living, and
their feats are the more glorious because there
are no spectators to give the stimulus of their
applause. A single example may be per-
mitted here :

Constable Harty, of D Division in the Royal
North-West Mounted Pohce, was driving a
four-horse team with a waggonette, his pas-
sengers being the Earl and Countess of Aber-
deen, Viceroy and Vicereine of Canada. Ford-
ing one of the fiendish Alberta rivers the near
wheeler lay dowm and drowned herself, while
the waggonette, half afloat, was being tilted
in danger of capsizal. The teamster swam
under and with his knife attempted to cut the

ROUGH RIDING i8i

dead mare out of harness. Failing in this he
dimbed up, stood astride with bent knees on
the waggon seat, and Hfted the team up the
river bank to safety while the dead mare
dragged under the wheels.

So varied are the styles in horsemanship that
nobody pretends to leadership, and every man
of real experience counts himself a student
rather than a master. Only the other day an
Instructor in Equitation showed me how to
trot a horse straight down a steep slope of
grass, explaining it was so good to supple the
animal's shoulders. Of course I always knew
I was a fool, but never before had I realized the
abysmal depths of my own ignorance.

So far then as an old fool may be permitted,
I venture to submit some gossip on the average
range practice of a day's march in the wilder-
ness. The equipment for horse and man is
already dealt with, except in regard to packing,
a subject which would need a special volume.

In Mounted Police regiments there is a rule
that no constable may travel alone on journeys
exceeding a day's march. It is a good rule,
because a chap may get hurt or be left afoot,
and so perish for lack of a helping hand.

It is easy enough to warn a fellow not to
travel alone in wilderness, but quite impossible

1 82 THE ART OF TRAVEL

to take even one's own advice. Most likely
nobody else is going in that direction, or the
fellow who offers his company would make a
first-rate stranger. But in any case three
horses will travel better than one, and by
changing about one gets a longer march. That
is why one generally travels with ride, pack
and spare mounts. As to the pack, the load
at which an average animal can keep pace
with the mounted man is one hundred-and-
twenty pounds, and with such a cargo should
not be stopped either by swamps or rivers, bush
or mountains. The weight may seem exces-
sive for one man's supplies, but it is always
worth while to carry a ration or two of grain.

An advantage of the three-horse method is
in the encouragement it gives them on the
trail. They are quick to scratch up friendship
among themselves, are never happy except in
company, and running together may take their
man into fellowship.

Buying. So long as the American range
was really wild an unsound horse was palmed
off on the nearest townsman, or shot, or turned
loose as worthless. To-day the proposal to buy
a horse in any western town brings forth
are amazing collection of relics, cripples, colts,
curios, and criminals. The old timers will

THE ART OF BUYING 183

not sell except to horsemen, but when they
offer a horse one may buy blindfold. Except
in deaUng with real frontiersmen one takes a
horse on approval or not at all.

After the main essentials of a pure heart and
four legs, I look for large eyes with no
white showing, and a broad forehead. If a
horse is nervous when approached, he cannot
be relied upon in emergencies. If he is less
than seven years of age he is not fully matured
for w^ork which needs endurance. I prefer a
gelding as being less flighty, less apt to break
back than a mare. I will add dollars to get a
glutton, close quickly with the offer of a horse
in really hard condition, refuse a rough-gaited
trotter as a gift, and cannot be paid to ride a
beast w^ho bucks. As to the ' points ' b}^
which a civilised horseman judges horseflesh,
they are all very nice if one has plenty of
money. The prices have trebled since the turn
of the century.

Making Friends. There are many httle
kindnesses which help to ease the labour of a
horse. He has just as much pride as a man in
smart equipment, has vanity enough to reHsh
a glossy coat, to show off in company, chal-
lenge for admiration with gallant carriage of
his neck and tail, and prove himself much

1 84 SADDLING AND MOUNTING

swifter than his fellows. Pet him a httle and
he will insist upon being fussed with. Give
such dainties as sugar, apples or carrots, and
he will ever be nuzzling at your pockets. His
low, soft love call for greeting of a morning is
well worth while for any man to earn. This is
not given to the man who thinks of a horse as
" it."

The Saddling. After throwing the saddle
on, pass the hands all over the blanket under
the flaps to see there is no rucking. Lift the
blanket into the arch of the saddle to be sure
that no pressure will rest upon the withers.
Shift the saddle aft until quite sure it is free of
the shoulder blades. Girth up, and be sure
the horse is not holding his w^ind. If there is
doubt the off knee in his stomach will make
him relax his lungs.

Mounting. The weapon, be it spear or
rifle, must be wielded with the right arm, so
the rein is held by the left hand. To secure
the rein with the left hand involves mounting
on the near side of the horse. There is an
advantage, however, in departing from uni-
versal practice and training the horse to be
mounted from either side. One may be hurt
and unable to mount on the near side when
there is peril in being left afoot.

PUNISHMENT 185

The First Mile. Walking the first mile
supples the horse and eases the harness. A
horse who holds his wind can then be butted
with the knee in his stomach while the girth
is pulled up to the proper notch for safety.

Punishment. If one thinks of a horse as a
little child one cannot be far wrong. One
does not flog a child. Discipline there must be
with horses as with children, or both grow
worthless, but punishment is the surest possible
sign of the man's incompetence, for the horse
rarely understands the motive, or understand-
ing becomes mutinous. Nine times out of ten
after punishing my horse I have found out that
I had been myself in the wrong by saddling
too far forward and cramping the shoulder-
blades, by some defect in putting on the
blanket, knotting the headrope badl}^, or fail-
ing to watch the farrier's work in shoeing. The
seeming misconduct was due perhaps to agoniz-
ing pain, as in one instance from a hidden
ulcer. So when my horse forgets his manners,
loses his temper, or goes badly, I examine
my conduct to find where I am to blame.

It is an outrage and disastrous to the horse's
morals to strike him in front of the saddle.
The exceptions to that rule are for great
experts only.

1 86 THE PACE THAT SAVES

Paces. Whether the wild horse trots, is not
a subject in which the range horse has given
me any guidance. In handhng stock he
usually goes on grass and prefers to canter. In
travel he usually goes on a road, and dis-
tinctly prefers to trot. From careful watch-
ing I doubt if he likes trotting on grass, as the
hoofs are apt to brush and ma}^ stumble
against the turf. A canter on road or very
hard ground jars him, and is likely to cause
injury to feet and legs.

There are certain artificial gaits most vari-
ously named such as the tripple, rack, pace,
and side pace adopted I think under compul-
sion of lazy horsemen who find them comfort-
able. I have known horses using such gaits to
lag miserably until I persuaded them that
trotting was permitted, after which they
cheered up and gained in speed.

As a slow walk tires both man and horse
much more than the trot or canter, it is easy,
by riding on the rein and using a little persua-
sion, to train an average animal in fast walking.

On the whole then a steady alternation of trot
and walk, making the day's gait about five
miles an hour, is the best economy for journeys.

On marches exceeding fifty-five miles a day
the canter, trot and walk become alternate

SEAT 187

gaits, but journe5^s must then be broken with
days for rest.

Hills. Trotting or running a horse down
hill is a matter for high-powered animals.
With ordinar}^ horses the down slopes must be
reserved for walking, the level and upward
slopes for trotting. The longer and steeper
hills involve walking, but even in them there
are dips and levels which permit one to vary
the pace, nursing the horse through the march
in the least possible number of hours. It is
the flagging, not the brisk day's work, which
causes most fatigue.

Seat. I have seen horses prosper under all
the different and possible methods of decent
horsemen, and do not believe that form makes
any difference. From the Red Indians of the
plains I learned to sit skin tight and upright
at the trot and canter.

Having no voice to boast of, I test my seat
at the various gaits by singing, and if there is
any sign of quivering in the notes, look well to
my grip and balance, lest I jar the horse. His
ears express horror, but his kidneys seem at
peace ; and I have usually fattened thin
horses on my journeys. The skin-tight seat
is that which is practised and recommended
by all range horsemen.

1 88 EASE

Ease. General Sir Robert Baden-Powell
kindly advised me as follows : —

" Letting men sit side-saddle on a tired
horse is the easiest way of giving it a sore back.
At walking gait it is far better for the rider to
dismount and walk. The loup or lobbing
canter is the easiest pace for man and horse.
Except a continuous walk, the round trot is
the most tiring. Frequent cantering and
walking alternately — the rider then going on
foot — is the way to get over the ground in
going a long distance."

The above note is one of high authority as
applying to EngUsh equipment ; but I found
it received with a certain lack of respect by
men using a weight-distributing saddle. We
all sit side-saddle when we please, or more often
ride on one thigh or the other. None of us
have seen sore back except with lean or ex-
hausted horses, worn out saddlery, or in cases
of gross neglect.

The range man does not look upon riding as
a formal parade, but likes to practise circus
tricks, or lounge at ease while he smokes, reads
a book, sings, or plays some musical instru-
ment. I have seen the cowhand wile away
the time by eating a quart of pickles. For my
part, a luncheon from the wallets is part of the

EASE 189

procedure of every pack drive, followed by
a comfortable nap in the saddle. Horses often
coze at a walk, even, I suspect, at the trot, and
a nap for man and horse adds a great deal to
the endurance of both.

As to going afoot, it takes a very steep down
hill track to enforce such a thing upon me.
Rumour says that we will walk half a mile to
get a pony from pasture in order to ride a
hundred yards on an errand. But to be afoot
is for the range horseman the last depth of
calamity and degradation.

My last experience of this was a traverse of
the Canadian Rockies, when my partner and I
rode along the bed and bars of a river until we
were washed away. After that we took to the
bush, a wonderful labyrinth of deadfall, beaver
swamp and snowslides, which we managed to
climb through by following the tracks of some
wapiti. We had to work about twenty hours
a day, and the four days reduced our clothes
and boots to rags, but our luck was better than
that of another party of four men who tried
the same pass that season and were not heard
of afterwards. I will not tempt 3^oung travel-
lers by giving them the name of that pass.

Guidance. While the range man never
walks, but makes the saddle his home, and

I90 SCOUTING

lives at ease, it would be an error to suppose
him unobservant. In wild countries one's life
depends on alertness.

Few range men trust a compass, which may
be lost or broken, is hard to read at night,
difficult to steady at any time, and apt to
point at one's gun. Point the hour hand of
your watch at the sun, and half way to XII is
south (for the northern hemisphere). If the
sky is overcast polish a coin or finger nail and
hold a match or a pin upon it vertically.
The upright match will cast a shadow made by
the unseen sun.

So much for the rule of thumb, but one's
real rehance is on the indications of the land-
scape : the reading of trees and bushes as
shaped by the prevalent wind ; the reading
of rocks or tree trunks for any mosses or
lichens which grow on the side (north for
northern hemisphere) on which the sun does
not shine ; and sundry other signs local to
different regions.

