The horse : its history and uses

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THE HORSE:

The horse — the noblest conquest of man over the lower animals, although
not the most difficult, for in this respect it must yield to the elephant,
as in utility it must to the ox — is at present nowhere found in
its original wild state, although the ass and the ox unquestionably are
so. A true wild horse was supposed to exist in the mountains of Thibet;
but a specimen of this animal has at length been brought to England, and
is now to be seen in the gardens of the Zoological Society. It is, however,
of the family of the asses, somewhat taller than the true wild ass, lighter
in the shoulder, longer in the neck, with shorter ears and a more horse-
like head. It is, in fact, I am assured by an eminent naturalist, my
friend Dr Falconer, the Djiggatai of the Moguls, and hunted by them
for its flesh — considered by Tartars to be better venison than that of
any deer.

In the domesticated state, the horse has immemorially existed in
every region of the Old World, the Arctic excepted. His disappearance
from the absolutely wild state is probably to be accounted for from his
natural habitat being the open plain ; from the facility with which he
would hence be captured, and when captured, tamed, domesticated, and
made useful.

As we now see him, the horse consists of an almost infinite variety,
differing in size, in form, in colour, and even in disposition. Much of
this variety has, no doubt, been the work of man, but it is so great that it
is difficult to believe, when we consider the insuperable difficulties
to intercommunication which existed in early times — always rude
times™that all the widely differing races could possibly have sprung

from a single species, or that time, soil, and climate could have produced
so prodigious a diversity. To account for it, then, I think we must
come to the conclusion — and I am not the first that has come to it —
that there must have existed originally a great number of closely allied
species capable of commixture, and of producing a fertile offspring.
Such is certainly the case with the ox and the dog, and probably even
with the human race itself.

For this inference a good deal of evidence might be produced.
Thus language countenances the theory. In every original tongue of
countries in which the horse appears to have been indigenous, as far as
I have been able to discover, it has a peculiar and distinct name. Thus,
it has a distinct name in Greek, in Latin, in German, in the Celtic
tongues, in Persian, in Arabic, in Sanscrit, in the languages of the
South of India, in the Hindu-Chinese tongues, and in the languages of
the Malayan Islands. Sometimes it has two names, a native with a foreign
synonyme, as in Irish or Gaelic and in Javanese — in the first case the
synonyme being Latin, and in the last, Sanscrit. In countries in which
the horse had unquestionably no existence, it naturally takes its name
from the language of the people who introduced it. In South and
Central America, and the Philippine Lslands, the name is Spanish, taken
from the Latin; and in North America and Australia, it is English.
There are two broad distinctions in the horse — the full-sized one
and the pony — which seem to point, at least, at two distinct aboriginal
races or osulating species. No change of climate or skill in breeding,
supposing there be no crossing, will convert the one into the other. In
most countries both exist together; but in some, one of them only exists.
Thus, in the intertropical countries which lie between India and China,
and in the islands of the Indian Archipelago, the pony only exists,
and the full-sized horse is as unknown as the ass or the camel. In the
languages of these countries, consequently, there is but one name for the
horse, while in the languages of Hindustan and Persia there are distinct
terms for the horse and the pony. In Arabia the horses are all com-
paratively small and do not materially differ in size ; so there are no
ponies, and, consequently, in the copious Arabic language, no distinct
terms for horse and pony. It may be suspected that the same was the
case in some of the poorer and remoter parts of the British islands, for
in the Celtic languages the pony has no other name than " little horse."
Soil and climate, independent of the care of man in feeding and
breeding, of which, in the ruder states of society, the hoi'se receives little
or none, seem to have very little influence on its size, form, or disposi-

tion. In the temperate western parts of Europe it is found of a size
never seen in any part of Asia or Africa: it thrives even in countries
in which nature had not originally planted it, and this applies to every
region of America, from the equator to Terra del Fuego. Over this wide
region, with some allowance for patent neglect, it is still the Spanish
horse introduced about three centuries ago. In the absence of powerful
carnivorous animals, and with abundant pasture, it there multiplies
much faster than it could at any time have done in any part of the
Old World, — so fast indeed as, in many cases, to have regained its liberty
and to have returned to its wild state, yet ever retaining that variety
in colour which marks its once subjection to man.

Like America, the Philippine Islands were found without the horse.
The Spaniards introduced it, but in this case they introduced the
Spanish horse from South America, and, along with it, the pony of the
neighbouring Malay Archipelago, and the result is that the breed of
horses of these islands is a kind of galloway intermediate between the
two races. Here, too, under conditions as favourable as in America, it
has run wild.

The Southern hemisphere opposes no obstacle to the successful
multiplication of the horse, since we find the different breeds of the
English horse thriving nearly as well in Australia, New Zealand, and
the southern extremity of Africa as in the country from which they
came. In countries to which the pony only is indigenous the full-sized
horse thrives perfectly, as is seen from its introduction, in very recent
times, into Java and the country of the Burmese.

The notion that all the different races of the horse have proceeded
from one original stock has no warranty from history. As long as
the horse receives no special care in breeding, he undergoes no change,
and such care he only receives in a considerably advanced state of
society, or where, as in the case of the Arabs, he is an object of special
and peculiar importance. The half wild and neglected horse of South
America does not materially differ from his progenitors introduced
by the Spaniards above three hundred years ago, and our own Shetland
and Welsh ponies most probably differ in no respect from their
predecessors of the time of the invasion of Julius Caesar. The squab,
strong, and enduring Tartar horse of the present day is, in all likelihood,
the same kind of animal by help of which Attila, and Gengis, and
Timur effected their conquests, — the same with which the Tartar
tribes subdued China twice over, and against whose incursions a wall
of 1,500 miles long was no security. It is the same, too, which the

allied armies will encounter in their march on Pekin — a shaggy rough
galloway, under fourteen hands.

