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RIDERS OF MANY LANDS

BY

THEODORE AYRAULT DODGE

BREVET LIEUTENANT-COLONEL U.S. ARMY
AUTHOR OF

‘““THE CAMPAIGN OF CHANCELLORSVILLE”’ ‘‘A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF OUR CIVIL WAR”’
‘“PATROCLUS AND PENELOPE, A CHAT IN THE SADDLE”? ‘‘GREAT CAPTAINS”’
“CALEXANDER”’ ‘“HANNIBAL’? ‘‘CAISAR’? ETC., ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

WITH NUMEROUS DRAWINGS BY FREDERIC REMINGTON
AND
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF ORIENTAL SUBJECTS

NEW YORK
TARE ER & BROTHERS PUBLTSIZERS

1894

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All rights reserved.

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PREFACE

Tue following pages, which ought, perhaps, to be entitled “A
Globe-trotter’s Pot au Feu of Horse-flesh, with a Seasoning of
Chestnuts,” recali to the author’s mind the story of the old Yan-
kee who, in default of other books, read Webster’s Unabridged
through from beginning to end, and then remarked that it was
mighty interesting reading, especially the pictures, but it didn’t
seem to have much plot. May the author ask for the gentle
reader’s patience ‘if he finds the same lack of sequence between
these covers ?

And yet there is a motif running through them, which the good
American horse-lover will not find it hard to follow.

Brooking, Mass., 1893.

Lbs t kh ATTONS

PAGE
AMERICAN POLO-PLAYERS ROE. Chom a Ls Thy MARI ia. 1 5) hep BRENT RRO ILEUS 1ECE,
Fae GOMINDEN a HUMPRUNG crewing. Wat ssh mois Fol niey aco Nee) y Be tae meet Wiebe Gee wink be
BANATHONARUBE IDE RG pre cut eae Sao yok MRT: ee St AIR ae irekytie okies 3
OUDHGALEICROAD DICH tse wry ie Cad -cth ute etree a ne he hk) che 8
AN OLD-TIME NORTHERN PLAINS INDIAN-——-THE COUP. . ..... ... 15
SORE EOL AGN X AND MRE RWaviVSTPPUS oy 520. <pfccak ees syle on les) wots ban eee SRD
POMEL VE DE AEP MIE ia) eee Pe hag ewe Ney nay Ae eh ak cy, Reba ES Oe EW ot Teal eres
NMUNEIRANG TRAPP BR Gt |. ohcr re cy kak ee Le > Fey GES a aT
ETE MUTESAGVEMLUXOMEON? oto ety BG ar ay SSeS Ma etme ay age a eames ae em ae A
PEN COMMING NMG Eby ase amet. ao Licnyatcn wads Satie kae NV oe) i SORE fe, poe Ue LO en eae
ORE ACHE TINIAN ogni nea hy Sik on Sashes hi Se lade iT
GMEDH DRS TANS CA WAT BYAMLAIN @:% 10 00a, his vn eichetiel bet SS al dol oben to als, bas SOME
ENO DAN SCOUT “WITH, LOST -TROOP-HORSE.. <<. 30% J-5 | een Soe ey or
GUUAT ENN MOUNTED Y PORTO sen! 8 RAT a, eee Te oh hy Ng peat etm tas ae ey
GCOMEOYMLIGHTING) THE IVANGE WERE @)o" So abv. tyes i) cae Rae ig oe EOS:
IanGNDLAN: METHOD: OF BREAKING A PONY 9... (28 ts alot aloe Are SS
AMIEPMICAN SV MOUEROM = 2) Say Sete al A te Or aRRCAe pee Sous ae Pala lS
GENTLEMAN RIDER ON THE PASEO DE LA REFORMA ... ... . . . 188
AY SOWPHERNG RIDER <5 Toe co a RO Be et eel c5
PARENTING NUMIN =" G3 he or ee eG os 1 Ue 28 OE eee tee eel oT
GUNTLEMAN: RIDER IN CHNTRAL PARK. fy UGS Pye > save ao isees Seo
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S TYPICAL SADDLE-HORSE . 2. 40). 0) 2a Va els OF
TOC Ce re ha een, eR ee aimee Ns pete Meme CieAE SLY)
HID SPANISH WEST Ree sty Loe as eke Cn (era e ieee at endl Seay hae wet ten oT OIL
GBRIOMN Soe rae a6 ar SON. 9 ot Sem Ae). | oman tema st MgO RA CHRD
CROEIDAD UE ohn tne oo | iady oak RS pich ee ulin OMEN TS he ee Oh ee 1) oi LOD
SERN Gy LOST) (os ee Ghee jd, lee ee ave ety apareeky Veen etal TRE Sak St Rete ae ie | DID
EDEN Ve ONDE TO Ota ieee Mae acy Ny We ae! ony Sine rai, Soe thts ites gatas Vd COD
BRUNCH ALGERTAN CAVALRYMAN JON. BARB (<4 4024 Se de a) Sc ay oe 22d
CAVAREY LEAPING -DBIEEMIN (ALGERIA 9 267-4 adie Bie atu we yy» 220

AGSE MMe AND WEIS” BARB CANGIREA\. 2 2/4 iar aay.) Wate e dy wade) Gye, ale hy BO

4

vill ILLUSTRATIONS

REMOUNT BARB FOR ALGERIAN CAVALRY .

SPAHI RACKING ALONG THE ROAD.

SPAHI, EQUIPPED FOR ‘“‘FANTASIYA,’’ MAKING HIS HORSE REAR
COUNTRYMAN ON AN ASS

BICHARI CAMEL-RIDERS, UPPER EGYPT

READY FOR THE ‘“‘FANTASIYA”’.