The constant habit of locating north grows
to an instinct. In Petrograd, as a stranger
unable to ask questions or read signs in
Russian, on level alluvial land, in a thick winter
night, without having seen one inch of the
route before, I w^as able to walk by the shortest

TRAIL APPEARANCES 191

cut three and a half miles directly to my
hotel.

If it is vital to know north, it is equally
important to read country ; to see by the
slopes of the ground the direction of streams
and watersheds, and to observe the phenomena
of crossing or converging routes. One learns
in time to forecast the nature of the country
beyond the horizon.

Most important of all is the difficult reading
of tracks and the glints on grass, also the move-
ments of birds and animals which in an arid
country are signs for finding water.

For the rest, it is useful to note the tracks on
the trail showing who passed and when.

It is wise, on meeting a man, to observe his
horse brands, equipment, and all the many
clues which show who and what he is as dis-
tinguished from what he says. It is a gross
breach of taste to ask him a personal question ;
but by knowing all about him one may guage
the value of his trail directions. There is
indeed a need for cautiousness, for not one
man in a hundred gives accurate directions
which can be safely followed. In central
Colorado there used to be a lady rancher
whose copious trail directions had endangered
so many travellers that, for a radius of two

192 SCENT, SIGHT AND SOUND

hundped miles, approaching horsemen were
ahvays warned by the neighbours to be deaf
to her siren voice.

Guides. Much as I hke the savage as a
man, I am cautious in engaging him as guide.
On two occasions I arranged that my guide
was to be shot if he showed up at home without
my written release. Knowing that detail, my
first guide was a success, but the second left
me to die, and went home without my certifi-
cate.

Rather than put one's trust in guides, maps,
trail directions, the compass or any other form
of vanity and vexation, it is wiser to rely on
common sense in scouting. And there the
indications given by one's horse are always
valuable.

Scent. It is doubtful if man or horse is ever
perfectly healthy in civilization. Both suffer
from chronic catarrh, so that the smaller
animal has to carry and use a handkerchief.
Under range conditions the kerchief is more
useful round one's neck, for the nostrils are
dry, and, both in horse and man, the senses
are more active. At half a mile I have smelt
a mountain river — like a wet knife. Once, at
about five miles on a windless day my two
horses snuffed a fresh pool and bolted for it at

SCENT AND SIGHT 193

full gallop despite my frantic protests at their
apparent madness. Considering that we were
lost in sand-rock desert, all three of us owed
our lives to that small distant smell.

The more vivid perfume of cattle I have
caught up easily at four-and-a-half miles on
the wind, but by their conduct I think my
horses had that savour some miles before it
reached my duller senses. I think the scenting
powers of a horse are about ten times as strong
as mine.

Sight. Although short-sighted, I have,
with the aid of eyeglasses, bringing my vision
up to normal, seen Vv^aggon dust at sixteen
miles, a colliery smoke at twentj^-three miles,
and detail of a mountain scarp at seventy
miles in the clear prairie air. So far as I could
get any direct evidence, I never knew a horse
to see anything at much more than a couple
of hundred yards. It seems to be only in
civilization where the smells and sounds are
bewildering, that the horse becomes long-
sighted up to perhaps a mile.

Hearing. The value of a horse's sense of
hearing as compared with that of a man is very
difficult to judge. On a still night I have heard
men's calls from behind double windows at
one and a half miles ; and am not at all sure

194 THE FEAR OF SHADOWS

that an average horse beats that. And yet,
judging b}^ the constant signalhng of a horse's
ears which point at every sound, I think his
sense of hearing catches vibrations above the
register of human ears, and many notes at
close range too faint to impress our senses.

Whatever a horse ma}^ smell, hear or see, he
points out with nice gestures of the ears and
nostrils which are of infinite value for a man to
read and understand. The}^ conve}^ to the prac-
tised eye all sorts of warnings and useful little
hints. It is the training in peace of the habit
of observation which makes the scout for war.

The Fear of Shadows. Once I took a
range horse into a forest w^here there were
flocks of sheep, herded a good deal of nights
by cougars {Felix concolor) who prospered
on their mutton. These cougars used to come
round my camp, liked it, I think, because there
was no gun-smell, and sang most wonderfully,
sitting so near that I could see the gleam of
firehght on their eyes. I hked them, but my
horse would stand astride the fire trembling.
I tried to explain to him that this was vanity,
because he was really far too thin to be edible.
While the cougars had nice fat sheep for the
asking, why should they care for horse bones !
But all the signs he gave of lonehness and fear

HALTS 195

I have seen many a time since then when I
have taken range horses far into the woods.

Halts. If only to give my horses a chance
to stale and, with a gelding, to make sure that
the sheath is clean, I make a short halt after
each two hours. At every halt the genuine
horseman throws his rein to the ground so that
a horse will be tripped if he attempts to break
away. Range horses are trained to stand to a
thrown rein, and if necessary are given a sack
of earth to drag until they learn the wisdom in
obedience. If one has to tie the horse to any-
thing, a supple bush is better than a rigid tree,
lest he pull bacJ^ wdth his whole weight for the
purpose of breaking the rein or rope by which
he has been fastened.

In my short halts I always hold the rein
while the horse gets a bite of grass or a little
Vv^ater. The reason for this is that he may be
suddenly frightened by a snake or a bustling
squirrel, and if he breaks away it might be
awkward to be left afoot : so many men have
been left afoot and perished.

In the greatest heat one may water horses
fully if they stand knee deep in pool or stream ;
but if they drink their fill they go sluggish^
afterwards and need to drink the more. For
a man a sip of cold tea allays thirst better than

196 THE NIGHT HALT

a pint of water, and for neither the horse nor
the rider is it wise to drink to repletion until
after the day's work.

In lone travelling with a pack horse I always
make the day's work in a single drive rather
than waste time unloading and loading the
pack in a day which may prove too brief for the
finding of a camp before dark. The earliest
rising, the most urgent driving are needed to
make sure against a dry camp, or being caught
in bad ground by the fall of night.

The Night Halt. In country where the
grass is eaten for miles surrounding watering
places, or where there is danger from hostile
savages, I always drive on from the evening
water until I can camp in safety on good
pasture. Also one needs a margin of time to
walk the last mile or two, bringing the horses
in cool at the end of the day's work.

Rather than let horses stand shivering in a
wet or cold gale, it is better to march, and keep
travelhng until shelter can be found.

In great heat it is better to travel at night,
but one should be in camp from about 12.30
to 3.30 a.m., the usual sleeping hours.

As to horses in camp, one must throw them
to pasture beyond the camping place, so as to
hear them passing if they attempt to break

FOR HORSE-COMFORT 197

back. It may be necessary to hobble or even
picket one of them as a precaution, or if they
lack water to hobble all who cannot be
picketed. If any animal is to be hobbled or
tied up, the mare comes first.

In forest, where horses are ill at ease,
especially if pasture is scanty, I hang a bell to
the neck of ever}^ horse, and camp at some spot
where the back trail can be fenced, then sleep
against the gate. On some occasions I have
watched all night.

Where flies are bad, it is kindly to bank a fire
with damp herbage which makes a smoke in
which the horses can shelter. It is in forest
and fly country that one has greatest need of a
few feeds of oats in the pack, or even slung to
the saddles.

If a horse is sweating and exhausted, I rub
him down with whiskey or any other form of
alcohol, because its rapid evaporation cools
and refreshes him. A httle alcohol rubbed on
the part heated by the saddle enables one to
feed grain even in short halts.

For cold and exhaustion I give sugar, if
possible in the water. The carbon is fuel
which enters the blood, and so becomes ex-
posed to oxygen in the lungs, where its burning
produces the heat which warms the body.

198 SORES

In hot weather, oatmeal and sugar in water
make a refreshing drink useful to horses as to
working humans.

If a horse is leg-weary and stiff, a rub down
or massage with liniment slacks the strung
tendons.

Sores. I never unsaddle without making a
careful search for water blisters or any sign of
chafing. These found in time can be marked
with axle grease, which registers a black spot
on the sweat pad or the blanket. The blanket
can then be folded m such a way as to relieve
the pressure, or a bit of sacking shaped into a
ring to enclose the threatened spot beneath
or between the foldings of the blanket. The
same kind of padding can be made under the
girth for the relief of girth galls.

Despite the utmost care, horses in soft condi-
tion or when underfed, or wearing harness
which has hardened or warped after long spells
of wet, are liable to sores. I have cured most
terrible cases by a daily practice of riding the
patient to sweating heat, then suddenly
unsaddUng, and lashing on cold salt water.
The various copper ointments known as gall
cures are worth their weight in gold so long as
one works the horse, but have the defect of
forming a hard scab which breaks awav before

CRACKED HEELS 199

the wound is ready. One abscess caused by
a warped saddle tree defeated me altogether
and put the animal out of action for four
months. As to sores in the starvation of the
northern forest, the story would be too terrible
to tell.

Cracked Heels. In cold weather, if we
do not dry our hands before a fire after we
have washed them, we are liable to chapped
skin. Wet followed by cold, especially from
muddy ground, causes cracked heels. The
prevention by thorough drying after every
wetting may be impossible and this form of
lameness is difficult to cure. A washing with
soft soap, and a thorough drying, followed by
packing in grease is the best range practice I
know of, but does not always succeed.

Feeding. In making the feed as varied as
possible I have fallen into error more than
once. A bran mash, for example, is best when
there is no march on the following day. I
made a horse dangerously ill with scouring by
turning him into an abandoned field of green
and standing maize. On another occasion,
turning hot, wet, exhausted horses into a shed
for shelter from a storm, I found out too late
that a sack of oats had been spilt upon the
floor. The result was colic.

200 FEEDING

Feeding horses to perfection needs a touch
of artistry. vSmall feeds of grain, for instance,
by making the animal ravenous for more,
enable one to double his allowance without
stalling him. Salt, sugar, carrots, apples, help
to keep up his interest in life, as rewards to be
earned, and tokens that one really cares for him.
If a horse is scoured a dose of salt water will help
him. For coHc one has to lead him about while
the pain lasts, and above all things prevent
him from rolling, which is sometimes fatal.

It is long now since I had to dispense with a
fire for fear of advertising my camp to hostile
savages, and the old glorious range in North
America ^^^ woefully shrinking before the
advance of settlement. The rancher who made
the traveller welcome as a guest is replaced by
a surly farmer who takes money for rental of
his barn-yard. The range horseman who
used to own the town when he rolled in fromx
the plains is now considered, as Europe views
the gypsy, with suspicion.

One trait of the range rider recalls the past.
No man lays a hand on our horses unless he
wants a fight. It is a rule that the horseman
tends his own stock so long as he is able to
stand. He must be ver}^ ill or badly hurt
before he surrenders that.