Through the care of man, it is needless to add that vast improve-
ments have been effected in the horse. This care, as is well known, has
been long bestowed by the Arabs. It is certain, however, that in Arabia,
as in every other country, a native race must have existed to afford
the materials for selection. In sacred writing Solomon is represented
as purchasing his stud, not in Arabia but in Egypt, from which it
has been very hastily inferred that the last of these countries, and
not the first, is the parent country of the high-bred Arab as we know
him. For this notion, however, I can see no good foundation. The
Egyptians of the time of Solomon were a civilised and wealthy people,
with abundance of horses, and the Israelite king naturally went for
his to the best or most abundant market, which was Egypt. The
Arabs of the same period were a rude, nomadic, and isolated people,
and so they continued for a long time after, until, indeed, Mahomed,
in the seventh century of our own time, "breathed," as Gibbon
expresses it, " the soul of enthusiasm into their savage bodies," and
made them an united, a conquering, and in many respects a prosperous
people. It was most probably then only that they began to pay
special attention to the breeding of the horse, and the result of which
has been the production of that animal which, in so far as form, bottom,
and beauty are concerned, is considered the perfection of the blood
horse. He is, however, in size what we should call a mere galloway,
and when in perfection seldom exceeding fourteen and a half hands
high. He cannot be said to be master of a weight exceeding ten stone,
and yet there is some adaptation of his strength to the usual class of
riders he has to carry, for the man of Asia is much lighter than the
man of Europe. In India it has been ascertained that on an average
the Indian trooper is lighter than the English light dragoon by no
less than two stone and a quarter. The difference between the
Englishman and the Arab is probably not so large, but still it must
be very considerable.

The Arab horse has been justly praised for its gentleness and docility,
qualities generally ascribed to their rearing and tuition. I am, however,
satisfied that this character is far more owing to the natural temperament
of the race, for it sometimes happens that an Arab is vicious, and when
he is, he is exquisitely and incorrigibly so. There is one quality in
which the Arab horse perhaps excels every other, endurance of con-
tinuous labour. A little Arab of U hands, for a bet of £500, rode 400

miles in five consecutive days, or at the rate of eighty miles a day,
carrying lOst. Tib. The feat was performed on the race-course of
Bangalore, but 13° distant from the Equator. The horse was Jumping
Jemmy, and the rider, as meritorious as his horse, Captain Home, of the
Madras Artillery.

I will give you, however, the description of a genuine Arab, more
lively as well as more amusing than any other that I am acquainted with.
It is that of Evelyn in excellent quaint English. In the year 1683 the
Turks, under their Grand Vizier, invested Vienna, and the Emperor of
Germany and his ministers fled. John Sobieski, elective King of
Poland, came to the rescue. The Turkish army was entrenched, and
the Grand Vizier, in Turkish fashion, was taking the matter coolly and
quietly, for he was seen from a neighbouring height smoking his
chibouk and sipping his coffee. Polish blood could not stand such a
sight, and the Polish cavalry, lance in hand, cleared the entrenchments,
entered the Turkish camp, routed the army and pursued it to Hungary
and beyond it. For this service, in less than a century, the Poles were
requited, after a peculiar fashion, by having their country partitioned, and
a large slice of it taken by the descendants of those who but for them
might have been now crying " Bismillah" instead of being in league with
the Pope. Some Arab horses were among the spoil, and were brought for
sale to England, and exhibited before Charles II. The following is the
account given of them in the Diary. " Dec. 17th, 1686, Early in the morn-
ing I went into St James's Park to see three Turkish or Asian horses,
newly brought over and first shown to His Majesty. There were
four, but one of them died at sea, being three weeks coming from
Hamburgh. They were taken from a Bashaw at the siege of
Vienna, at the late famous raising of that leaguer. I never beheld so
delicate a creature as one of them was, of somewhat a bright bay, two
white feet, in all regards beautiful, a blaze : such a head, eyes, ears,
neck, breast, belly, haunches, legs, pasterns, and feet, — in all regards
beautiful and proportioned to admiration, spirited, proud, nimble, making
halt, turning with that swiftness and in so small a compass as was
admirable. With all this so gentle and tractable as called to mind what
Busbequius speaks of them, to the reproach of our grooms in Europe
who bring up their horses so churlishly as makes most of them retain
their bad habits. They trotted like does, as if they did not feel the
ground. Five hundred guineas were demanded for the first, three
hundred for the second, and two hundred for the third, which was brown.
All of them were choicely shaped, but the two last not altogether so

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perfect as tbe first. It was judged by the spectators, among whom was
the King, the Prince of Denmark, the Duke of York, and several of the
Court, noble persons skilled in horses, especially M. Faubert and his son,
Provost Masters of the Academy, and esteemed of the best in Europe,
that there were never seen any horses in these parts to be compared
with them."

The present races of the English horse are, with the exception of the
ponies, a very mixed breed. Our draught horses are in a large degree
derived from the horses of Flanders, and it is by no means improbable
that our Saxon forefathers brought with them some of the heavy horses
of Holstein and Sleswick. An indigenous full-sized horse, however,
certainly existed in the time of the Roman dominion. It was this, most
probably, that was used in the scythed chariots of the Britons. It was, at
all events, possessed of such good qualities as to be much sought after on
the Continent. From this horse and the blood of the Arab has sprang
our famous race-horse, far exceeding in fleetness all others. The Arab,
for breeding, seems first to have been introduced in the beginning of the
seventeenth century in the reign of James the First. In about a century's
time, or ending ^vith the time of Queen Anne, all the benefit derivable from
the Arab blood seems to have been completed. It is certain, however,
that the original unmixed English horse, from which the race-horse
derives its size and strength, must have possessed excellent qualities, for
we have in proof the fact that Flying Childers, supposed to be the
fleetest horse that England ever produced, was the immediate offspring of
an English mare by the Darley Arabian, a genuine Arab of the Desert,
— that he was, in other words, a half-bred, a fact which seems to be
implied by his portraits, for although his other points appear unobjection-
able, he has a large coarse head, such as a true Arab never had. The
celebrated Eclipse traced his pedigree not very remotely to the Godol-
phin Arabian, which has been supposed by some to have been a Barb, but
1 fancy only from the fulness of his crest. If the account I have heard
be true, that he was a present from the Sultan to Louis the Fourteenth, the
probability is that he was a true Arab, as the Sultan could easily have
got one without going to the mixed blood of Barbary.