‘““FANTASIYA”” RIDERS, ALGERIA

TUNISIAN HAT

MY FRIEND “THE <GADIPED i) (4) ov wns ccs

TUNISIAN WITH TWO-YEAR-OLD BARB

A TUNISIAN SHEIK.

ARABIAN POLO-PONIES, CAIRO

ENGLISH OFFICER ON ARABIAN, CAIRO

SAIS HOLDING ARABIAN, CAIRO.

EGYPTIAN WOMAN’S STYLE

TIRED DONKEVSBOY y.Uynch gee veem ise ra uee
WELL-BRED SADDLE-ASS, CAIRO. . . - .
CAMEL-RIDERS ON THE DESERT .

AN ARABIAN (SURED « huis gon ge) aes ree ab eens
BEDOUIN ESCORT FROM JERUSALEM TO JERICHO

RICH BEDOUIN SHEIK .

SYRIAN WOMAN ON AN ASS

POOR BEDOUINS OF MOAB

PALANQUIN CAMB 2) QS 0h ile ferme ae ie
TWO-CAMEL PALANQUIN

A HUNGARIAN THOROUGH-BRED .

ONE OF THE SULTAN’S RIDING-HORSES

AN OLD ARABIAN FROM THE SULTAN’S STABLE

OLD ARAB OF THE SULTAN’S STABLE ON ARABIAN
MODERN GREEK COSTUME

COSSACK OF THE GUARD—FIELD TRIM

KING OF NEPAUL

MANIPURI POLO-PONY .

CHINESE MANDARIN, sos! 4, dee.) Bo sae ee
MONGOLIAN HORSEMAN . . .

HAWAITAN BULLOGK-BIDERS 000 %e' Us ues ee ae
HAW ASIAN “AMAZON RIDER, jr Re Seg han eee eee

i

We Americans are a many-sided people, and our eques-
trianism partakes of our many-sidedness. The greatest
variety of riders which any one people has produced has
thriven on the continent of North America. Going back
to include the days, still in the memory of old men living,
when the Indians who dwelt farthest from civilization
were armed with bow and arrow, tomahawk and lance,
and rode without a saddle, we can count within the boun-
daries of the Union almost every type of rider, from those
who subdued. the steed in the era which produced the frieze
of the Parthenon to the Sunday rider of the present year
of grace. As a matter of pure skill, as well as artistically
speaking, the first-named, or bareback rider, stands in every
age at the head of all equestrians, while the latter is a
proper object-lesson of what to avoid; but, imasmuch as
for practical work the saddle gives a distinct superiority
in many ways, we can scarcely compare the bareback
horseman with the modern rider, be he good, bad, or in-
different.

When we speak of bareback riding, we do not refer to
the country bumpkin, a species indigenous to every soil,
and most aptly illustrated in Rosa Bonheur’s “ Horse Fair.”
Especially where horses trot is this bareback horror at his
worst. Leaning back, holding for dear life to the reins
which give him a good half of his security, with elbows
in air, or marking time to the horse’s steps, and with a
general appearance of a set purpose to contend with the

1

‘*4 COUNTRY BUMPKIN ”

impossible to the end of the chapter, this rider is the very
pattern of how not to do it. Take the rider on the big
gray in the “ Horse Fair,” and compare him with one of the
riders in the Panathenaic procession! How can two men
doing the same thing be so at odds? And yet each would
cast a slur at the other’s horsemanship.

Qui sexcuse s accuse, and I do not wish to offer an apol-
ogy for what, in the following pages, may often on the
surface appear to be dogmatic. I hope that my brothers
in horsemanship will absolve me from narrowness—in all
things easily the first of vices. I have put a girdle round
the earth; I have ridden with all kinds and conditions of
men, from Mexican vaquero to Arab sheik; I have thrown
my leg across every species of mount, from a bronco to a

ARTISTIC RIDING 3

bridle-bullock ; I have discussed horse-lore in the great
manéeges of Europe and on the Syrian desert, and I equally
love to ride my pet horse and my hobby. You may dis-
agree with me, my brother rider, but let us argue together.
I will say my say now, and then you shall have your turn.
I shall expect to learn much from you.

No intelligent horseman ever claims for his own method
the a and » of equitation. It is an axiom among all
men who are not hide-bound by prejudice that the method
of riding, and the bit and saddle which are best adapted
to the animal to be ridden, to the needs of the work to be
done, and to the climate, will, barring poverty of resources,
be the ones to grow into use among all peoples and every
class. This fact is well illustrated by the two almost

PANATHENAIC RIDER

4 DIFFERENT STYLES

extreme seats of the cowboy and the fox-hunter. The
cowboy has to be astride his ponies from a dozen hours
upwards every day, ropes steers, or drags out mired cows ;
has to stick to his saddle under the most abnormal con-
ditions, and must if need be have both his hands at liberty.
He rides with a short tree, horn pommel, and high cantle.
He laughs at any other rig. The fox-hunter has nothing
to do but to keep his seat; he has no occupation for his
hands except by the play of the bits to get the very best
performance out of his horse—a delicate enough operation
by-the-bye, and not to be quickly acquired—and needs a

~ saddle on which he can not only sit safely and comforta-

bly over difficult obstacles, but which is convenient to fall
out of if a horse comes down, and will prove the least dan-
gerous should his horse come atop of him. He rides the
flattest thing known except a pad. The very best author-
ity obtainable—those men, to wit, who have done duty as
cowboys, and have ridden to hounds as well (and many
of us know from personal friendship that a man may be
equally distinguished on the ranch, with the Meadow
Brooks, and in politics and letters, too)—unite in pronounc-
ing each saddle to be as closely adapted to the needs of
each rider as it can be made. Long use will extract what
is good from every style. Even the Arab, who would
laugh to scorn the long stirrups of the cowboy, or the per-
sistent road-trot of the fox-hunter, rides in a fashion which
to us seems at first blush inexplicable, but which, when
one has long dwelt among them, is found to be by no
means ill-adapted to his needs. His entire rig suits the
Arabian he rides vastly better than a flat English saddle
would do, which latter, indeed, he deems the product of
the always more or less insane Frank.