RECORDS 20I

At range stables where there is a dust bath
one unsaddles on arrival to let the horses roll.
At town stables where there is no dust bath one
slacks the girths, removes the bitts, gives half
a drink, and some hay. An hour later when
the rider is fed he comes back to cool horses
who can be unsaddled without fear of any
blisters which might turn into sores. Then
comes full watering, and grain. While the
horse is busy eating, pick out his feet, dry
out wet heels, scrape off mud, and wisp down.
After the stall is cleaned, and bedded, and the
manger filled with hay for the night, the horse-
man is off duty ; but a range m_an prefers to
sleep in the barn loft in order to save his
horses in the event of fire, and be up early with
the morning grain.

IV. RECORDS.

Writing without notes or books, it is difficult
to recall the records of long distance riding
which form the best tests of endurance, and so
give one a standard of value for man, equip-
ment and horse. Driven to rely on memory I
note first that the historic records are vague,
giving but scanty data. Everybody knows
for example that Bucephalus (Ox-head) the
Thessalian charger of Alexander the Great was
a horse of notable endurance, but the question

202 RECORDS IN CIVILIZATION

is — what could he do on continuous journeys ?
Charles XII. of Sweden rode in a hurr}^ from
Constantinople to Dantzic, but what was the
time for that distance, and was it done b}^ one
horse or by reliefs ? Dick King a despatch
rider, made good time on one horse from Port
Elizabeth to Port Natal, but I do not remember
his gait for the six hundred miles. Somebody
who was not Dick Turpin, but possibly
another rogue of the same name, made a single
march from London to York on a mare called
Black Bess, but that was a horse-kiUing
feat, as much disqualified b}^ decent men as
the Inter-Army horse-kiUing rides which dis-
gusted the horsemen of Europe not man}^
years ago.

In the nineties Lieutenant Peschkov, a
Cossack officer, rode a Dun pony from Vladi-
vostock to Petrograd. This at an}^ decent gait
is a world record for a road ride, on a route with
hotels at every stage. But legend makes the
gait thirty-eight miles a da}^ for six thousand
miles, and on that I have ni}^ doubts. Work-
ing across country I found that mxy best horse
did one thousand three hundred and seventy
miles at twenty-one miles a da}^ ; and the next
best one thousand and forty at the same pace ;
but on the whole trip, made with four successive

ONE DAY RIDES 203

mounts, the three thousand six hundred miles
took two hundred days. This works out at
the very poor average of eighteen miles a day
But for delays in buying horses the average
would have been twenty-one miles, and I
doubt if any horse outside of fairy tales can
do much more on a six thousand mile journey.

Apart from the vagueness and doubtfulness
of the stories, the standard which they set up
for comparison seems to be very low as com-
pared with the annals of range horsemanship.
The following records were made for the most
part with half or three-quarter bred range
raised horses, and all with weight-distributing
saddles.

One Day Rides. A friend of mine,
an Australian stockman, v/ith a weight-
distributing saddle, and leading a pack
animal, crossed the state of Victoria from the
Murray to Melbourne, one hundred and forty-
three miles by the route taken, covered in
twenty-six hours.

A constable of the Royal North-West
Mounted Police of Canada with a forty-two
pound stock-saddle on a buckskin gelding,
rode from Regina to Wood Mountain Post, one
hundred and thirty-two miles by sunlight, and
the horse bucked him oif at the finish.

204 RECORDS ON THE RANGE

On enquiry I found that the trail between
Forts Macleod and Calgary, Alberta, one
hundred and eight miles, had been ridden in a
day b}^ most of the Mounted Police and cow-
boys who happened to go that way.

Six-Day Rides. Kit Carson carried mili-
tar}^ despatches from Omaha to Los Angeles
and back (circa 1841), a lone ride through
hostile tribes of four thousand four hundred
miles. When he was resting at Los Angeles
he joined a party of Mexican gentlemen each
taking one saddle horse. The six men rode
along the California coast from Los Angeles to
San Francisco, six hundred miles in six days.
Only two of the party changed horses.

Among the Robbers' Roost, and affiliated
gangs of Rock}^ Mountain outlaws, I found that
it was their custom to plant little bunches of
ponies here and there in pasture. When they
happened to be in a hurry the}" would travel
from pasture to pasture, and at each of these
take a fresh mount. Six hundred miles in six
days was not unusual they told me, and, from
what the sheriffs said who tried to catch them,
I think that the robbers spoke in moderation.
They were much the most truthful men I have
met on the stock range.

Marches W^ithout Remounts. In the

LONG MARCHES 205

North-West Mounted Police we reckoned a
day's march at fort3^-t\vo miles for saddle
horses. On Colonel Irvine's three hundred
mile march to prevent the North-West Rebel-
lion of 1885 we carried all fuel, forage and
suppHes in sleighs so that the speed was re-
duced to that of a convoy, but it worked out
at forty-two miles average, ending with sixty-
two miles on the last day.

A tw^o thousand two hundred mile Viceregal
tour is said to have worked out at fort}' miles a
day ; but one patrol I rode in of seven hundred
miles only gave thirty-four miles a day for
average, even with occasional change of horses.
It was bad, shocking bad, but has it been
equalled by any mounted troops of Europe ?

Marches Vv^ith Remounts, On the cattle
industry a Roundup Outfit is commanded by
the owner or by his foreman. Under him
are three separate departments : (i) The cook,
who drives a waggon which carries the men's
bedding and is fitted up as a kitchen. The
waggon forms a moving base to the expedition,
and travels about ten miles a da}^ (2) The
horse wrangler is a herder in charge of the herd
of ponies used as remounts. (3) The w^orking
force of cowboys.

Each rider has his own string of ponies

2o6 MOBILITY OF STOCKMEN

usually seven in number running with the
herd .

Routine. Long before dawn the wrangler
drives the herd home to the camp, where two
men hold ropes outward from the waggon,
making a rough enclosure in which the ponies
are handled. Each rider selects from his own
string the pony he needs for the morning's
work. At noon the herd is run in and he picks
out his afternoon horse. At supper time the
herd is run in and he selects his horse for night
duty.

The rider uses his first three horses and his
second three horses on alternate days, keeping
the seventh in reserve. These animals are not
fed with grain, but live entirely on the range
grass. B}^ changing his mount six times in
each two days he is able to ride on grass-fed
ponies at an average rate of fift}'^ miles a day
for a period of eight months. The distance
ridden in this season is 1 1,150 miles.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PLEASURE HORSE.

I. THE BENT LEG.

The human mind may be hkened unto a
stable with horses all in a row. That strong
team Tradition and Custom are overw^orked.
Bias and Prejudice have plenty to do. Passion
and Vice get an occasional airing, and Vanity
has daily exercise. But Reason is kept in his
stall, the master's own mount, stale for want
of use. He is not popular w^ith the other
horses, he is not easily ridden, is heavy to
handle, and goes painfully lame from having
been kicked too much.

Let us try him :

The Bent Leg. So far we have traced the
straight leg method of riding from savage life
through the Greek practice and that of the
Ages of Armour. We have seen the European
war seat and war saddle adapt themselves to
range practice in wild countries, and so become
the basis of outdoor horsemastership.

ao;

2o8 ORIENTAL HORSEMEN

In sharp contrast to the straight leg and
weight distributing saddle which has always
attended the use of the European horse, is the
universal practice associated in all ages with
the Ba}^ horse of Africa, and the Dun horse of
Asia. M}^ bits and scraps of reading present
a general picture of the Oriental horseman as
highly perched, with a bent leg and a long
reach, preferring light scale or chain mail to
heavy armour, prone to a swift onset, a brisk
melee, and speedy disengagement since the
da^rs of the Parthian cavalry down to the
Moslem conquests, and on to the chivalr}^ of
India, the cossacks of Russia, and the hapless
Dervishes of the Soudan. From Mongolia to
Morocco across the whole breadth of the
Oriental World this high perch, bent leg and
long reach seem to be universal in all ages.

In arid countries the ass and the camel were
ridden long before the pony, and it seems quite
possible that their pad saddles were trans-
ferred to the horse without much alteration.
My first impression of this was during a donkey
race in Portugal. Our mounts stood well over
fifteen hands, magnificent animals. The
saddle was a broad flat pad hke that of women
athletes in a circus, and, gripping its sides with
one's calves, the seat was fairly secure.

EASTERN STOCK 209

Anyway a galloping ass is a deal better ride
than a bullock. I was winning the race when
m}^ moke, being of the Moslem .faith, knelt
down to say his prayers, and I went on alone.

From watching Moors, Cossacks, Jockeys
and other bent-leg horsemen I have an im-
pression that a similar halt of the steed for a
moments' prayer would have the same effect ;
but that the Spanish Picador, meanest of the
straight-leg riders, would manage to sta}^ in the
saddle.

In the days of armour the gentleman-at-
arms wore doublet and trunk hose, riding
light horses for hunting, hawking, or even
travel. Ladies rode also, and there was
cantering where the ground permitted. But
I cannot recall an}^ mention of jumping in
England until the time of the Civil War. Prince
Rupert escaped a pursuit of heavy cavalry
by jumping. A fugitive cavalier pursued by
Roundheads, leapt from Wenlock Edge.

B}^ this time a few Barbs, and Eastern
horses alleged to be Arabian, had added a
new strain to the English stock. Oliver
Cromwell, for instance, a notable breeder
before he went into pohtics, had an imported
sire. The thoroughbred, who is 7/8 Arabian
by blood, made jumping possible.

2IO FOX HUNTING

In the days of Queen Elizabeth England
was still a sheep range, producing wool as the
staple industry, and supporting five miUion
people. Sufficient grain was raised for feeding
the small population ; and to keep the sheep
off their crops the people had invented a fence
peculiar to Britain. This fence consisted of an
earthwork of ridge and ditch called a hedge-
row. The ridge carries, and the ditch waters,
a row of bushes, trimmed yearly to make it
strong and dense, and known as a hedge.
Unlike rigid fences the hedge may be safely
jumped by horses who have the courage.

As the population increased the swamps were
drained and forests cleared for farming and,
outside the sheep down, the whole country was
meshed with an intricate small skein of
hedges.

At a period when guns were very short of
range, and poison was still dear, the foxes
became abundant and destructive, so that a
special hound had to be bred able to run them
down. This was a matter of business until
foxes made it a sport, and from about 1740
survived as sportsmen rather than be extinct as
merely vermin. There was no detriment to
the land from hunting on winter fallows ; and,
but for the fox, our people would have been

LEADERSHIP 211

driven to invent some other way of breaking
their necks to let off surplus energy.

For rich people there is no cleaner or healthier
form of pleasure, no better training in nerve
and all that makes a man.

The training for leadership among the
Germans is a matter of beer and fencing,
among the Americans of office work, among the
British of field sports. Which method is best
to save leaders of men from corruption, and
decadence ? The mettle of our pastures gives
cool judgment in administration, leadership in
affairs, and in times of peril a sterling worth of
manhood proof against disaster.

Far be it from me then to deride the British
horsemanship. Any horseman who can tole-
rate so slippery and unreliable a contraption as
the Enghsh saddle is greatly to be envied and
admired.