Although, however, no account is given of the dam of Flying Childers
it is likely that she may have had some Arab blood, for the horse was of
the time of Queen Anne, before which Spanish, Barb and even Arab
horses had for 100 years been introducing into England.

If, then, the Arab blood be the only true one, there is no such thing
as a thorough-bred English horse. Our race-horse with all its perfection

is, in fact, a factitious breed. That it is mostly derived from the Arab,
however, will probably be inferred from its corresponding with it very
perfectly in colour. With the Arab, the prevailing colours in the order
of their frequency, are, grey, bay, and chestnut. It is never sorrel,
roan, or piebald, and very rarely black, and such also is the case with
the English blood-horse.

The superior speed of the English racer over the Arab has been
frequently determined, as might well be expected from an animal on
an average by two hands higher, with every racing point at least equal.
In 1814 a second-rate English horse, Sir Solomon, ran a race of two
miles on the course of Madras against an Arab, which, giving heavy
weights, had beaten every other Arab in India. This was the Cole
Arabian afterwards brought to England. He was under fourteen
hands high, and received a stone weight. The English horse, an ill-
tempered one, ran sulkily during the first part of the race, and there
was every appearance that he would be distanced, but in time he ran
kindly, overtook the Arab and beat him handsomely. His success
was followed by the acclamations of thousands of Natives who were
assembled on the course. This statement I had from an eye-witness.
In 1828, the English horse Recruit beat easily the Arab Pyramus,
the best at the time in India, giving him two stones nine pounds. The
distance, ran on the race-course of Calcutta, was two miles.

A few years ago a match was run between an English blood-mare
and the best Arab in Egypt. The race was ten miles long over the
Desert. For the first mile the horses went neck and neck, after
which the mare ran a-head, and before the race was over the Arab
was left behind and out of sight. In fact, the difference in speed
between the English racer and the Arab is something like that between
the hare and the antelope.

The European cavalry horse of the Middle Ages was of necessity
a powerful animal, since he had not only to carry a rider covered with
armour, but had armour of his own to bear. The same kind of horse
seems to have been continued even down to the Revolution, as we see
it represented in the equestrian statues of Charles the First and William
the Third. Sir Walter Scott, in his " Crusaders," gives a very graphical
account of the war-horse of the Middle Ages, as contrasted with the
Arab, in his imaginary duel between Coeur de Lion and Saladin in the
Desert. Sir Walter, by the way, was himself a cavalry officer, having
attained the rank of full major in the East Lothian Yeomanry. Gibbon, I
may here add, was also a military man after a way — a major of militia —

to judge by the accounts we have of his person, probably not a very
active one on parade, and he was never tried any where else. He informs
us himself, however, that his training as a militiaman contributed
largely towards enabling him to write *' The Decline and Fall of the
" Roman Empire."

With such horses as I have now described, the style of horsemanship
and the kind of exercises in vogue towards the end of the seventeenth
century, may be judged by a passage from the " Diary of Evelyn,"
dated the 13th of December, 1685. "I went," says he, "with Lord
" Cornwallis to see the young gallants do their exercise, M. Faubert
" having newly railed in a menage, and fitted it for the Academy. There
"were the Dukes of Norfolk and Northumberland, Lord Newburgh,
"and a nephew of Duras, Earl of Feversham. The exercises were, 1st.
" Running at the ring. 2nd. Flinging a javeline at a Moor's head.
" 3rd. Discharging a pistol at a mark. Lastly. Taking up a gauntlet
" with the point of a sword; — all these performed in full speed. The
" Duke of Northumberland hardly missed of succeeding in every one, —
"a dozen times, as I think. The Duke of Norfolk did exceeding
" bravely. Lord Newburgh and Duras seemed nothing so dexterous.
"There I saw the difference of what the French call belle homme a
" cheval and bon homme a cheval, the Duke of Norfolk being the first,
*' that is a fine person on a horse, the Duke of Northumberland
"being both in perfection, namely, a graceful person and excellent
" rider. But the Duke of Norfolk told me he had not been at this
" exercise for these twelve years before. There were in the field
" the Prince of Denmark, and the Lord Lansdowne, son of the Earl
" of Bath, who had been made a count of the Empire last summer
"for his service before Vienna."

The Arabs occupied Spain for seven centuries, and the African
shore of the Mediterranean they have possessed for twelve, and to the
intermixture of the blood of their horses with that of the native races
has been derived the jennet and the barb. A good native horse,
however, probably existed in both countries, and indeed with respect
to Barbary, it may be considered certain when we know that the
Numidian horse formed the best cavalry of Hannibal, and contributed
largely to his victories over the Romans. The Persian horse is said
to have some Arab blood, but it cannot be large, for the modern horse
does not materially differ from that represented with great spirit and
seeming truth in a celebrated mosaic pavement of Pompeii, which is,
at least, by seven centuries older than the conquest of Persia by the

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Arabians. The horses of the mosaic are, in fact, very ordinary animals,
without the smallest show of blood, and so is the modern Persian horse.

But, besides those already named, there are horses in various
parts of Asia which seem to be endemic in the countries in which
they are found, and to have received no admixture of foreign
blood. Such a race is the squab, strong-, and sure-footed little
horse of Butan, called the Tangan, frequently imported into
Bengal. The small horse of Tibet is another instance. Like
the shawl goat, and all the other animals of the elevated and
dry region which it inhabits, it has a double coat of hair, a
long shaggy outer one, and at the roots of this a fine woolly one
corresponding with that which in the goat is the material of the
Cashmere shawl.

The horses of the plain of Hindustan are of ample height
and considerable activity, but wanting in strength, and above all
in bottom, and very often vicious. It is remarkable that the best
breeds are found towards the south, and especially in Central
India, and the worst towards the East, including Bengal and Orissa.
As no remarkable care in breeding is anywhere bestowed by the Indians,
the superiority of the horses of such countries as Mysore, Cattewar
Gujrat, and Malwa, may be attributable to a peculiar suitableness
of soil and climate, and probably to the introduction, in
remote times, of some portion of Arabian blood. In general, the
Indian horse is what the Irish, and sometimes the Scots, call a
garron, that is a vulgar hack. At all events his inferiority is
declared by the necessity we are ourselves under of going to the
Persian and Arabian gulfs, to the Cape, and to Australia, for a
better. One flagrant misnomer which Europeans apply to the
common Indian horse may be noticed. He is usually known to
them under the appellation of Tazi, meaning jade, and almost
"screw," whereas the word, which is Arabic, properly signifies a
true Arab.