Leaving out the soldier, who is the lineal descendant of
the knight in armor, with seat and saddle modified by his

THE BEST RIDER? 5

more modern weapons and equipment, and who is every-
where—barring some national traits—substantially the
same, the home of the short seat and long stirrup is the
Occident, that of the long seat and short stirrup the
Orient; and these are varied in every locality to suit its
own peculiarities, inherited or acquired. There are a few
exceptions to this rule, but they only serve to prove it.
Midway comes the Englishman, with his numerous civil-
ized imitators, whose seat is a compromise between the
long and the short. All other styles approach more or
less to these, and each has, among the prejudiced, its un-
compromising advocates. But whatever seat may be be-
lieved by its partisans to be the best, there are, after all
said, so many unsurpassed riders who break every com-
mandment in the civilized decalogue of equitation that
we cannot even ask “ Who is the best rider?’ but only
“What is the best form for the peculiar wants of each of
us, or of our climate, roads, and horses ?’

II

XzENopuHON, Whose work on horsemanship is the earliest
which has been preserved to us, gives to some of our eques-
trians a commendable example by praising Simo, who had
preceded him, and perhaps cut him out, in writing a horse-
book. ‘ We shall expect,” says he, “to acquire additional
credit, since he who was skilled in horses has the same
notions with us.” It is everywhere a good deal the fash-
ion, and in some places a matter of faith, to claim that
some particular brand of horsemen, as of cigars or whis-
key, is the best; or, rather, that there can be no other
really perfect brand. But thisis a provincial trick. Whoso,
like Odysseus, has seen men and cities, knows that there
are everywhere equally good liquor, tobacco, and riders.

By-the-way, the author as well as the genius of the
Anabasis was one of the most thorough of horsemen. Let
me commend his “ Horse Book” to your reading. You
will find in fifty pages more horse sense than, I fear, there
may be found between even these covers. And it serves
to prove that man and horse have not much varied through
the many centuries since this Yankee of a Greek marched
through trials to the sea. 7

Apart from geological evidences, in which we riders of
to-day are not as deeply interested as we might be, the
Orient was the original home of horsemen, and war was
the early training-school of the horse. Though this most
useful of quadrupeds appears first in history and monu-
mental record as a beast of burden, and though riding

THE HORSE IN WAR "

must be assumed to have preceded driving, there is evi-
dence to show that chariots in great numbers were em-
ployed in war before cavalry came into common use. In
the first home of the horse, his utility was all but limited
to war; camels were the freight-carriers on a large, asses
on a small, scale; bullocks were as much a usual means
of passenger transportation as camels ; and they were no
doubt then, as now in parts of the Orient, steady and
rapid travellers. No one who has not seen the trotting
bullock has any idea of how fine a driver he is; as well
bred as a racer, as quiet as the traditional (not the actual)
lamb, he will go his forty miles in seven or eight hours
to your entire satisfaction. But the bullock was of no
use in war. He was lacking in character as much as his
brother the bull was ungovernable. The utility of the
horse as an adjunct to armed man soon impressed itself
on his owner. The higher the warrior could tower above
the common herd of soldiery, the more terrible his aspect,
and the deadlier his aim with lance and arrow. To fight
from above downward was always the desideratum in
the days of short-carry jactile weapons; and from this
ambition came the steed’s early appearance in battle. But
to debase him to the purposes of pleasure was, for many
generations after he became an every-day matter, never
dreamed of. He was altogether too noble an animal; and
we can well imagine that he impressed himself upon the
ancients withthe same force he exerts on us.

We find the very best of cavalry in ancient times. The
Greeks ran against a very serious problem in the Persian
light horse when they first trod the soil of Asia Minor.
While the best infantry in existence, they in nowise com-
pared as horsemen with the Asiatics until Alexander’s
Companion Cavalry showed them what good material and
intelligent drill would do. But Alexander's methods were

8 SADDLES

forgotten, and the Greek and Roman cavalry for centu-
ries after his day remained less apt than that of their
barbarian neighbors. It was Philip of Macedon who had
first utilized the excellent little chunk of the Thessalian
plains, and organized the Companion Cavalry, which his
splendid son so divinely led, and which, to judge from its
manoeuvres and fighting, must have consisted of the most
admirable horsemen. The ancients all rode without sad-
dle or stirrups, on a blanket, or on a pad, or bareback,
and in spite of this fact, or perhaps by reason of it,
rode extremely well.

The origin and era of the first saddles is hard to trace.
Some authorities strive to prove the existence of a saddle-

tree several centuries before the Christian era. The an-
cient Gauls unquestionably used a tree. This is shown
by some small terra-cotta figures found in France, dating
back to the early centuries of our era. But we know that
the Greeks did not habitually use a saddle.