Always a timid horseman but emulous, I
made tw^o attempts to ride the damned thing,
and came to grief without the least delay. The
third try was quite a success, the occasion
being a cavalry charge into a converging fire at
point-blank range. I was much too scared to
fall oft', and so came to the conclusion that any
fool could ride anything if his attention were
sufficiently distracted by a hail of bullets.

212 THE PLEASURE SADDLE

After that I went to the best horseman I could
find in England and asked him to explain the
merits of his saddle. " The English saddle,"
said Lord Lonsdale, " is made for falling off.
You see it throws the rider clear of a falling
horse."

This really explained the English saddle in
terms of sport, which any fellow ought to
understand. So I tried the saddle again, and
found that one could ride straight leg at any
gait quite easily by merely dispensing with the
stirrups. It was almost as good as bareback.
But with the leathers shortened, riding bent-
leg, one could actually use the stirrups. Since
then I have put my stock saddles away, and
taken recruit lessons in the riding school. A
little pow^dered resin on the leather straps of
one's breeches makes them look quite smart
and deceives the Instructor in Equitation.
Still, I am a novice, trying in vain to rise at
the trot with that poke forward of the head
which so beautifully imitates the movement of
a hen as she enquires for worms.

It is only by practical testing that I learned
the qualities of the Enghsh saddle, and so
brought it into comparison wuth that of the
stock range. It is not easy to free one's mind
from bias, to reaUse that perfectly sane men

THE TWO SADDLES 213

have reasonable methods other than one's own,
and that the mere fact that one's critic is an
obnoxious bounder does not dispose of all his
arguments. I venture to claim that the range
horseman has intelligence equal to that which
guides British horsemanship, and added to that
the deeper intimacy of one who allows no hired
hand to touch his horses, who cares for them as
a hireling never can, and whose life depends
upon his competence. It is from the range
point of view that I venture now into the field
of criticism.

To teach a novice to ride with the stock
saddle I lead him on to talk about his girl. By
the time he forgets that he is exaggerating on
horseback he rides quite decently.

To teach a novice to ride with the English
saddle is a matter of long and severe training.
In the end he rides in spite of a saddle, which is
by no means an aid to horsemanship.

The difference between straight leg and bent
leg riding is not of the slightest consequence
to the horse. To ride the stock saddle with
comfort the leg must be straight. To ride the
Enghsh saddle safely the leg must be bent.
The total difference then is one between two
saddles, the English model being excellent for
sport, but otherwise quite useless ; while the

214 THE INDOOR HORSE

stock saddle, which cannot possibly be used
for flat racing or jumping, is of value to a man
earning a living on horseback.

II. THE INDOOR HORSE.

His House. Because we love horses we
have been seeking guidance from nature as to
their management. " Nature " is only a sort
of nickname for God, who bids us love our
horse neighbours as all other neighbours. If
our religion is not a sham it consists of love,
and these our neighbours need a love which
must be filled with live intelligence.

I doubt if God believes in the church I belong
to, but I am sure He approves of our poor
attempts to do our loving duty as horsemasters,
as soldiers, or in any trade to which we have
been called. This is the spirit in which I dare
to adventure upon criticism, approaching
civilized horsemastership from the singular
point of view of the range horseman.

I do not presume to criticise the manage-
ment of thoroughbreds, but wish to speak
merety for common horses with whom I may
claim friendship.

In buying a range-bred horse one takes the
legs and feet almost for granted, but in
civilization one deals with doubt and misgiving
because the animal for sale is presumably a

FOOD 215

wrong'un. The one thing that amazes the
range man is the astounding number of ail-
ments contracted by civihzed horses on only-
four legs in a limited span of years. It is a
strong presumption that there must be some-
thing in civilized horsemastership to account
for the general unsoundness of the stock, the
lack of endurance, the total failure in mobihty.

The vital needs without which a horse will
perish are water and grass. It is considered
that the water flowing from limestone rocks,
which carries carbonate of lime, is best for
building bone. It seems quite possible that
other mineral bearing waters have their use-
fulness in supplying elements needed for
blood, muscle, or nerves.

The natural food of a horse is sun-cured tuft
grass growing in arid regions, but a perfect
imitation is the usual mixed feed of oats, chaff
and bran, with the common equivalents used
for varying diet. Next in value is the upland
pasture of damp chmates, worst is the meadow
grass. The conditioning of horses in any green
pasturage depends upon grain, but one should
not in any feeding neglect rock salt.

If sunshine and fresh air were vital needs pit
ponies would not live. Sun and air are no more
necessities to a grown horse than eyesight is to

2i6 THE STABLE

a man. So one needs to examine carefully and
to reason closely as to the actual value even
of air and sunshine.

The range is dr}^ parched, and above all
things hard ; and from the hardest ground
come the breeds of especial value by reason of
sound hmbs and steel-like hoofs. The hard-
ness of ground is due to the fierce light and heat
of desert climates.

Again it is known that sunHght kills the
germs of nearly all diseases, provided the air
can reach them.

Unless they are robbed of their coats horses
are almost indifferent to the greatest known
extremes of dry heat and dry cold ; yet, if
exposed to wind the}-^ lose weight rapidly, and
are intensely susceptible to draughts. The
horse's natural shelter is a wind break.

To meet all these conditions the stable in
rainy chmates must have a roof to keep the
standings dry, and yet should be roofed with
glass to let in sufficient light to kill all germs of
disease.

Yet any stable, warmed b}^ the heat of
horses, however carefully cleaned, is fouled by
their dung and water, and so becomes a forcing
house to breed disease unless one removes the
walls. There should be no walls, but the

PAVED FLOOR 217

stable should be built like a Japanese house
with transparent and portable screens, close
fitting against draughts; which can be set up
on two windward sides with every shift of the
weather. By no other means can the diseases
be swept away w^hich make the stabled horse
a byword for unsoundness.

If regions of hardest ground produce the
best legs and hoofs, it does not follow^ that
stables ought to be paved. Natural ground
however hard is springy, but pavement is dead
hard and slippery at that. The English
horseman explains " It haint the 'unting as
'urts the 'orses 'oofs, but the 'ammer, 'ammer,
'ammer, on the 'ard 'igh road." All who have
seen the strains and tensions of cowpunching
and noted the perfect soundness of cow ponies
will agree that it haint the 'unting. But an}^-
body who watches English horsemen with
pleasure horses has noted the exceeding care
with which they are ridden on the dirt rather
than on the crown of a road, on the grass by the
road rather than on the highways, and on any
open route across country, rather than on the
roadside. They get very much less hard going
than the average range horse. The draught
horse may suffer from the highway, but
certainly not the hunter who is equally unsound.

21 8 THE STABLE FLOOR

Yet both have standings as a rule on a paved
floor for not less than eighteen hours out of the
average twent3^-four.

A notable difference between the sound
outdoor horse and the unsound indoor horse is
in this matter of standing, for the range animal
visits but does not hve in a stable, while the
unsound animal spends three fourths of his
time on a hard pavement. I have noticed also
in travel that when I brought weary horses to
a stable with a w^ooden floor their pasterns
always swelled over night. On a metalled or
paved floor the swelling was almost as bad as
on wood, whereas on earthern standings there
was never the slightest trace of inflammation.

In recent handling of some sixty army
horses I took them from pasture to horse lines
without noting much unsoundness on either
ground. Unsoundness developed when I took
them to paved stalls, but was much diminished
when I moved them to earth-floored sheds. I
find too that notable horsemasters have
removed the pavements from their stables in
favour of clean, dry, well-drained earth stand-
ings ; or, failing that, lay bedding a foot deep.

But my experiment has gone further. My
horses have not only earth standings, but
sheds so built that they are walled only to

WORK 219

windward. The gain in general health is
beyond all question. Both in theory and in
practice I have reason to believe that earth-
floored sheds walled to windward only will cure
the chronic unsoundness of stabled horses,
provided that the strongest light possible is
brought to bear for the kilhng out of disease
germs. On the same principle which imports
cats to look after our rats and mice, one might
introduce some benevolent microbe whose duty
it would be to eat disease germs in a stable
floor.

III. THE INDOOR HORSE.

His Work. So far analysis has shown two
types of equipment : the weight-distributing
saddle for war work, ridden straight-leg by
soldiers, stockmen and others earning a living ;
and the light slippery saddle for running and
jumping adapted to the bent-leg riding of
pleasure horses for sport.

The saddle is but one of several factors in
horsemanship, so we must isolate these factors
one by one before we can reach conclusions
from our study.

For the purpose of isolating the several
factors in horsemanship, The Legion of Fron-
tiersmen managed to organize a series of tests
on English highways. In each test two groups

220 INDOOR HORSES AT WORK

of three or four horsemen apiece, working in
rivalry, rode fifty to fift3^-five miles on a
Saturday, then back again on the Sunday.
Afterwards a veterinary surgeon reported on
the condition of the horses.

The first test was made under conditions of
unusual heat, and after one serious case of heat
prostration the homeward run had to be made
at night. The riders were veterans to the age
of seventy- two, with an average of two old
wounds, and more than two war decorations
per man. Our cab and 'bus horses finished
like the riders, in good time and condition, but
did not equal the usual gait of the annual
Stock Exchange competition of men afoot on
the same London and Brighton road.

Saddles. We never had the rival types of
saddles tested by teams, but each man rode
his own, and for short marches like ours the
difference was slight. The men with stock
saddles were less weary, and their horses
fresher, but not to any notable degree.

Seat. In one test a competitor failed us,
and was replaced by a sailor who had not
ridden before. At first he butted his horse
backwards into shops, so we had to change
about for ten miles until we found the best
mount for his peculiar needs. After that there

HORSES AT WORK 221

remained one hundred miles, and his horse got
the best report. A sailor has balance, and
given that mere form is not important.

Type of Horse. We hired 'bus and cab
horses because the}^ were cheap ; but in one of
the competitions were opposed by a group 01
horsemen riding their private hunters. Our
working horses finished fresh and on time, but
the pleasure horses broke dowii and had to
come home by train.

I might enter into the details of a dozen
other exercises which tested the indoor horse
and the English equipment, but all may be
summed up in a single broad generalization.
The pleasure horse and his equipment are so
highly speciahzed for runnmg and jumping
that they have ceased to possess the slightest
value for civil and military working horse-
manship.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SOLDIER HORSE,

A habit of enlisting for campaigns has
given me some desultory training with British
irregular and auxiliary forces — Horse, Foot
and Guns. Without the slightest pretensions
as a soldier I have enjo3^ed, on active service,
watching the military practice in horsemaster-
ship in its amusing contrasts with the methods
of frontier life.