Proceeding south we have the Burmese or Pegu pony, and
among the Islands of the Indian Archipelago, from Sumatra to
Timur, a great variety of races, for every island possessing the
horse has, at least, one race, and the larger several. Among these
the most remarkable is the horse of a certain volcanic island called Sum-
bawa, and more especially of a district of it called Gunung Api, which
literally signifies " fire mountain," or, in other words, " the volcano."
The Sumbawa horse is generally below twelve hands, and its most

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frequent colours grey and bay, occasionally sorrel, but, as with the
Arab, rarely black, and never piebald. It has the legs and the blood-
head of the Arab, its spirit, bottom, good temper, and proportioned to
size, more than its strength. Of these I remember that the late Sir
Stamford Raffles presented a set of four to the Princess Charlotte, which
she drove in Windsor park. With relays of these Insular ponies, I
have myself, as did many others of my contemporaries, ridden 100 miles
an end, at the average rate of ten miles an hour. The weight carried
was full thirteen stone.

The most current name for the horse of the Indian Archipelago is the
corruption of a Sanscrit one, and from this circumstance it might at first
sight be supposed that the animal was introduced from India. For this,
however, there is no foundation, for the Indian name is but a synonyme,
for in the language of Java, where the horse is most numerous and
which is the chief seat of Hinduism, the current name is a native one.
In one of the principal languages of the great island of Celebes, the
horse bears the Javanese name, while in another it is known by the
odd one of the *' buffalo of Java." In Celebes, which contains extensive
grassy plains, and no tigers, the horse is found in the wild state, and
he is hunted with the lasso and reclaimed as in America. From these
facts, we may be disposed to infer that the Javanese, long a civilized
people, taught the people of Celebes — a very rude one, even when first
become known to Europeans — the art of domesticating the horse. It
may be added, in corroboration of this view, that the horse of Celebes
differs materially from that of Java, being larger, stronger, and better
bred.

Proceeding eastward and southward, the horse is found, for the
last time, in Timur and Sandalwood Island, each of which has a
race peculiar to itself. In no island of the North or South Pacific
Ocean was the horse found. Going northward, after quitting Borneo
and Celebes, we find a native horse, for the first time, in the Japanese
Archipelago. This would seem to be a peculiar race, if the horse of
Japan was not imported from the rude countries on the Gulf of Okotsk,
which, considering the state of Japanese navigation, is not very probable.
Here we have no longer the mere ponies of the Indian Archipelago, but
the full-sized horse which old John Adams, a mariner, born and bred in
Wapping, and a mighty favourite of the Emperor of Japan of his day,
writing from the spot in 1613, thus describes: — "Their horses are not
tall, but of the size of our middling nags, short and well trussed, small
headed, and very full of mettle, in my opinion far exceeding the Spanish

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jennet." My friend Mr Oliphant, in his interesting narrative of Lord
Elgin's Mission, confirms this statement, and gives the following
curious account of the manage of a people as numerous as ourselves, and
of whom, for 250 years, we have known nothing but their lacquer- ware
and curious porcelain : — " As Lord Elgin had not yet seen much of the
town, I accompanied him on shore on another tour of exploration. In
the course of our walk we came to a large enclosure, and on entering it
found fifteen or twenty men on horseback, galloping and curvetting
about a considerable area, apparently used as a riding school. This, we
understood, was the constant afternoon amusement of the ' young
bloods' of Nagasaki. They were all men of fortune and family,
princes and nobles of the land, and this was their Rotten row. They
rode fiery little steeds, averaging about fourteen hands in height, and
took a delight in riding full gallop, and pulling up short, after the
favourite manner of Arabs. The saddles were constructed on the same
principle as they are in China, but with less padding. The stirrup-
leathers were short, and the stirrups like huge slippers, made of lacquer.
The bit was powerful, and the reins made of muslin, but strong, notwith-
standing. When we appeared, two or three good-looking young men
pulled up near us, and most good-naturedly pressed them upon us. I
took a short, uncomfortable gallop upon one with a propensity to kick,
and was glad soon to relinqiiish him to his smiling owner. We were
much struck with the gentlemanlike and unconstrained bearing of these
young men, who evidently wished to show us all the civility in their
power."

From all the facts now detailed the great probability seems to be
that in many countries there existed distinct races of the wild horse,
which, in due time, their respective inhabitants reduced to servitude.
Scattered over the greater part of the Old World, and consisting of
widely different varieties, and considering the extremely rude state of the
intercourse, and more especially of maritime intercourse, of the early
nations, most of whom were even ignorant of each other's existence, it is
difficult even to imagine that all the horses of the world were derived
from one single stock. Neither the Hindus or Arabs had carried their
horses to the islands of the Malay Archipelago, although they communi-
cated to them their religions and a very considerable portion of their
languages. The Malays and Javanese did not succeed in conveying
their horses to the islands of the Pacific, although they did a con-
siderable portion of their languages. Close to them was the Philippine
group, and to the inhabitants of this they communicated a considerable

portion of their languages, and even a smack of their religion ; but it
remained to the Spaniards to bestow the horse upon them. The large
and fertile island of Formosa is but eighty miles distant from the popu-
lous coast of China, but the Chinese had never occupied it until
Europeans showed them the way to it only two centuries ago. They
have ever since then occupied it, colonized it, and drawn large resources
from it, but down to this day have not introduced the horse.

Attempts have been often made to trace the first domestication of
the horse to a particular country, but the inquiry seems to me an idle
and unnecessary one. Wherever the horse existed in its wild state it
would very easily be domesticated, and, consequently, in many different
and independent localities. It was not found domesticated in America,
or Australia, or the Isles of the Pacific Ocean, because in these parts of
the world it did not exist in the wild state, and, in a rude state of
society, it could not possibly have been conveyed to them from countries
in which it was indigenous. The case was different with the dog :
it existeil, most probably, in all the countries in question in the wild
state, and was consequently found in the domesticated in all of them.