It is wonderful what feats of military horsemanship the
bareback rider could perform in the age of what we might
call gymnastic equestrianism. Nothing but the personal
knowledge of what our old-time Indian could do enables
us to credit the historical accounts of the Greek’s agility
and skill. They were simply wonderful. The weapons
he carried, his heavy armor, his baggage, all appear to

THE KNIGHT IN ARMOR )

handicap him beyond possibility of marching or fighting
bareback; and yet we know that Alexander covered an
extraordinary distance in his pursuit of Darius; and Ar-

rian tells us enough to determine beyond a peradventure

that no cavalry has ever been fought aw fond as were the
Companions under the son of Philip at the Hydaspes.
But this was owing primarily to the Achillean fury of
Alexander.

When, after the lapse of centuries, saddles came into
common use, there grew up two schools of riding—that
of the mailed warrior, whose iron armor well chimed in
with his “tongs on a wall” seat in his peaked saddle, and
that of the Oriental, whose nose and knees all but touched.
The former was not what we really call a horseman; he
was a mere man on horseback. That some of them were
noble-looking specimens is vouched for by, say, the statue
of Bartolomeo Colleoni, in Venice, easily best of eques-
trian figures, and surely a splendid ideal in many ways.
But the horse was more of a lumbering vehicle than a
saddle-beast, a species of conveyance—a gun-carriage, so
to speak—for the bulky man of iron, who could no more
walk than ride, and when unhorsed was as useless as a
dismounted gun. Why the Eastern rider, who is at the
other end of the category, and really a horseman, should
cling to his extremely short leathers it is hard to say, un-
less it be from the same ancient motive—to place him
the higher above his horse, and therefore make him the
more imposing when he stands up in his stirrups to bran-
dish scimitar or matchlock. Yet he is a wonderful rider,
this same Oriental; as we shall see when we reach his
habitat ; and so indeed is every man, whatever his style,
who from youth up is the companion of the horse. This
peculiar type—to come back to our original statement—
does not exist in North America, though some of our Ind-

a

10 AMERICAN VARIETY

ians ride with very short stirrups, and in a manner in
some points not unlike the Arab of to-day. But every
other style of equitation is found either among our abo-
rigines, or in the thickly populated sections of our con-
tinent.

Il

Tue bareback rider was common among the plains
Indians of forty years ago. Beyond trappings for mere
show, the noble red man’s pony was as naked as he. The
bareback seat ought in theory to be alike in all ages, va-
ried slightly only by the conformation of man and beast—
the slimmer the horse’s barrel, or the longer the man’s
legs, the straighter the seat. We are wont to ascribe vari-
ations from it to the use of saddles. This seat, in addi-
tion to giving the balancing trick, is supposed to train a
man to grip his horse from breech to knee, and, unless
when making unusual exertions which require all the grip
a man has at command, to allow his leg from the knee
down to hang more or less perpendicularly. It is at all
events distinctly the model from which to start. The less
the variation from it the better the results. And although
many horsemen who wander furthest from this seat achieve
singular success in equitation, the model, nevertheless, re-
mains the best. This is a maxim in every school in Eu-
rope or America. Variations from the bareback seat are
the result of peculiar habits or requirements.

This is only theorizing, you may say. True, but the
best practice comes from following out good theory, how-
ever often practice alone may produce individual success.
A man or a horse, or both combined, may accomplish as-
tounding results in the wrong way; but the same skill,
patience, and labor, properly directed, would have accom-
plished more. “ Practice makes perfect,” runs the old

12 BAREBACK RIDING .

saw, but the word “ perfect” has a limited meaning. To be
perfect in doing a thing incorrectly is a misapplication
of endeavor, the more so if the thing done is per se useful.

The average bareback rider of civilization is far from
perfect. He pulls on his horse’s mouth for dear life. If
he quits his hold of the bridle or halter rope he is gone. He
is, if any man, the typical three-legged rider—the very
exemplar of what is vicious in the art. Good bareback
riding, on the other hand, is one of the finest of perform-
ances. Did you ever try it? It is all very well so long
as you have a bridle and a good tough mouth to hold on
by; but drop your bridle, fold your arms, and see what
happens. If your horse knows you and you him, or if
you have been there before, well and good; but with a
green beast, even if kind, you will find yourself all at sea ;
and should you happen to have caught a Tartar, you will
be sent to Coventry in short measure, to be a trifle mixed
in metaphor.

Now the old-time Indian did just what you find so diffi-
cult. He needed both hands for other things than hold- —
ing on. When hunting, he must use his bow and arrow ;
on the war-path still less could he spare a hand to his
horse. He was a consummate rider, who, despite what
we call defects in style, could outdo in his way any rider
who exists to-day. There are, of course, many things
which only a man in a saddle can undertake; but that
by no means makes him the better rider. We must yield
the palm to the bareback seat.

What we have said of our old-time Indian applies with
equal force to the cavalryman of antiquity. Livy aptly
divides cavalry into “those with and those without the
bridle,” meaning regular and irregular horse. The former
were the heavy horsemen. The latter guided their horses
with voice or legs, or with a slender rod. “The Numid-

EQUINE: INTELLIGENCE 13

ians, a nation ignorant of the rein, whose horses the wand,
sportively waved over their ear, directs with not less ef-
fect than the bit,” sings Silius Italicus, in a key which
yields us a pretty bit of information. To those who
have never ridden in the ranks it would seem as if horses
could not be managed without bit and rein; but, in truth,
if left to themselves and well trained, cavalry horses de-
velop an intelligence unmatched in any other pursuit, and
an ability to act together in the right direction which is
marvellous. How many victories are due to this equine
instinct only the beau sabreur can know.