It seems to me that the British and especially
the Irish horse-breeding, and the national
amusements for mounted men — hawking, stag-
hunting, fox-hunting, steeplechases, flat races,
and polo— for example, have given to British
mounted troops the basis of a horsemastership
which has been gratefull}^ copied by civilized
armies and disabled the mobility of all aUke.
The cult of the pleasure horse has ousted
the old sober methods of war horsemanship.
This may in part account for the chasing of the
Spaniards and Portuguese by their lively
American colonists, of the British by the

REGULAR CAVALRY 223

Argentinos, Americans and Afghans, of the
French by the Mexicans, of the Germans b}'-
the Damaras, of the ItaHans by the peoples of
Erythrea and Cyrenaica, and of the Russians
by the Japanese. Three hundred thousand
of my countrymen spent three-and-a-half
years in persuading fifty-five thousand Boers
to accept full compensation for their losses.
This episode filled with unholy joy the nations
which had not latel}^ been whipped by mere
outsiders because they had prudently abstained
from war. One does not recall, however, so
very many recent campaigns in which bar-
baric horsemanship has been put to shame and
flight by any regular cavalry.

So, if my adventure in uncouth criticism
bears incidentally upon British methods, its
motive is merely to discover why civilized
mounted troops are not quite a success in
deahng with irregulars of the open range. If
Army methods are really the best, the}' should
have an unbroken chronicle of victory. II
range methods are really the best, the military
art of horsemanship needs thinking over by
every civilized horseman w^ho loves his country

If the defeat of civilized armies is not ex-
plained by their horsemastership, it is not less
in need of explanation.

224 ARMIES

I hold it as an article of faith that the
British Army is not excelled, man for man, by
any in Europe, but does greatly surpass all
others in its power of adapting itself to new
conditions, maintaining its powers at great
distances from its base, and perfecting in its
troops the highest ideals of manhood. And
yet in all armies men are taught to obey before
they think, and, thought being secondary to
disciphne, is rather apt to lag. The disciphne
which creates a mob into a weapon tends to
disable men in army trades other than that of
fighting, so that the departmental or thinking
departments are less efficient than the execu-
tive. Character is trained to a supreme degree,
and the mihtary courts are cleaner, quicker and
more direct than the civil in doing justice.
Yet intellect takes its chance of surviving
disciphne. In a world which is managed by
men too old to be receptive of new thought,
the person with original ideas is looked upon as
a public enemy, and the Army is always
certain he must be an awful bounder. The
aeroplane, for example, was more important
as a military idea than anything since the
invention of gunpowder, but the inventors and
manufacturers in several countries went bank-
rupt while they waited in vain for orders from

THE HUNTING-SEAT 225

the armies. The German War Office was the
first to come to their rescue.

It IS only by such reasoning as this that one
understands why mounted soldiers are given
breeches with buckskin straps to help them to
grip a saddle specialty treated with beeswax to
make it slippery. Constructive thought would
remove the strapping to make the breeches
slippery as the saddle ; or, if a grip is wanted
would retain the strapping, and roughen the
saddle seat and panels by using the leather in-
side out, or replacing the surface with buck-
skin.

Early in the eighteenth centur}^ British
racing and fox-hunting became fully organized
sports which needed bent-leg riding and a
slippery, light saddle. The British Army was
not officered by professional soldiers, but by
sportsmen who bought commissions. The
training of officers was in the hunting field, and
the old straight leg, weight-distributing war
saddle gave place to something really up-to-
date. This was the military saddle, too
cumbersome for running or jumping, too small
for weight-distribution, and therefore useless
either for sport or war.

Meanwhile the Riding Masters who were
professional soldiers, and ceased to learn when

226 HORSEMANSHIP FOR WAR

they began to teach, wrought with fanatical
zeal to compel straight-leg riding on a bent-
leg saddle, and so got a magnificent tally of
ruptures and sore tails. In 1805 Prussian
instructors were brought to England to enforce
the straight-leg seat on the bent-leg saddle. It
is only in the twentieth century that this
wonderful kidney-crusher military seat has
been mercifully abandoned. The army has
adopted the hunting seat, and one reads the
last word in Major Birch's book on " Modern
Riding."

" The rough-riders from the Royal Artillery
Riding Establishment, using the hunting seat,
sat perfectly without either reins or stirrups
over a five-foot six-inch rail — one horse jump-
ing six feet — besides other formidable obstacles,
which proves that no better seat could be
wanted for practical work."

The practical work, one notes, for a
civihzed Army, is jumping !

What is the horse to be used for ? Pleasure ?

By all means let the high-strung, highly-fed,
massaged, hospital-bred, courageous, and
powerful but exceedingly delicate blooded horse
be used for pleasure, and for pleasure only.
One does not use a racing yacht for cruising,
because she is too fragile, or for cargo because

MOBILITY 227

she has no stowage. Use the blooded horse for
running and jumping, with a day's rest follow-
ing each day's sport. It does not matter if the
rider's weight is concentrated on the space of a
postage stamp. It only matters that the
equipment be light for high speed, and slippery
to throw the rider in case he is not wanted on
the saddle.

What is the horse to be used for ? War ?
Then if we love our country let us forget
tradition, take a rest from filling up returns,
and set ourselves to the exercise of human
reason until we find out what we really want.
Why do we use the horse in war ? To carry
men, to haul guns, and draw suppHes. Why
do we use the horse for transport ? To
quicken the pace, and ease the labour of men.
Why do we need this mobility ? In order to
concentrate troops at distant points where they
were not expected. Mobihty is not jumping
on Germans, but the long, swift march that
covers and supplies the advance or the retreat
which shall decide the issue. Mobility ma}^
include the getting and rendering of vital
news, the sudden seizure of a strong position »
or even the special privilege and glory of shock
action.

Those of us who indulged ourselves in the

228 HORSEMANSHIP FOR WAR

habit of thinking, knew many 3^ears ago that
mechanical transport would carry and haul
men and supplies much quicker than horses
could upon a highwa}^ But we also observed
that war destroys the road, and that campaign-
ing is a cross-country exercise wherein the
horse can hold his own against the car.

In the sam.e way we knew^ as far back as
1 896 that aerial warfare would evolve in three
phases : reconnaissance, fleet engagements,
and occupations in force with aerial transport-

Yet, while the car and the aircraft have been
foreseen by ever3^bod3' who took the trouble to
think, we have to deal in fact wdth present
needs for troops transported by horses, for
whom the word mobility means rapid and
sustained haulage and carriage of weight.
It is not the art of jumping hedges, because
the\^ do not exist in any probable terrain of war.

What then, are the factors for mobility ?

Breeding. In the throes of war for our
existence, while every luxur}^ must be dis-
pensed with and every available man called to
the colours, the British Government is solicit-
ous to preserve hunting and racing. The
authorities would preserve the trade of horse-
breeding lest there be scarcity of army re-
mounts. Let us breed pleasure-horses, they

THE PLEASURE HORSE 229

tell us, in order to secure a stock of working
horses. So let us encourage yachting to give
us ships for cargo. Let us breed guinea-pigs
as material to coin guineas. " If a yard of
soap will make a flannel waistcoat for a pig,
how far is it from the dome of St. Paul's to
Christmas Day ? " So mental confusion verge
upon madness.

The mettle of our pastures, and perfect
artistry in selective breeding, have given to the
British Isles the leadership of nations with
almost every type of domestic livestock. But
the high specialization of each t3^pe for a single
function disables it for every other use. We
have never bred a horse specialized for that
single purpose of rapid and sustained marching,
which is mobihty. Our pleasure horses, excel,
lent for sport, are expensive, delicate, unsound-
lacking in endurance when we put them to
serious w^ork. As yeast is to dough, blood is to
any livestock, and there must be thoroughbred
blood in any working horse who has to face the
terrors of modern war ; but if there is any
guidance in the origin and natural history of
horses, the one type to give mobility to an
army must be bred away from all green
grasses and soft ground, on those arid plains
which alone can make sound Hmbs, hard hoofs,

230 BREEDING THE WAR HORSE

strong teeth and high endurance. It would
be most reasonable to breed from Duns.

As the Royal North-West Mounted PoHce of
Canada have double the mobility of any
regular troops in the world, their system of
getting horses may be worth considering.
Certain ranches of Western Canada have im-
ported British thoroughbred studs, and bred
from range mares a strain known as the
Broncho. Averaging fifteen hands two inches,
and 1,025 pounds in weight, these gelded
horses and mares are raised on range grass
under range conditions, broken at the ranches
and bought for the Mounted Police at contract
rates.

Ranches in an}^ arid lands of the Empire such
as Southern Alberta, South Central British
Columbia, Western South Africa, or i\ustralia,
would supply a stock for the army much
sounder, and more enduring than any horses
which can possibly be bred on soft ground or
green grass.

Management. Our analysis of the stable
showed the closed shed as a forcing house for
disease germs, and the metalled floor as pre-
venting a horse from resting on his feet. To
copy the natural conditions of healthy range
life the building needs the dry floor which

MANAGEMENT 231

involves a roof, earth standings on which a
horse can rest, and a wind screen to keep out
bad weather. In practice this open earth-
floored shed kills out the germs of disease, rests
the horse, and so prevents or cures the mala-
dies of the feet and legs which disable indoor
stock. But, while the horse is fairly sound
so soon as one adapts his home to the condi-
tions required for his health ; no indoor life
trains either horses or horsemen for the
mobility needed in campaigns.

The civihzed stable management with
grooming and massage, chpping and singeing,
docking and trimming of tails, hogging the
manes, and all the practice which involves the
use of clothing is excellent with the indoor
horse. In the same w^ay a hospital is good for
the sick, but not the sort of gymxnasiuiji which
makes men strong and hardy. The treatment
makes a horse glossy and beautiful, but sensi-
tive rather than robust. It does not make the
horse an outdoor person able to face bad
weather, rough feeding and long marches. For
that we must consider outdoor management as
applied to an outdoor horse.

The British South African Field Force lost
340,000 horses, some of them civihzed, others
from wild ranges, I was serving in an irregular

Q

232 INDOOR MANAGEMENT OUTDOORS

unit when a bunch of Argentine remounts
arrived in camp. They showed signs of
exhaustion from their voyage, but had not
been pastured after their landing in Africa.
The grass surrounding our camp was fairly
good, free from disease, and secure from attack
by day. So the officer commanding shackled
the remounts in our hnes, and I was punished
for feeding mine with grass. There was no
hay, so the horses had straight oats. As the
sky cleared or clouded the weather was frosty
or snowy, so the horses were blanketed. The
blankets were alwa^^s sodden except when they
stiffened with ice. On the fourteenth day the
last of these horses died. The whole was a
beautiful exhibition of stable management
apphed to outdoor horses without a stable. I
do not remember an instance of army authori-
ties consulting range horsemen as to the
management of range horses on any range.
Neither has it occurred to any army that the
outdoor horseman may have useful knowledge
concerning the outdoor horse. And yet the
sacrifice of 340,000 horses might have aroused
misgivings as to the Army system of manage-
ment.