The era of the first domestication of the horse must have been very
remote indeed, for it required but a very small amount of civilization in
the men who achieved it. This is sufficiently proved by the fact that
some of the rude tribes of America had, within fifty years of the dis-
covery of the New World, domesticated the horse, already become wild,
— and that they have ever since continued to make use of it; and, by so
doing, been able to maintain a rude independence, assuming, in some
degree, the nomadic habits of Arabs and Tartars.

The domestic, but not the wild or the feral horse, is a frequent
subject of representation on the monuments of Egypt, estimated to be
of an antiquity of some forty centuries; but this is very far from
carrying us back to the first domestication of the horse, for when the
Egyptian sculptures and paintings were executed the Egyptians were
in possession of many of the useful arts, and had even invented letters,
— were, in fact, an ancient civilized people, and, for aught we know to
the contrary, the horse may have been domesticated in Egypt four
thousand years before the time in which it was represented on its
monuments. If this reasoning be valid, the probability is that the horse
was just as early domesticated in other parts of the Old World, from
the British islands to Japan, as it was in Egypt.

The first use to which the horse would be put must have depended
on the characters of the people and country in which it w.is domesti-

I

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cated. Riding must have been the first use to which it was put, for
it is not easy to suppose that it would have been tamed and broken in
without having been mounted. The purposes to which it would be
put would be war, travel, and pleasure. It is only in very advanced
periods of society that it is applied to agricultural and other useful
labours. In this it is anticipated or superseded by the ox in most
countries, and by the ox in conjunction with the buffalo in others.
It is only in very advanced periods of society that it is used for
draught, and this chiefly in modern Europe— a matter, however, which
seems to be in some measure determined by the superior size, weight
and strength of the races of this part of the world. Throughout all
Asia, and indeed throughout the whole of Eastern Europe, the horse is
nearly unknown for draught, either in plough or carriage, while with
ourselves it has justly superseded the slow and heavy ox — clear evidence
of a superior intelligence and civilization.

In the ancient monuments of Egypt, the horse is almost always seen
in draught only — a pair drawing a two-wheeled chariot, with a pole, in
the manner of a curricle. A pompous display would seem to have
been the only object. One or two samples only occur of a man on
horseback, and then sitting not astride, but sideways, without bridle or
saddle, and in mere frolic. But in due time the Egyptians had a
cavalry, for when the king of Egypt pursued the Israelites, after their
escape from bondage, he did so with horsemen as well as with chariots,
and this is supposed to have happened about 1500 years before the
birth of Christ. The ancient Britons had their war chariots, while
Gauls, Numidians, and other cotemporaries not more advanced, had
cavalry, but not chariots. Whether cavalry or chariots were used in
war was probably a matter of chance. I may here remark that the
mere capacity to construct a wheel carriage, however rude, is a fact
which shows that in the days of Julius Csesar we were not such arrant
savages as we have been sometimes represented. We had not only the
skill to construct chariots, but even to arm them with iron scythes.
The iron, no doubt, must have been rather scarce, for we used it at the
same time as our only money, and probably valued it as highly as the
Roman conquerors did silver.

So much for the origin of the horse, and I may now offer a brief
comparison of his utility to man in the work of labour, as compared with
that of other domesticated animals, a fuller account of which must, however,
be delayed for another opportunity. The camel, unsuited for draught, is
the beast of burden of the Desert and of dry lands. It is wholly unfit

14

for wet soils, and for countries with periodical rains: in the mud it slips,
flounders, falls, and lacerating the ligaments of the hip-joint, never rises.
It is perhaps the only quadruped that cannot swim. In a civilized
country, with good roads, it would not be maintained at all, and it must be
pronounced to be the beast of burden of the barbarian only. So delicate
is its constitution that in the AfFghan wars it has been estimated that
50,000 of them perished.

The services of the elephant are, at the utmost, limited geographi-
cally to some thirty degrees from the equator, and are indeed unknown,
except in India and the countries between it and China. Even in
India the cold is so little congenial to it that it is only by degrees that
it can be moved northwards with safety. Although preferring the plain
the elephant climbs hills and precipices with a success little to be looked
for from its huge bulk and unwieldy form.

Yet, although the native of a warm climate, Hannibal succeeded
in taking a number across the Alps, a fact which may lead us to
suspect that his passage was an enterprise less arduous than is
generally imagined. Of the number of thirty-seven which he
brought into Italy, one only, however, survived the first battle, for
even in the plain a heavy fall of snow had taken place which
destroyed them. But the elephant, although a floundering and awk-
ward swimmer, is a bold one, and swims across the Ganges and the
Jumna without difficulty. One is therefore surprised to find the diffi-
culty which Hannibal encountered in transporting them over so
comparatively small a stream as the Rhone. The elephants, however,
were African, a distinct species from the Asiatic, and the natives of
a higher latitude and a drier country than the intertropical parts of
India and its neighbourhood, the country of the Asiatic elephant ; and
this may possibly account for their antipathy to the water, and their
capacity to sustain a degree of cold which enabled them to be taken
across the Alps — implying a cold under which the elephants of Chitta-
gong, Burma, Siam, and Ceylon would have quickly perished.

The elephant, naturally a timid and cautious animal, never could
have been of much service in war : had it possessed courage equal to
its bulk and strength, it would, of course, have trodden down whole
battalions. But it is formidable only to the eye, while it is itself a
huge target to be shot at. To ride it for any distance is, at least,
a very severe exercise, for, although it has no other pace than a walk,
the jolting of that walk is equal to that of a carriage without springs
on what the Americans call " a corduroy road." I have never heard

of the elephant being employed for draught except in Ceylon, where
one is yoked to a huge car for hauling materials for the construction of
roads and other public works. In towns, and on frequented highways,
the elephant, from his unwieldy size and uncouth form, becomes a
public nuisance, and it may safely be anticipated that, with good roads,
its use will eventually be discontinued.