IV

We have from all sources accurate and consistent ac-
counts of the extraordinary riding of sthe old savage.
Catlin and Parkman and Dodge depict him fully. A
piece of buffalo-robe girthed with a rope over the pony’s
back stood in lieu of saddle, if even so much was used; a
cord of twisted hair lashed round its lower jaw served
both for bit and bridle. When hunting, in fact as a rule,
the Indian wore naught but a breech-cloth and moccasins
—not to lay stress on paint and feathers—and carried a
buffalo-skin, which he threw around his shoulders or let
fall from about his waist. He was often a splendid speci-
men of manly strength and activity—this old-time Indian.
“ ByG ,a Mohawk!” exclaimed Benjamin West, when
he first beheld the Apollo Belvedere. A heavy whip with
elk-horn handle and knotted bull’s-hide lash hung by a
loop to the Indian’s wrist. His bow and arrows gave full
occupation to his hands ; he was forced to guide his pony
with legs and word alone, and to rely on its intelligence
and the training he had given it to do the right thing at
the right moment. Thus slenderly equipped, this superb
rider dashed into the midst of a herd of buffaloes—a seeth-
ing, tearing, volcanic mass of motion, of which no one
who has not seen it can conceive an idea; but so quick
was the pony and so strong the seat of his master, that,
despite the stampede of the terror-stricken herd and the
charges of the enraged and wounded bulls, few accidents
ever occurred. The Indian on horseback has ninety lives,

dNoo HWILL—NVIGNI SNIVId NUHHLUMON ANIL-Gd1O NV

= gp §g§:— EX ae

INDIAN TRAINING Lf

not nine. His riding is not an art, it is nature. The cow-
boy has a task to tax a stoutest when he rides into a
stampeded herd of cattle but the cowboy has saddle and
bridle-arm, the Indian Had neither.

The Indian has never developed a system of training
his ponies. Each man taught his own to suit himself, and
except under imitation of some chief who had exceptional
success in training his ponies, or a certain trick perhaps
shown by father to son and thus perpetuated, there was
none but individual knack in his horsemanship. The
plains pony was quickly taught after a rough-and-ready
fashion, more by cruelty than kindness; in a manner, in
fact, as different from the system of the Arab as the fine
shape of the horse of the desert as we sée him in pictures
differs from the rugged outline of the bronco as we see
him in reality. All horses are more intelligent than man
supposes; those most with men, or on which man most
depends, most readily respond to training; and the Ind-
ian and his pony were every day and all day comrades.
Before the Indian could trade for or steal a bit, he always
used the jaw-rope—or nothing. With the rope in the left
hand, he bore against the neck to turn to one side, and
gave a pull to turn to the other; or else he shifted his
pony’s croup by a more or less vigorous kick with either
heel. When both his hands were busy, he relied entirely
upon his legs and the pony’s knowledge of the business
in hand; but as every Indian digs his heels into the horse’s
flanks and lashes him with the quirt at every stride, it is
hard to see how the pony caught on to his meaning. The
more credit to the quadruped.

This method of the Indian is nothing new. You find
the same thing among all tribes on whose territory the
horse is indigenous. Historically we know that the Nu-
midians, several centuries before the Christian era, had

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18 INDIAN FEATS

the same success with their steppes ponies; that the Par-
thians, long before the Greeks came in contact with them,
were riders of equal merit. To-day all natives of those
lands where the horse is bred are practically what our Ind-
ian was, with whatever differences their respective na-
tional traits may have developed.

The riding feats of the Indian of to-day, sual as shoot-
ing, casting the lasso, or picking objects off the ground
at a gallop, or hanging to one side of his horse, concealed
all but an arm and leg, while he shoots at his enemy from
behind the running rampart, were equally performed by
his bareback ancestor. The latter was wont to braid his
mustang’s mane into a long loop through which he could
thrust his arm to preserve his balance, but he had not the
advantage of the cantle to hold to by his leg’ The only
representative of such cleverness to-day is to be found in
the sawdust arena; not many decades ago, every third
Indian could have given odds to the best of circus per-
formers. The old bareback Indian rider has disappeared ;
it needed but a short contact with civilization to show
him the manifest advantages of bit and saddle. As the
old men died off, the young bucks took to the tricks of
the white man, quite as much from fashion as from an
ability to put them to use. Whoso killed a pale-face would
ride his saddle—galls or no galls to horse and man—as a
matter of pure boasting; whoso could not get a rig by
killing a pale-face was not happy until he stole one. And
thus the fine old bareback trick was lost.

It is to be regretted that we can make no satisfactory
comparison between the bareback rider of ancient times
and our own Indian of the past generation. There are
many men yet living to testify to the skill and strength
of the Indian horseman; and Catlin has left us numerous
pictures of the savage. But of the ancient rider we have

ALEXANDER’S STATUE eS,

in monumental and ceramic art few except very crude
pictorial delineations, and in books yet fewer written ones,
and it would not be easy to reproduce him were it not for
a few works of exceptional art which remain to us. One
of the most precious relics of the past is a bronze statuette
dug up at Herculaneum in 1751, and thought to be a copy
of the equestrian statue known to have been made of
Alexander the Great by Lysippus, after the battle of the

STATUE OF ALEXANDER BY LYSIPPUS

Granicus, when statues of all the brave who fell in this
initial Greek victory were made by the famous sculptor.
If it is truly a copy of Lysippus’ work, we can judge from
it how the Macedonians managed their horses in a hand-
to-hand conflict. The King is shown sitting on a blanket
firmly held in place by a breast-strap and girth; without
dropping the reins from his bridle hand he grasps this

20 SEVERE SPURRING

substitute for a saddle at the withers, and turning fully
half-way to the right and looking backward, gives a swing-
ing cut with his sword to the rear, covering as big an arc
of the circle as the best swordsman who ever sat in a sad-
dle-tree. The statue is full of life,and natural to a degree.
If not Lysippus’ work, it is that of a consummate artist.
The position shows great freedom of movement on the
horse, and a seat strong and elastic. That the Macedo-
nians kept their heels well away from the horse’s flanks,
or rather that they did not rely on their heels to cling to
him, is shown by their commonly wearing spurs, a thing
the Indian is wont to avoid; and the same habit shows
clearly in this piece of art.