I am writing from practical experience in
stating that in the British Army authority

PASTURED HORSES

233

exists for billeting horses in pasture with half
rations of forage at the discretion of the
officer commanding the unit. Pastured
horses condition very rapidl}^, but soften a
good deal in a wet season, so that one needs as
usual to supple the harness with oil, and also
to provide some sheepskin for padding of parts
w^hich cause chafing. To meet the need of
having horses instantl}^ available, I used two
fields, the richer for night pasture, the poorer
for my horse lines and drill ground. As horses
in pasture grow wild and difficult to catch if
chased about by recruits, I had a rope tied to a
tree near the corner of the field, and held out-
w^ard by two men, forming an enclosure into
which the herd was drifted for catching after
the night's rest. Drifting and catching needed
no more time than the work of unshackling on
the lines.

The system of pasturing by night ensures a
clean bed for horses to lie down, whereas the
lines, however carefully cleared of manure, are
very soon fouled by staling, while the ground
is trampled into mud or dust. Old horse lines
make most dangerous ground for camps long
after the visible dirt has been grassed over.
The insects and germs from the horse lines are
liable to affect the health of troops.

234 MANAGEMENT OUTDOORS

Except under management of most unusual
skill, any assemblage of horses is liable to
stampede. I note this in a camp which has
lost two men killed and one wounded, with
two horses killed and two wounded within the
week, fair evidence that stampedes are danger-
ous. But the danger is greatest where horse
lines and camp lines are set close abreast, so
that, if the horses stampede, the men are
trampled to death. A stampede from herd or
pasture is seldom the cause of serious accidents.

Docking or trimming tails, and hogging
manes are hardly wise outdoors, considering
that the mane and tail are special devices of
nature to keep off flies. As horse lines are an
excellent breeding ground for flies, it is pre-
cisely on these lines that manes and tails are
needed.

Further, it seems unwise to remove with a
brush that natural oil in hair and skin which
preserves a horse from being left stark naked to
the rain. The grease which merely clogs the
brush, was needed by the horse, and if it is
taken away it should be replaced. Horses if
groomed outdoors should be groomed and
oiled so that the hair may shed rain and keep
the skin dry.

It is argued that the massage action of good

EQUIPMENT 235

grooming stimulates the supply of oil to the skin
and hair ; but from careful observation I think
this applies rather to the long and severe
grooming of stabled thoroughbreds than to
that hck and a promise which horses in the
Hnes actually get in bad weather. Just
enough grooming is done to remove the oil,
but not enough to stimulate the supply.

I note that the more disastrous practices
are those of tradition and custom, and are
difficult to trace if one is seeking authority
from the Regulations and authorized manuals.
These are framed in a most reasonable spirit,
and allow wide discretion to the Commanding
Officer. So far as my experience goes, experi-
ence and research has not only been tolerated
by the Authorities, but actively encouraged
and helped.

Equipment. The application to Army use
of a saddle made for falling off seems a little
eccentric until one begins to reason. The idea
is not without value, because an Army in
time of peace is really a school of manhood,
which needs extending until every youth has
been made into a man before he gets a vote as
a citizen. At a cost of life not greatly exceed-
ing the death-rate from closed windows
(phthisis) we have under stress of war an

236 EQUIPMENT FOR MOBILITY

actual national training in manhood which has
averted the fall of the British Empire. More-
over, the British military training manu-
factures a gentleman who can be trusted by
the enemy with the care of his wife and
daughters. If it is useful in the making of his
manhood we should not grudge him a saddle
for the prevention of riding. Morally, such a
saddle is as good for Tommy as it is for the rich
folk of the hunting field.

It is when one begins to consider mobihty
in the field that the pleasure saddle seems an
odd selection. Why not a skipping rope ?
Troops using the English equipment have
rarely averaged twent3^-one miles a day.
Troops using the stock saddle have rarely gone
so slow. The old war saddle has a record of
nine hundred years in every kind of warfare ;
and has survived the extreme test of the stock
range in replacing the Enghsh saddle with the
Mounted Police, and mounted troops of Canada.
Only the mistaken energies of sportsmen in
the British Army displaced the practical
equipment designed by soldiers. A return to
the old saddle would increase the mobility of
all mounted troops.

Horsemanship. A hundred years ago the
recruit came from a farm and had been raised

MILITARY METHODS 237

on horseback. Even the riding masters of the
period could not quite spoil his natural horse-
manship. To-day the recruit comes from a
town, looks on the horse as dangerous, and
lacks the muscles of hip and thigh which must
be developed before a man rides well.

For civil purposes, the stock saddle, and a
little guidance from horsemen will teach a man
to ride, and the riding school would merely
delay his progress. But Army purposes require
a firm seat, a gentle hand to control the horse
for mihtary formations, and a perfect supple-
ness from the waist upwards for the use of
weapons. These three vital needs involve a
riding school. So the rookie is introduced to
the riding school horse. Outside the school
that horse is an iron-mouthed brute, who
joggles, and cannot be induced to work apart
from his comrades. Inside the school he
understands the riding master's talk, goes
through the drill with or without a rider, and
tries to have some fun out of his rookie to pass
away the boring hours until he gets home to
stables and a meal

The first job is to give the rookie confidence
in the horse. To inspire the rookie vvith confi-
dence, the riding master flicks the horse's heels
with a long whip. The rookie's confidence

238 THE RIDING SCHOOL

that he will tumble off is nearty always justi-
fied, and in many instances his nerve is broken.
Then the bully calls his victim a coward, and
the rookie, made unfit for mounted work,
drifts to some staff employment or transfers to
a unit of foot. The use of dummy horse for
beginners would develop the riding muscles
without risk of spoiling the man. It would be
reasonable also to tell the recruit that a
little fuller's earth to absorb the moisture
on his chafed skin wall avert most agonizing
pain.

It is a curious streak in military character
that there is a tremendous fuss over a horse
gall the size of a sixpence, but that a man
skinned from crotch to knee is blamed as a
malingerer if he applies to the doctor for
help.

The saddle being worse than useless, the
rookie is glad to be quit of such an obstacle to
his progress in riding. Moreover, his puttees
being worn with edges up, they catch in the
horse's turned down hair, and so give him a
chance to grip bareback. Leave out the
saddle altogether and the plucky and intelli-
gent recruits of the new armies are quick to
gain confidence as horsemen. They learn
by sensible methods taught to the Greek

RIDING ESTABLISHMENTS 239

rookies of Xenopohon's ever-glorious Ten
Thousand.

There are three types of Riding Estabhsh-
ment : the closed building, so hot that it
stupefies the man just when he needs his
brains ; the ring in a field which has at least the
blessings of fresh air ; and the open field of the
up-to-date instructors. A cheery and sympa-
thetic Riding Master will do better under a
roof than a bully can even in the open field,
but the best and most rapid training I have
ever seen was given in open field by a Regular
soldier who abstained from losing his temper.
In civil life I had seen a range horseman teach-
ing English pupils with equal success, and the
methods of the two masters were identical.
Men who had never mounted before were
taught within a week such circus tricks as
jumping, wrestling bareback, tug-of-war
mounted, and making horses chmb over ugly
ground. It was a punishment to be excluded
from the lessons. From the civilian school
pupils passed out after six months' training
and earned a living as stock riders. From the
military school the men were transferred to a
station with the old ring menage and never
recovered the resulting leeway. Given equally
good instructors, I should say that one month's

240 THE OUTDOOR TRAINING

training in open field is equal in value to four
months in the outdoor menage or five months
in an indoor riding school.

In training men my first measure was to
select sympathetic instructors, and relieve for
other duties any N.C.O. who showed the
slightest infirmity of temper. Released from
all bullying, nagging or fear of punishment,
my rookies were sportsmen who would greet
me with a cheery grin. The second measure
was to cut out the element of monotony in
routine, so that the riding field became a place
of surprises, of varied sports and competitions
where each man tried to excel. From the first
I would take the whole class away from the
schochng for an occasional joy-ride along the
grassy roadsides, slowly increasing the pace
from walk to joggle, and finally to long trot on
the home stretch. When we came to be tested
against other units we had no reason to regret
our unorthodox methods of training.

My second month's riding school would
involve a very serious schooHng for officers
and Non. Coms. in teaching them how to
handle a unit training for field mobility. It
would be limited to three exercises all of which
I have tested with success in England during
the past decade;

FACTORS OF MOBILITY 241

First Exercise. Taking a feed and haver-
sack rations to make a day's march and
practise the noon halt.

Second Exercise. Taking vehicles or pack
animals according to size of unit, to make a
two days' march with a night bivouac. In-
struction is needed in the use of natural wind
breaks and slopes of ground, also to adapt the
sweat pad, blanket, overcoat and saddle, into
a dry camp regardless of the weather.

Third Exercise. After extensive practice
at the home camp, in cooking without any
utensils except the pots and cups for the tea or
coffee, to make a night bivouac without any
kitchen transport.

So far one could dispense with the camp
equipment, and almost the whole kitchen ; but
concurrently with this training to drop needless
baggage, there would be first exercises for
scouting and road reports, vedettes, flankers
and despatch riders.

Mobility. The factors for mobility may
now be added up : The breeding of horses on
pasture natural to the species ; sheds to secure
dry earth standings and a wind break ; outdoor
management ; a weight-distributing saddle ;
an actual training of men and horses to rapid
and sustained marching with reduced transport.

242 THE WINGS OF AN ARMY

With these few measures the mobihty of
mounted troops could be doubled.

To quadruple the mobility of mounted forces
one has merely to add the stock-range system
of a pony herd supplying two mounts per man.
In an enemy's countr}^ each horseman would
ride, and lead his spare mount, changing over
at halts. A march would be continuous with
short halts, up to the hmits of endurance for
the men and horses available, and this after
proper training would not be far short of one
hundred miles a day. From the moment when
a war of positions culminates in advance or in
retreat, flying brigades or even divisions could
play havoc with enem\^'s plans by threatening
his hues of communication. The raid, as
practised by the Confederate, General Morgan,
in the American Civil War, is no longer healthy
because there are aircraft about. Detached
units cannot, as in past times, be left in the air
to forage for themselves ; and yet mobility of
the screen and wings may prove as useful an
aid to a marching army as claws are to a crab.

CONCLUSION.

This book has been written in spare hours
off duty while the air throbbed all round me.
The crackling rifle fire at the butts, the uproar
of the batteries at practice and frequent bursts
of bombs, the buzzing aeroplanes as they pass
overhead, rumble of transport trains, and
tramp of marching troops, bands on a Sunday,
and choirs of trumpets sounding the evening
calls are echoes, all of them, from the great
thunders of the Armageddon.

The sounds will die away into the distance
to a last muttering beyond the skyline. Then
those who are left of us will put away our
weapons and our saddles, and go back to civil
life. But we shall all be changed.

No man returning from a journey, has ever
come back with the same self into his former
life. From this travail we shall come changed
into a different w^orld. A new and realized
manhood will meet a tried and bettered woman-
hood. We shall not any more be able to live
content in the old world of selfishness and
243

244 THE MAKINGS OF MANHOOD

slackness. We shall demand for men a train-
ing of their manhood, for women a training of
their womanhood.