The horse is the universal hero of labour, suited for all kinds of
work, and for their performance in every climate. His almost ex-
clusive employment in labour is in itself evidence of a high civilization.
With ourselves, by careful breeding, we have been able to produce
races adapted to every assignable purpose — some that can draw three
times as much as the elephant can carry, and some that are fleeter
than the antelope. He is the only animal that enters the field of battle
with us. He even partakes " the rapture of the strife," and without
him no great decisive battle could be fought, or, in fact, ever has been
fought. "The glory of his nostrils is terrible. He paweth in the
" valley and rejoiceth in his strength, He hurries on to meet the
" armed men, — he mocketh at fear, — he turneth not his back from the
'* sword. The quiver rattleth against him — the glittering spear and the
" shield. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage ; neither
"believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet calling a retreat.
" He saith among the trumpets, ha, ha ! and he sraelleth the battle afar
"off, and heareth the thunder of the captains and the shouting,"
That passage, as you all know, is taken from the Book of Job. I
cannot help thinking that the animal so well described in it, with glory
in his nostril, and pawing with impatience for the charge, must have
been no other than a true Arab. In fact, the scene of the Book of
Job is laid in Edom or Idumea, which is now, and always has been, a
portion of Arabia, although in contact with Syria. The patriarch was
in reality a powerfel Arab sheik, or independent prince, in possession
of sheep, camels, and asses, by thousands ; and the mention of the
sword, and the "glittering spear," implying a knowledge of malleable
iron, shows that his subjects were by no means such barbarians as were
the Mexicans and Peruvians when first seen by Europeans. In the
enumeration of the Patriarch's stock, it will be seen that horses are not
named. Most probably they were rare at the time, and the luxury of
the chieftains, and would no more be named than their wardrobe or
jewellery and trinkets.

You will have observed that in the passage I have quoted from the
Book of Job, I have omitted that part of the description of the horse

16

which makes his neck to be "clothed in thunder." It is now considered
to be a mistranslation, for it appears that the same word signifies in the
Hebrew, " thunder '* and a " horse's mane." The translation ought
to have been "flowing mane." The interjection. "Ha! ha!" too,
appears to be a mistake, for that simply expresses wonder or surprise,
which is by no means consonant with the feeling attributed to the horse
at the moment of action. It ought to have been, " let us advance," or,
*' let us go on." These corrections of our version we owe to M. Ernest
Renan, a distinguished French Orientalist, to whose translation of the
Book of Job my attention was directed by my learned and accomplished
friend the Dean of St Paul's.

A comparison of the powers, for labour, of the different animals
which man has employed to assist him is not only a subject of rational
curiosity, but one that throws a broad light on the condition and
progress of society. These are the dog, the ox, the buflfalo, the horse,
the ass, the elephant, and the llama.

According to Captain Lyon, quoted by Sir John Richardson, an
Esquimaux dog will draw in a sledge a load of 160 pounds, going at
the rate of a mile in nine minutes, or near seven miles an hour. An
English dray-horse will easily draw a ton on a good road, going, however,
at not more than the rate of three miles an hour. In this case, the
draught power of the horse is equal to that of fourteen dogs, while the
pace of the dog is near seven times that of the horse; but the dog
must have ice or frozen snow to travel over. On an ordinary road, he
would probably be over-draughted with a load of twenty-five pounds,
while his speed would hardly equal that of the horse. In this case it
would take ninety dogs to equal one horse, and the cost of keeping them
would be as great as that of keeping four packs of fox-hounds.

In India it has been ascertained that the average burden of an ass
is 100 lbs. ; of a bullock or mule, 200 lbs. ; of a camel, 400 lbs. ; and of
an elephant 800 lbs. One elephant, then, is equal to two camels, to
four bullocks or mules, and to eight asses. The respective merits of
these animals as beasts of burden, cannot however, be measured by
their mere capacity for bearing a load. The first cost of the elephant,
for example, is ten times that of a camel, and his keep costs as much as
that of eight camels. This is, indeed, in some measure, compensated
by the better constitution and higher longevity of the elephant, whose
length of life is full ten times that of the camel — equal, indeed, to that
of man himself; that is, three score and ten, or even four score. Had
his life, I may add, been proportioned to his bulk, it ought to have been

17

a great deal longer, for it has been ascertained that the average weight
of an Indian elephant is equal to that of twenty-four men, each of ten
stones, or to a subaltern and his whole section of light infantry.

In Tibet, but there only, a variety of large sheep is used as a beast
of burden, although it might well be supposed that its own immense
double fleece would be an all-sufficient load for it. In the New World
there was but one beast of burden, the llama, a diminutive species of
camel, by the structure of his foot and by his constitution fit only for
mountain regions. His average load is sixty-five pounds. One camel
of the Old World, then, is equal to six of the New. It will appear, from
the facts now stated, that an English dray-horse, on a good road, will
draw the united burdens of two elephants, one camel, and five oxen.
His power of transport is superior to that of five of the best camels that
Arabia ever produced, and to that of thirty-four of the camels of the
New World.

For riding, the superiority of the horse is equally great. The
elephant, walking his only pace, will travel at the rate of four miles
an hour, but it would distress him greatly to continue it for twenty miles.
It would take him five hours to perform this journey, which the horse
would perform in one hour. Of [the domestic animals the dromedary,
or common camel, is the one that, in speed, approaches the nearest to
the horse, and its pace is probably equal to about one-half that of the
horse. The messenger camel will travel, it is said, one hundred miles
in twenty-four hours ; but an English blood-horse has been known
to perform a journey of double that distance within the same time.
But in the case of the camel, the pace is "a killing" one, not
to the animal, but to the man ; for it is said that the life of the pro-
fessional camel-rider, the Shuter Suwar of the Persians, does not exceed
five years' duration.

But the horse has been at length surpassed, although by no means
superseded — indeed, in no degree even displaced, for it has increased in
number — by a new power. A few years ago, a meritorious operative, a
heaven-born engineer, invented, almost created a machine, which in
speed eclipses Eclipse, and leaves Flying Childers " nowhere," — which
can draw with ease the load of a thousand, or if need were, often thousand
elephants, and which, in one-fourth part of the time, without fatigue to
itself or to the rider, can perform the feat which saved Turpin's neck by
proving an alibi. That machine is now at work in the native country
of the slow camel and slow and ponderous elephant, a creditable
tribute to George Stephenson and the nineteenth century. The son cf

c

18

this tn-in of genius, almost the equal of his father, was lately laid in the
spot which Nelson thoug'ht was equivalent to a dukedom. Perhaps you
will be of opinion that the remains of the father ought in justice to
repose alongside those of the son.