And yet this does not prove much, perhaps. Our hunt-
ing-men wear spurs, and are supposed to keep them for
the proper moment; still, whenever one chances to be
photographed leaping an obstacle, even if only two feet
high, you may see him with a good part of his glue resi-
dent in his heels. ‘ Cruelty to animals!” you exclaim.
Yes, but in the excitement of the moment the horse,
brave, generous beast, has scarcely noticed the pain. So
closely does the horse partake of the rider’s enthusiasm
and purpose that the high-school horse, in the airs re-
quiring great vigor, will calmly receive a severe applica-
tion of the spur as an indication of the thing he is ex-
pected to do, and this without the least resentment.

When riding merely and not fighting, the Greek sat on
his breech in a natural position, took a firm hold with his
thighs, but let his lees from the knee down hang free.
His attitude, as shown in the Panathenaic procession on
the frieze of the Parthenon, was singularly graceful in
style; and that it was the common one is to be seen from
Xenophon’s rules for keeping the seat. He managed the
reins with light and easy hands. The Indian, on the con-

GOOD STYLE 21

trary, to judge from the pictures we have of him, was as
singularly awkward and ungainly. He sat on his crotch,
leaned forward, with the thigh not far from perpendicu-
lar and the leg thrust back at almost a right angle. This
he could do with the plains pony, whose barrel was far
from as well rounded as that of the Thessalian chunk;
and he got a goodly part of his grip from his calf and
heel. The contrast between the statue of Alexander, or
one of the Parthenon riders, and any one of Catlin’s pictures
is striking; but we must remember that the former are
the production of the ablest Greek sculptors, in the high-
est bloom of art, under the personal direction of Phidias ;
while the latter pretend only to convey the idea of the
savage as he was; and though the old-time Indian was
the equal, probably the superior, as a mere rider, of the
Greek, it is the latter whom we must select as a model if
-we wish to preserve any semblance of beauty in eques-
trianism. And we may no more properly banish the idea
of beauty from our habits of riding than from any other
act of our daily life. As a rule, clever performance is as-
sociated with what commends itself to the eye; what we
call style is often solely able performance ; but no one can
watch the ungainly fad of swinging the legs or raising
the elbows without a desire to send the rider to school—
to the Elgin Marbles.

Vv

Ir is no wonder that the Indian rode well. Before he
could walk, or talk, or remember, the lad had been tum-
bled into a parfleche with a lot of puppies or tepee stuff,
and had travelled scores of miles a day; he had later been
tied to a horse, or been set astride his neck, and told to
hold on by the mane, or fall off and be left behind; and
no Indian can recollect the time when he could not ride
anything and everything which came along. The old
knightly training—and why does it not, broadly construed,
cover all that one wants to know !—to ride and fence and
speak the truth, was carried out for two-thirds its value
by the Indian. They could ride, and they could use their
weapons. The boys from twelve years up do most of the
herding among all Indian nations, and in this occupation
they become familiar with every pony in the tribe. It is
probable that the lads have roped and mounted in suc-
cession every one intrusted to their care, and have learned
its individual qualities, while gaining in general horse-
manship.

Even to-day the Indian always races bareback. His
saddle weighs far too much, and he himself does not train
down like our jockeys, except when he is starved on the
war-path, and racing is a pastime of peace; so that at the
starting-post he strips off all he can from both his horse
and his own person. He is keenly fond of speed-matches,
and is up to every known and unknown trick of gambling
or jockeying. He can give long odds to the best race-

STRENGTH OF INDIANS 23

track shark, and the sorrier he can make his pony look,
if he knows he has speed, the better he is pleased. His
pony will, of course, beat a thorough-bred at short dis-
tances; any pony can. He is half down the track before
the racer has got his stride. At a mile or two miles the
tables are turned, though there are many who insist that
the bronco is the better at a ten or twenty mile gallop.
This opinion is, I think, founded on an intimate knowl-
edge of the bronco, but a lack of intimacy with the thor-
ough-bred. In the late Berlin-Vienna ride the ponies
came in with less apparent injury; but they were not the
winners—and many other factors came into play.

The Indian does not rank high in beauty, strength, or
endurance. There have been tribes in America which
produced the finest of specimens; but if we read Parkman
carefully we shall find the Indian of two hundred years
ago much what he is to-day, bar a few nasty white man’s
tricks, learned to the eternal disgrace of the latter. While
wonderfully agile and with the fortitude which all wild
tribes possess, the Indian lacks the strength of our ath-
letes ; and in boxing or wrestling, even after a course of
instruction, would be no match for an average American.
A Sullivan—or rather a Corbett—could knock out two-
score of them, “one down t’other come on.” But for all
that the Indian can perform equestrian feats which strike
us as wonderful enough. It is a point of honor with hin,
as it was with the ancients and is still among many peo-
ples, not to leave his dead or wounded in the hands of the
enemy, liable to butchery or deprived of the rites of bur-
ial; and he will pick up a warrior from the ground with-
out dismounting, almost without slacking speed, throw
him across his pony and gallop off. This requires and
receives much practice. Sometimes two act together in
picking up the man, but one is quite able to accomplish it.