We shall value manliness more than scholar-
ship, ease or wealth, or even the freedom we
fought so hard to save. Food has no flavour
until we have been hungry, rest has no value
unless we have been weary, life has no zest
save that from fierce endeavour, it is the work
we do which builds our strength. The man-
hood of our fathers came by use of arms, and
of horses, by going down to the sea in ships,
by hard, rough living, taking risks and endur-
ing pain, by generous giving and honest loving.

The manhood of our sons will not be made b}^
indoor hfe, by ease, by softness, by selfishness
or vice. The body as well as the mind and the
spirit must have daily training, renewal and
growth, if we would avert disease, corruption
and decay. The future has nothing to add to
the past save in the hazards of the air, the
fierce dehght of handling aircraft, and the
hardening of all our fibres in the conquest of
the skies. It will be long, however, before the
aeroplane can alight in forests, on mountains,
rough ground or stormy water, or venture very
far from the bases of suppl3\ Till then our
industry and our wars will still need horses, and

CONCLUSION 245

even afterwards we shall hardly be able to
spare them from our pleasures.

In the past, the horses carried our ancestors
out of savagery through barbarism into civiliza-
tion. They saved us from the barren labour
of Chinese, Egyptian and Indian cultivators,
and gave us the large opportunities of our
country life. Horses and shipping added all
the continents to our estate, the conquest of
the world to our arms, the glamour of adven-
ture to our history. If only we can learn to
understand horses with a quicker sympathy, a
bolder reasoning, the training which our
fathers had as horsemen, will be bettered in the
training of our sons.

INDEX.

Acacia, 57.

Action .^of Light, theory of,

Chap? II. and p. 160.
Afghans, 223.
Africa, 29, 31, 56, 177,

230.
Agriculture, horses in, 145.
Alaska, 21.
Alberta, 230.
Alcohol, 197.
Alexander the Great, 138,

201.
Alkali, 59.
America :

Central, 16.

North, Chps. I. and II.,
horsemen of, 148.

South, 20.
Ancestors of horse, 2.
Apples, 200.
Argentine, 152, 177, 223 ;

Remounts, 232.
Arabia, 28, 70, 139, 209.
Armenia, 137-8.
Armies, 224.
Armour, 145.
Arms, 174.

Ass, 9, 29, 30, 35, 130, 208.
Assyria, 14, 136, 138.
Atlantic, 2 ; Continent, 5.
Austraha, T52, 155, 169, 177,

203, 230.

Babylonia, 135.
Backfalls, 79.
Baffin's Bay, 19.
Balance in riding, 221.
Baltic, 19, 42, 43, III.
Barb, 28, 131, 209.
Bathing, 6.

Bay, 14, 31, 32, 46, 1 17-8,
129 et seq.

Bearded horses, 23, 36.

Bells, 197.

Bent leg riding, 143, 207.

Bering Land, 21, 24.

Bering Sea, 16, 21, 24.

Biblical record, 129.

Billets for horses, 233.

Birch, Major, " Modern Rid-
ing," 226

Biting, 74.

Bitt, 109, 119, 156.

Bivouac, 241.

Blackfeet, 107, 116.

Blanket, 153, 198.

Black horses, 47.

Bhsters, 153, 198.

Bolas, 176.

Bolting, 75.

Bone, 39.

Boers, 29, 179, 223.

Boots, 169.

Branding, 70.

Brazil, 5, 48.

Breaking back, 58.

Breeches, 167.

Breeding horses, 137, 228.

Bridges, 62.

Bridle, 115, 120.

British Columbia, 24, 230.

British Isles, 19, 43, 107, 139,
211.

Broncho, 148, 180.

Brown horses, 31, 47.

Buckskin horses, see Dun.

Bucking, 28, 61, 78. 150.

Build of horses, 10.

Bulk of horses, 10.

Bushes as reserve of food, 63.

Buying, 182.

346

INDEX

247

Cactus, 57.
Camels, 22, 208.
Camps, 196.
Canaan, 135-6.
Canter, 186.
Capture, loi et seq.
Carbon in food, 197.
Carrots, 200.
Carson, Kit, 204.
Cart, 105.
Cart horse, 40.
Cavalry :

Assyrian, 138.

British, 211.

charges, 79, 178.

European, 178.

Greek, 11 7-8-9.

Hebrew, 131.

Lydian, 138.

Mexican, 178.

Moslem, 141.

Regular, 223.

Roman, 120.
Celtic pony (Ewart), 36, 39,
Centaur, 117. [43, 44.

Chapareras, 173.
Character, 71, 81.
Chargers :

of Angels, 83.

Black Bess, 202.

Bucephalus (Alexander's),
201.

of Charles XII., 202.

Julius Caesar's, 8.

Odin's, 36.

Pegasus, 1 15-6.

Peschkov's, 202.
Chariots, 106, no, 117, 121,

133. 139-
Chestnut horses, 31, 46.
China, 127-8.
Choking, 91.
Cincha, see girth.
Circus, 1 01.
Civil War :

English, 209.

American; 242.

Clay, influence of, 39.

Cleveland Bay, 145.

Cliffs, 60-1-2.

Climate, Chaps. I., II.

CHmbing, 60-1-2.

Chpping, 203.

Clothing, 231-2.

Cloudland, 33, 34, 51, 52,
III.

Clydesdales, 145.

Coat, thickness of, 11 ; pro-
tection, 26.

Cold, 196.

Colic, 91, 199, 200.

Colorado, 61.

Colosseum, loi.

Colour of horses, 4, i^ et seq.,
46 to 53.

Colts, 70.

Columbia Basin, 23.

Communication among hor-
ses, 89 et seq.

Compass, 190.

Constantinople, 120.

Cooling a horse, 196-7.

Copper ointments, 198.

Corduroy roads, 62.

Cornering, 77.

Corrall, loi.

Cossack, 178, 208.

Cowboys, 148, 205.

Cracked heels, 199.

Cree Indians, 142.

Croll theory, 16.

Cromwell, Oliver, 209.

Crowding, 77.

Curb bitt, 160.

Cyrene, 117, 223.

Damaraland, 223.
Danube, 115.
Dapples, 50, $s.
Dappled horses, in to 141.
Darwin, 25.
Dashboard, 106.
Defence, methods of, 28, 66,
68, 71.

248

INDEX

Denmark, 45.
Dervishes, 208.
Deserts, 7, 8. 14, 57, 133.
Destriers, 1^5.
Diamond hitch, 151.
Diluvial horse, 40.
Directions, trail, 191.
Disease, 216.
Docking tails, 2, 70.
Double back, the, 118.
Dragging the forefoot, 91.
Dragons, age of, 2.
Draught horses, 41, 121.
Dreams of horses, 88.
Dress of horsemen, 161.
Drinking, habits in, 65.
Driving, 106, 180.
Dun horse, 14, 31-2, 51, 115-

6, 121, 124 ei seq.
Dung, special places for, 68 ;

indications of health, 91.
Dust bath, 201.

Ears, movements of, 89, 90,

91, 92.
Eating horse flesh, 97, 99.
Egypt, 131 to 137.
Ehzabeth, Queen, 210.
English methods, 151.
Equatorial regions, 18, 19.
Equites 122.
Equipment, 152.
Erythrea, 223.
Europe, Chap. II.
Ewart, Prof. J. Cosser, F.R.S

vii.-x., 40.
Exhaustion, 197.
Eyesight, 156.

Family life of horses, 66-7.
Feeding, 199, 200 ; when
groomed, 73 ; by breeders,

137. 215-
Fighting methods of, 68, 90.
Fires, Camp, 200.
Foals, 69.
Foot of horse, 4, 8, 87.

Forage, 11, 215.

Forelock, 14.

Forest horses, 7, 40, 41.

Forest, Horses in, 194, 197.

Formations in defence, 28,

68.
Fox hunting, 210 et seq. 225.
France, 36, 41, 122, 178, 223.
Friends, Making, 183.
Frontiersmen's Pocket Book,

177:
Frontiersmen, Legion of, see
Legion.

Gait, 186.

Gall cures, 198.

Gall9, 153, 198, 233.

Gaul, 122.

Geldings, 68.

Genesis, 129 et seq.

Germany, 122, 211, 223, 225.

Germs, 15, 216.

Gestures, 9, 194.

Ghosts seen by horses, 85.

Girth, 80, 154, 198.

Gothic horsemen, 121.

Grain, Feeding, 137, 197.

Gramma grass, 56.

Granite, Influence of, 38.

Grasses, 27, 55-6.

Grazing, 7, 59.

Greasewood; 57.

Greeks, 115, et seq., 138, 143.

Greenland, 16, 17, 19.

Grey horses, 47, 140.

Grimaldi grottoes, 40.

Groaning, 90.

Grooming, 73, 74, 231, 234.

Grooms, 78.

Guidance in travel, 1S9.

Gulf Stream, 16, 19.

Habits, 72.

Halts, 195.

Hands, Training of, 159.

Harem, The, 66.

Harty, Constable, 180.

INDEX

249

Hats, 165.

Haut Ecole, 178.

Headstall, 159.

Hearing, 193.

Heat, 19S.

Hedges, 210.

Heels, 198, 201.

Hellenes, 115.

HiUs, 187.

Herd, 68, 107.

Hitch, 151.

Hittites, 133, 136.

Hobbles, 197.

Hogging mares, 15, 231.

Holland, 45.

Hoofs, 8, 28.

Horse-fights, 90.

Horse-flesh, 97.

Horse sickness, 48.

Humour in horses, 85 et seq.

Hungary, 177.

Hunting, fox, 210, 225.

Hyksos, 134.

Hyraco therium, 5.

Ice age, 15-6-7, 33-
Ice, Horses on, 63, 72.
Icelandic horse fights, 90,
Immortality of horses, 83.
India, 47, 139, 208.
Indians, Red, 68, 107-8-9-10,

135, 142.
Instincts, 81, 83.
Intelligence, 63, 69, 87.
Ireland, 23, 39, 70, 178.
Israel, 129 et seq.
Italy, 223.

Japan current, 21.
Japanese, 217, 223.
Jaral, loi.
Jockeys, 207.
Jogghng, 78.
Joseph, Chief, no.
Jumping, 70, 209, 221, 226.

Kangaroo-jumping, 75.

Katywar, 48.

Keddah, 10 1.

Kentucky, 70.

Kiang {see ass), 36.

Kicking, 68, 73, 74.

King, Dick, 202.

Knights, 122.

Kraal, loi.

Kruger, a horse comedian, 85 .

Labrador, 20.

Lasso, 176.

Legion of Frontiersmen, 177

221.
Libya (Cyrene, 117), 132, 135
Light, Action of, Chap. II.,

in stables, 218.
Limestone, Influence of, 39,

215-

Lincolnshire, 45.
Liniment, 198.
Llanos, 177.
Longtails, 3.
Lonsdale, Earl of, 212.
Low's Domesticated Animals
45-

Macedonia, 138.

Malaya, 5.

Mammoth, 24.

Management, 230.

Mares, i, 3, 14, 66, 116, 234.