Much has been written on the comparative merits of cavalry and
infantry. In the well organised army of a civilised people, it is enough
to say that both arms are indispensable. It is the infantry, however,
that constitutes the main force. It was the phalanx that carried the
Greeks to the banks of the Indus — the legion that enabled the Romans to
conquer the best part of the known world, and the British battalion that
conquered and reconquered India. But among rude nomadic nations
the cavalry is the main force. It was their cavalry alone that enabled
the Tartan hordes to effect their wide-spread, although but temporary
conquests from China to Europe. It was by it that Jeniz Khan and his
successors conquered all China, and a large portion of Russia. But the
Tartars will never be able again to make such conquests. Gunpowder
has arrested them. The last of their mischievous heroes was Timur,
who flourished at the end of the l4th and beginning of the 15th
century ; so that we have been rid of these pests of civilization for near
500 years.

The civilized nations have, indeed, now turned the tables on the
Tartars, and the only people in proximity to them, the Russians, have made
extensive territorial conquests over them. A Tartar cavalry, however,
still exists, confined to Russia and China. These are the celebrated
Cossacks, and with the first of these powers they have proved useful, not?
indeed, in fair fighting, but in harassing'an enemy, by cutting off supplies
and stragglers, and completing a rout. They are a light cavalry, meanly
mounted and meanly equipped. In a disorderly retreat it becomes
formidable. In his retreat from Moscow, Napoleon, in his famous
bulletin describing it, said, "Even the Cossacks, that contemptible
cavalry, which under ordinary circumstances could not have penetrated
a company of voltigeurs, became formidable." It is an inferior
description of this cavalry that the allied French and English army will
have to meet on the plains of Pecheli, should they attempt a march of 100
miles on the Chinese capital, for that is the distance from the coast to
Pekin.

The wild American tribes of the Pampas, Llanos, and Prairies are all
mounted. The chief force of the northern nations who conquered India,
and held it in obedience from the eleventh to the eighteenth century,
consisted of cavalry ; and it was by its cavalry that the Mahratlas, one

19

of the rudest nations of India, effected conquests whicli extended from
Delhi to Calcutta and to Bombay, 1,000 miles east and south. In the
middle ages of European history, cavalry was the principal force, and the
infantry little better than a hastily levied rabble. Fire-arms restored
the infantry to its just position, and at present, what with rifled small-arms
and rifled cannons, to say nothing of Armstrong and Whitvvorth guns,
which would mow down a cavalry when it was only visible with a spy-
glass, an unsupporred cavalry would be annihilated During the
battle which my valued friend Lord Clyde fousj;ht with the rebels at
Cawnpore, the scene of the too-famous massacre, a Serjeant's party of
rifles was in skirmishing order in advance, when a body of Indian
cavalry, seeing them scattered, came down to cut them up individually ;
the Serjeant ordered the bugle to be sounded, the men formed, and by a
cool, well-directed fire quickly emptied many a saddle. The horsemen
fell, said an amateur, like an undermined wall. In an Indian
battle, known under the name of that of Luswari, fought in 1803,
the English cavalry, headed by the commander-in-chief, a brave
old man of sixty-five — the future Lord Lake — charged a Mahratta
infantry protected by seventy-five pieces of artillery, and was
defea|ed with heavy loss, but the infantry coming up, routed the
Mahratta infantry and captured the guns. The infantry that did
this consisted chiefly of one regiment, her Majesty's 76th.

One of the first occasions in modern war that cavalry and infantry
were fairly opposed to each other occurred in 1704. Charles the Twelfth,
in his victorious career of conquest in Poland, which he himself compared
to a hunting party, was in pursuit of a Saxon corps of infantry comt
manded by the celebrated Marshal Schulemburgh, the same man tha-
had defended Corfu against the Turks, and, for that act, the Republic
of Venice erected a statue to him. Schulemburgh received the
charge of the veteran Swedish cavalry in three lines, the front rank
kneeling, and defeated it : he then retreated in hollow square, pursued
by the Swedes, under the King — passed through a wood, forded a small
river first, and in the course of the night, by boats, crossed the broad
Oder. Charles, who expected in the morning to compel him to surrender
at discretion, saw him safe and inaccessible on the opposite bank of the
river. It was the Swedish hero's first check, and he exclaimed with
generosity, " Schulemburgh has defeated me to-day." It is Voltaire
that tells the story, in a book as pleasant as any romance, and perhaps
in some degree partaking of one.

You will observe that the Saxon infantry was drawn up in three

20

ranks, and so lias infantry been in all the armies of Europe ever since,
except our own for the last forty-five years. It was the Duke of
Wellington who first thought two enough, being of opinion that British
pluck would supply the place of the third, and the anticipation has
proved true. With the same force we present the same extent of front
with one-third fewer men, or we make, in other words, two Englishmen
to do the same service as three Frenchmen, Germans, or Russians.
The fine heavy cuirassiers of Napoleon, at Waterloo, repeatedly charged
the squares of British infantry without making any serious impression
on them. An officer of engineers, still living, told me that he was in
one of these squares when assailed, and that one trooper only broke
through the line, his horse being shot in the act, and himself dismounted
and made prisoner. When the Russian cavalry attempted a charge
at the corps of Lord Clyde, at Balaklava, he told me himself that he did
not think it worth while to form square, and only three back a wing of
his single regiment to receive them. The Highlanders gave them a
volley and they sheered off.

As to the best national cavalry, it ought to be that of the people who
have the best horses, the best riders, and who can best afford to main-
tain it. We are that people ourselves, and all that seems necessary to
insure it is adequate discipline and riddance of military coxcombry in
dress, arms, and equipment. Our heavy cavalry overthrew that of the
Russians in the Crimea on the Russians' own chosen ground, but our
light cavalry was sorely punished when on the same field it madly
attacked infantry and artillery.