24 THE # COUP”

A buck represents the dead or wounded. He lies per-
fectly still and limp if the former, or aids as far as is con-
sistent with his supposed hurt if the latter. It is rather
rough handling he has to undergo, but by no means as
rough as one sees in some of our favorite sports—say,
foot-ball. Perhaps this is the best of the numerous feats
the Indian can exhibit ; but Dodge and Parkman tell us
of many others. When I refer to Dodge, I mean Colonel
Richard Irving Dodge, of the Army—a soldier, a sports-
man, and an author, partaking of the virtues of each pro-
fession, and—well, I cannot say more an I would. Frantis
Parkman’s unequalled knowledge of the Indian in our his-
tory is acknowledged in every part of the civilized world.

The Indians would be capable of making a superb irreg-
ular cavalry were it not for the divided authority from
which all tribes suffer. There is no central power, no
influence to hold the individuals to anything like what
we call duty. The recent efforts to enlist Indians have
not proven successful. Capable of immense exertion un-
der circumstances which arouse his fanaticism, he is yet
at heart a lazy brute, and when he has once sated his pas-
sion for adornment by wearing Uncle Sam’s uniform for
a few months, his greed for ease overcomes all sense of
discipline, and he relapses into the indolent savage, of
practically little use in any line but politics. Yet among
themselves they have a certain organization, and in battle
are able to execute a number of manceuvyres, all, however,
weakened by the lack of the one controlling hand. Nor
can the Indian be easily kept in the ranks. In order to
claim a scalp, the warrior must give the dead man the
coup. This was in olden times a stab with a weapon, but
Indians now have what are called coup sticks. Whoever
first strikes the victim the coup can rightfully claim the
scalp, and no authority known to his savage instincts can

‘* PENELOPE ” 25

keep an Indian in the ranks when there is a scalp at stake.
The fact that an occasional Indian turns out trustworthy
merely furnishes the exception which proves the rule.
The Indians of to-day show a certain similarity in their
style of riding to those of the last generation, so far as
the constant use of the whip and heels is concerned, but
the saddle has completely changed their seat, and the dif-
ferent tribes differ as greatly among themselves as saddle-
riding does from the bareback. All Indians ride well.
Living in the saddle, breaking wild ponies, and using half-
trained ones at all times, they cannot help being expert
horsemen. They remind me of the old horse-lover who
once examined a fine mare I was riding—it was “ Penel-
ope.” “She’s a good mare, Deacon Dyer,” said I. “That
‘ere mare,” replied he, after looking her all over with a
true horseman’s delight, and stopping in front of her to
give one more look into her broad, handsome, courageous
face—“ that ’ere mare can’t help but be a good un.” So
with the Indian ; but most of them ride in so ungainly a
manner as to be hard to describe to one who has not seen
them. axe bse
The first point of difference between them and the civ-
ilized rider which is apt to be brought home to a tender-
foot turns on the fact that the Indian always mounts from
the off side. This was a common habit also of remote
antiquity, though Xenophon teaches you how to mount
from the near side. Perhaps the habit came from the
same cause—that the lance or other weapon was naturally
held in the right hand, and could not readily be thrown
over the animal without fright or injury. The Greeks
had a small loop on the shank of the lance, into which
they thrust their right foot in order to swing themselves
up on their horse. They had no weapons dangling from
their waist to interfere with free action. But the long,

26 MOUNTING ON OFF SIDE

strap-hung sword of the medizval cavalry soldier com-
pelled him to mount on the near side, and as he is the
pattern from which we moderns have been cast the habit
has survived.

The average rider will be apt to deny that the soldier
is the prototype of the modern horseman ; but every rid-
ing-school maxim is a distinct inheritance from the caval-
ryman of auld lang-syne; and only he who has learned to
ride, as it were, aw naturel, can be free from these. Even
then imitation of or association with those who have rid-
den in a school will lend some of this color to his style.

To revert to our text, the white man who attempts to
mount an Indian pony in our fashion is very apt to get a
nasty spill before he has reached his back, for at the unu-
sual attempt the half-trained beast will be apt to fly the
track with a quickness which the ordinary ‘“ American ”
horse could in nowise rival. He is not so easily managed
either, this same pony. He is tractable and clever in his
way, but his way is not our way; and he must indeed be
a fairly good rough-rider who, once mounted on a fresh
and vigorous Indian pony, does not part company with
him before he has covered many miles of sharpish riding
or hunting.

at

Tue old-time Sioux was one of the earliest of the sad-
dle-riding Indians. He was to be met with on the North-
ern plains some forty years ago. He managed his pony
with a stick or the hereditary jaw-rope, and this when
not in use he was wont to throw over the pony’s neck,
whence it would shortly fall and trail along the ground.
But the pony never minded so small a thing. So well
was he used to a rope thus trailing that he never blun-
dered on it. This seems odd; but if you will study the
clever way in which a horse will avoid the stones in the
road he is travelling over, by stepping slightly within or
beyond them, or on this or that side of them, all the while
apparently paying heed to other things, you will see how
naturally he may avoid treading on a trailing rope. A
horse is apt to get his leg caught in a bridle, because it
has two reins buckled together, but scarcely in a halter-
rope if he breaks loose from you.