Manetho, 134.

Markings, 10.

Massage, 231, 234.

Meadows, 55, 58, 215.

Memory, 65, 71.

Mesopotamia, 135.

Mexico, 5, 55, 147, 153, 177,

178, 179, 223.
Microbes, 12, 15, 216.
Migration, 49.
Milk of Mares, 102.
Missouri, 21.
Mobilit3^ no, 227 et seq.',

Summary, 241.

250

INDEX

Modern Riding, by Major

Birch, 226.
Moisture, 11.

Mongolia, 31, 127, 177, 208.
Moqui Indians,
Morgan, Gen., 242.
Morocco, 208.
Moslem, 141, 208.
Moss holes, 63.
Mounted Police, see Pohce.
Music, Enjoyment of, 70, 88.
Muzzle, 6, 58.

Navajo Indians, 142.
Neck, 58.
Neckcloth, 172.
Nez Perc6 Indians, no.
Normans, 145.
Norsemen, in, 115, 121.
North Sea, 42, 44.
Norway, 16, 45.
Numbers, Sense of, 70.

Oatmeal, 198.

Oiling harness, 233 ; horses,

116, 234.
Olympic games, 114, 117.
Oriental riding, 208.
Outdoor management, 231.
Outlaw horses, 71, 87.

Paces, 186.
Pachynolophus, ix.
Pacific Ocean, 21, 22, 24.
Pack horses, 67, 122, 127,

146, 152, 182, 196.
Pack trails, 122, 124, 127.
Pad saddle, 208.
Pain, 90, 91.
Panic, 75.
Parker, Sergt., Adventure of,

82.
Parthians, 208.
Pasture, 6, 33, 37, 74, 196,

215.
Patagonia, 177.
Pawing, 66, 72.

Pegasus, 115, 116.
Percherons, 145.
Persians, no.
Personahty in horses, 84 et

seq.
Peruvians, 176.
Photographic colour, 50.
Pick, Hoof, 201.
Piebald horses, 47.
Pig, Colour of, 4.
Pig-jumping, 75.
Pit ponies, 215.
Pleasure horses. Chaps. VII.,

VIII.
Pointing ears, 87 ; forefeet,

91.
Pohce, Royal N.-W. Mounted

82, 86, 180, 181, 203, 230.
Polo, 151.
Polo, Marco, 128.
Portugal, 178, 208, 222.
Posting, 128.
Pound for catching stock,

lOI.

Practical jokes by horses, 85,

86, 87.
Prairie, 7.

Psychology, 84 et seq.
Prejevalski horse, 9, 31, 36,

41, 51.
Propping, 77.
Protective colour, 14, 30.
Punishment of horses, 76,

185-

Quagga, 9, 29, 31.
Quartering slopes,
Queensland, 152.
Quicksands, 62.

62.

Race-memories, 71

Racing, 120, 225 ; seat, 143.

Raids, 242.

Range, The Stock range, 54

et seq., 216, 242.
Rearing, 75.
Red Indian, see Indian.

INDEX

251

Recado saddle, 155.
Records, 201.
Rein, 62, 76, 195.
Re-muda, 68.
Reptile, 2, 3.
Resting, 59, 64, 189.
Riding, 118. 143 et seq., 220,

226.
Riding school, see School.
Rhine, 42.

Ridgeway, Prof., x., 51.
Riviera horse, 40.
Roan horses, 47.
Roads, 52, 121.
Rocky Mountains, 16, 54,

108, 189, 204.
Romans, 119, 144.
Rope, Use of the, 62, 176.
Rough - riding, 179, iSo ;

driving, 180.
Royal Artillery, 178, 226.
Russia, 31, 35, 121, 137, 140,

208, 223.

Saddle :

American, 153, 213.

Argentine, 155.

Australian, 155.

English, 146 et seq., 211 et
seq., 235.

McClellan, 156.
Saddling, 184.
Saddle tree, 199.
Saddle, weight distributing,

219.
Sagebrush, 57.
S. Elias, Alps of, 16, 24.
Sagartians, 176.
Salt, 59, 198, 200.
Sarmatians, 176.
Savaging, 80.
Savannahs, 7.
Scent, 4, 93, 192.
Scandinavia, 48, 121.
Schleswig, 45.
School, Riding, 212, 237 to

240,

Scotland, 45.

Scouring, 200.

Scouting, 190.

Scraping, 79.

Screaming, 90.

Screens for stable walls, 217.

Scythians, 176.

Self defence, 66.

Sense of touch, 6.

Shadows, Fear of, 194.

Shaps, 173.

Shire horses, 145.

Shirts, 166.

Shoulder, Injury to, 91.

Shying, 89.

Signals made by horses, 89.

Sight, 156, 193.

Singeing, 231.

Singing, Uses of , 75.

Siwalik horse, 41.

Size of horses, 37.

Skewbalds, 23, 47.

Slack rein, 62.

Sleep, 27, 64, 189.

Sleighs, 121.

Smudge, 197.

Snaffle, 156.

Snake-killing, 72.

Soap, Soft, 199.

Solomon's Cavalry, 117;
Chariotry, 138.

Solutre horse, 41.

Sores, 153, 188, 198.

Soudan, 208.

South Africa, 29, 31, 56, 177,
230-1.

Speed, 28.

Spine, 14.

Spirit of the horse, 81.

Sport, Sense of, 70, 88.

Spurs, 172.

Squealing, 91.

Stables, 201, 214 et seq.

Stadium, loi.

Stallions, 28, 66, 67, 68, 75.

Stampedes, 75, 234.

Stamping, 72, 91.

252

INDEX

standing, Manner of, 91.

Standings for horses, 217-218

Steppes, 7, 14, 41.

Stockrange, see Kange.

Stock whip, 177.

Stomach, 36.

Strabo, 139.

Strength, 11.

Straight leg riding, 143, 207.

Stirrup, 154.

Stony Indians, 142.

Striking a horse, 26, 27, 29.

Stumbhng, 158.

Suffolk Punch, 145.

Sugar, 198, 200.

Sunfishing, 78.

Sunhght, Coloration by, 11.

Suppling a horse, 185.

Surcingle, 109.

Swamps, 63.

Sweating, 91.

Sweat-pad, 152.

Sweden, 140.

Swimming, 6, 63.

Syria, 140.

Tail. 6, 28.
Tapir, 5, 22.
Tarpan, 9, 31, 36, 41.
Tartars, 115, 176.
TearS; 90, 116.
Teeth, 59.
Temper, 73.
Thames, 42.

Thirst, Endurance of, 64.
Thoroughbred, x., 214.
Thought transference, 92.
Throwing a horse, 75.
Touch, Sense of, 6.
Tracking, 191.
Training, 70.
Travel, 1^1 et seq.
Travois, 104, 105.
Treading, 77, 79.
Tropical light, x.

Trotting, 66. 186.
Trousers, 168.
Tunic, 167.
Turpin, Dick, 202.
Tying a horse, 195.
Turied pasture, 33.
Tussock grass, 26.

Unsaddling, 201.
Unsoundness of horses, 214

et seq.
Utah, 61.

Valkyrs, 115.
Vaquero, 149.
Vice, 71, 81.

Waggon, 105, 121.

Water, 58 ; horses in, 62.

Watering, 64, 65, 72, 98, 195.

Wallets, 160.

War, viii,, 70.

Warming a horse, 197.

Weapons, 176, 184.

Welsh pit pony 118.

Wesley, Richard, 158.

Whicker, 90.

Whinney, 90.

Whip, 76, 177.

Whiskey, 197.

Wheels, 105.

White horses, 35.

Wind, Holding the, 80, 184.

Winds, iS et seq., 25, 26, 196.

Winged horses, 115.

Wolves, 58, 68.

Women, 132, 209.

Woodruff, Surgeon-Gen., x.

Working horses, Chap. VII.

Yakima Indians, 142.
Yukon, 24, 45.

Zebra, 9, 29, 31.

Zenophon, 118, 120, 144, 169.

PRINTED BY W. HEFFER AND SONS LTD., CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND.

Hints on Horses.

How to judge them, buy them, ride them, drive them,
and depict them. By Captain C. M. Gonne, R.A.
" What are the points of a horse ? " " What are the
things to look for ; and what are the things to avoid ? "
" How am I to tell a good horse when I see one ? "
These and similar questions are answered by the
author from the result of many years intimacy with
the horse, and with the help of fifty-four effective
sketches. 5/- net.

Dartmoor Days X Forest Hunt.

By Captain J. H. W. Knight-Bruce.

A novel of the hunting field, imbued with the spirit of
Dartmoor and informed with an intimate knowledge
of and eager love for horses and hounds. Illustrated
by Lieut. E. Picard. 6/- net.

Dog Breaking

The most Expeditious, Certain, and Easy Methods,
with Odds and Ends for those who Love the Dog and
Gun. By General W. N. Hutchinson. With numer-
ous Illustrations. 2/6 net.

Concerning Animals.

And other matters. By E. H. Aitken ("E.H.A.").

Essays, chiefly on animals, written with the keen sense
of humour, coupled with expert information and
charm of style, which lend attraction to all Mr.
Aitken's works. Illustrated by J. A. Shepherd. 6/- net

BY J. C. TREGARTHEN

The Story of a Hare

With Illustrations. Large crown 8 vo. 2s.6d.net

This is a drama of the wilds, portraying the hfe of a hare in
a country infested by her enemies, fox, otter, marten, polecat, stoat,
etc., from each of which she has narrow escapes.

The narrative, which is placed a hundred years ago, describes
the ruses, shifts, and wiles the hare employs in order to avoid dis-
covery, and to escape from pursuers. The scene is laid near Land's
End, a district of upland, moor, and cliff, as wild as it is varied,
affording an admirable setting for the life of a hare, which is now for
the first time told at length by one who is an authority.

" Has the rare gift of seeing life from the point of view of the
animal he is describing. Altogether it is a fascinating book, and
it will add considerably to a reputation which already stands deservedly
high." — Globe.

The Life Story of an Otter

With Illustrations. Large crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net

"It would be difficult to present nature study in a more attractive
form than that which has been adopted by Mr. Treganhen. All who
are interested in wild life will enjoy the freshness of a narrative which
is as exhilarating as any Otter hunt can be." — Scotsman.

"... The book is one in which naturalists will especially rejoice
because they will find what cannot be found elsewhere ; but there is
no class of reader above the age of twelve who would not find satisfac-
tion in this speaking description of Western scenery and graphic tale of
the most mysterious of its denizens." — Times.

"... A very fascinating life-story of the Otier. . . . The author
describes in detail many interesting habits which are not dealt with in
the majority of text-books.'' —^zVwzw^^aw Post.

" . . .A very excellent addition to the animal biographies in which
lovers of wild nature delight. . . . The book is capitally written, full
of the right open-air feeling and of suggestive descriptions of the wild
moorland and coast of the West country." — Daily Telegraph.

LONDON : TOHN MURRAY

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