Between the equipment of ancient and modern cavalry, thus exists
one striking difference worth notice. The ancients were ignorant of the
stirrup. There is no name for it in classic Greek or Latin, in
Sanskrit or in native Persian. There is, however, in Arabic, and this
may lead to the belief that the Arabs were its inventors. In European
record there is, indeed, no authentic account of the use of the stirrup
before the seventh century, corresponding with the first of the
Mahomedan era. At present there exists no people from " China to
Peru " without it, and we find it difficult to understand how a trooper
would maintain a firm seat and make an effective use of sword or
lance in its absence. The bridle, of course, was always used, and
the celebrated Cuvier insists that our dominion over the horse depends
on the toothless space for the insertion of the bit between the molar
and canine teeth.

But you may desire to know the extent of the evils which a barbarous

21

cavalry inflicts in its ferocious invasions, sucli evils, on an enormous
scale, as were inflicted by such heroes as Attila, Jengis, and Timur.
You have it from a great orator when Burke describes the invasion
of the plain of the Carnatic from the plateau of Mysore, about
ninety years ago. " When ai length," said the orator, •* Hyder
Ali found he had to do with men who would either sign no
convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who
were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to
make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestined
criminals a memorable example to mankind. He resolved, in the
gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole
Carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance and to put perpetual
desolation as a barrier between him and those against whom the faith
which holds the moral elements of the world together was no protection.
He became, at length, so confident of his force, so collected in his might,
that he made no secret whatever of his dreadful resolution. Having ter-
minated his disputes with every enemy and every rival who buried their
mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of
the Nabob of Arcut, he drew from every quarter whatever a savage
ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction ; and
compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation into one
black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains.
Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on
this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly
burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the
Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no age had
seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All
the horrors of war before known or heard of were mercy to that new
havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every
house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from
their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered ; others, without regard
to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness of function, fathers
torn from children, husbands torn from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind
of cavalry and amidst the goading spears of drivers and the trampling of
pursuing horses, were swept into captivity in an unknown and hostile
land. Those who were enabled to evade the tempest fled to the walled
cities. But escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws
of famine."

That is a sample of the oration which Pitt and Dundas, issuing from
Downing street with more London particular Madeira than they could

22

conveniently carry, hesitated whether it was worth their while to go and
listen to.

I have now but a few words to add on the supply of the English
breed of horses for cavalry purposes. The English horse, like the English-
man himself, is a thorough mongrel, and as the horse has, beyond all
question, improved by crossing, we may safely conclude that the being
has suffered no detriment by it that has produced a Shakespear and a
Milton, a Chatham and a Burke, a Watt and a Stephenson, a Marlborough
and a Wellington, a Blake and a Nelson, and which will assuredly
produce their equals whenever their country shall have need of their
service.

We, who formerly imported all our best horses, are now the only
people who export good ones, and we supply all nations that have
sense and ability to buy. I have looked at our export of horses for the
last year, for which the public accounts are made up, and find the number
exported to have been 1,574, and their custom-house value to have been
117,422Z. France had out of these 755, and Belgium and Germany 611.
I suspect that the officers of Her Majesty's Customs are not good
judges of horse-flesh, for the valuation of those furnished to
France was short of 50,000Z„ or at the average of 661. a head, which is
much too low a valuation, for I have every reason to believe that one of
the horses exported was " The Flying Dutchman " (of whom it never
could be said that, like his namesake, "he was nowhere"), which was
sold to the French for the sum of 5,0001. It is certain that we have
turned the tables on the French since the time of Charles II, when a
Frenchman was the master of His Majesty's riding-school, and pro-
nounced by old Evelyn to be the first judge of a horse in Europe.

Wherever the Anglo-Saxon race has settled, the improved English
horse has been introduced, and, wherever climate and pasture have been
favourable, with success. India, which has most need of the cavalry
horse, is not one in which the introduction of the English horse has been
most successful. A great and expensive stud has existed in Bengal for
sixty years, without ever having been equal to furnish even a sufficient
supply for the European cavalry of that government. The stud of Madras,
situated on the table-land of Mysore, is upon a far more rational and
economical scale than that of Bengal, consisting only of Arab sires.
The grasses of India are neither abundant nor nutritious; the plain
proof of which is that the flesh of no mere grass-fed animal is fit for
the table, that of the stall-fed animals alone being so. But even were
the conditions more favourable for breeding than they are in India, studs

23

are not among the establishments which it is within the legitimate
province of any government to maintain.

After the United States of America, which in breeding the English
horse stands next to England itself, the most eminent success has
attended its rearing in the Cape of Good Hope and Australia. The
Cape farmer, who used to drive his produce to market at a snail's pace,
with a team of sixteen oxen, now does it, at a smart trot, with eight
English-bred horses— a royal team ; in all likelihood, better cattle than
those which conveyed Charles II in state (some lovely Thais by his
side) from Whitehall to the City. The success has been still greater
in Australia, where the pastures are more spacious, and the grasses
more nutritious. In the course of the year 1858, the Australian
colonies furnished for the Indian Cavalry 2,563 horses, at the average
price, on the spot, of 301. a head, and, when landed in India, at from
80Z. to 90/. ; being a smaller price for a better horse than that supplied
bv the Government stud.

Here, then, we find a country which, seventy years ago, had not
only no horse, but no native animal more respectable than a kangaroo, the
brain of which the great naturalist, Mr Owen, tells us, is of no higher
order than that of a reptile, exporting more horses than England itself,
and adding their value to five millions' worth of sheep's wool, and
ten millions' worth of gold. Two generations ago its population
consisted of a few savages, the very lowest in the scale of humanity, and
now its inhabitants are Anglo-Saxons, amounting to near a million. A
century hence, this continent of the Antipodes will contain more people
than does now the United Kingdom ; and unless they differ greatly from
their progenitors, they will be meditating the conquest of the whole
Indian and Philippine Archipelagos, giving law to China and Japan
and quarrelling with New Zealand — by this time as crowded with
free and ambitious Anglo-Saxons as itself.

C. W. KHTNHLL, UTTLE POI,TBNET STBEBT, HAYMARKET.

L

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