The home-made saddle of the old-time Sioux was con-
structed of a wooden or sometimes an elkhorn framework.
The side pieces were well apart, and were held to the
arches by the most ancient practice of shrinking rawhide
upon them. No one who has not used it has any idea of
how firmly rawhide will hold two such pieces together.
A broken wagon-tongue wrapped with rawhide is as good
as new-—better. The pommel and cantle of the Sioux’s
saddle were very much alike; both rose perpendicularly
from the arch of the tree to a height of sometimes eighteen

:

28 THE SIOUX’S SEAT

inches. There was no regulation pattern to them; each
saddle was separately made, and constructed and orna-
mented according to the momentary taste and fancy of
the maker, or according to the materials at hand. It was
not a saddle of commerce.

The bent-wood stirrups were lashed in straps also cut
from rawhide, slung loosely on the side pieces, and work-
ing back and forth into all conceivable positions. Such a
trifle as ill-hung stirrups the Sioux never heeded. His
seat was not so easily disturbed as a city swell’s by one
hole difference in his leathers. It was generally imma-
terial to him whether he had any stirrups at all. His
seat was peculiar. His leg from crotch to knee gripped
in an almost perpendicular position ; from the knee down
it was thrown sharply back, so that his weight was sus-
tained solely on the crotch and the muscles of the thighs.
As a consequence of this seat, he pounded in his saddle
like a fresh recruit when riding anything but a rack or lope,
leaned forward like a modern track-jockey at a hand-gal-
lop, and stuck his heels into his pony’s flanks for a hold.
This matter of holding on by the heels is almost univer-
sal among riders not civilized into the soldier’s method
above referred to. Nine-tenths of the daily riders of the
world hold on by the calf and heel. How the Sioux could
ride as he did and escape injury from the pommel is a
mystery. But though smashing to atoms all the maxims
of equitation, ancient or modern, the old-time Sioux was
a good rider, and his seat was strong and effective. It
has been referred to as ungainly ; but in a certain sense,
no really strong seat can be such. Noteworthy ability is
generally handsome yer se.

This savage tricked up his pony’s mane and tail and
forelock with feathers, beads, or scraps of gaudy cloth,
and on occasion painted him all over with a colored clay,

A SIOUX DUDE 929

very much as the Hindoo will daub red spots of paint all
over a white horse, or dye his tail pea-green. In his
fashion the Sioux was as much of a dude as if he wore
a three-inch collar and a big-headed cane, or shook hands
with elbow in the air, and was a singularly picturesque
horseman, if not one who would appeal to the eye of a
park-rider.

VII

America has been full of picturesque characters. Even
the Orient to-day, which is much what it has always been,
has no more of the odd and interesting than we have had.
Civilization (¢. e. newspapers, railroads, and telegraphs)
brings us down to one pattern. Ready-made clothing is
the archenemy of the graceful and appropriate—the de-
mon in art. No greater advance in mechanics was ever
made than that of building arms, machines, and tools to
scale, and that of duplicate parts. But people nowadays
are all duplicate parts, and while it works well in mechan-
ics, it destroys originality and beauty in the human race.
When you consider what our early frontier population

- was; what energy, intelligence, and pluck resided in the

men who went out beyond “the settlements” into the
habitat of the red man to hunt or trap, we can surely
boast a more wonderful, and actually more picturesque
set of actors on the stage of American history than can
be found in any other land.

Among these was the trapper. Some of the largest
cities on the American continent-—St. Louis, as an in-
stance—may be said to have been built from the profits
of the fur trade. There had been stray trappers and small
dealers from the earliest days; but the first man who dis-
covered the immense extent to which the peltry traffic
could be carried was a rover of broad views, who most
likely hailed from Kentucky or Missouri, was of French
or Scotch-Irish descent, and perchance came from the

A WHITE TRAPPER

kee

»

Pa

ys
ing’
wy
a“

PICTURESQUE AMERICANS 33

blood which crossed the Alleghanies in the footsteps of
Daniel Boone, intent on adventure or flying from civili-
zation. The white trapper was as averse to association
- with his fellow-man as the hardiest of the old pioneers ;
in fact, he often fled the settlements for good and sufficient
cause. He was not so much of a misanthrope as he was
a law-breaker; but it is said that many had fled from the
irate importunities of their respective Xanthippes. It will
not do to class this trapper among the Ishmaels; many
were pushed out beyond the frontier by their love of ad-
venture and expectation of gain, and were as blameless in
their lives as they were courageous in their calling. But
it is also a fact that many of these hardy fellows preferred
to live in a country where there was no sheriff to molest
nor deputy to make them afraid. The white trapper has
now all but died out with the buffalo, though a genera-
tion ago he was a common enough character in the terri-
tories north of Colorado. His descendants have mostly
turned cow-punchers.

This famous hunter was a character more practical than
poetic, though he has been made the subject of many fine
phrases and the hero of many exaggerated situations. His
unkempt hair and beard floated long and loose from under
his coyote cap, and he had lived so continuously with the
Indians that he had largely adopted their dress and their
manners—could, if need be, live on the same chuck, and
always had one or more squaws. He was apt to carry a
trade-gun— perhaps a good one, perhaps an old Brown
Bess cut down. At his side was slung an enormous pow-
der-horn, for in the old days he could not so readily re-
plenish his supply, far from civilization as he was wont
to be. He rode a Mexican saddle, for which he had traded
skins, or maybe stolen, and from which he had cut every

strip of superfluous leather, as the Indian does to-day.
3

34 OUR REAL FRIENDS

He rode the same pony as his Indian competitor in the
trade, but with the seat adapted to a saddle rather than a
pad, and still retaining a flavor of the settlements despite
his divorce from their ways. In fact,a white man on the
plains never quite acquires the redskin habit. He can to-
day be told from an Indian as far as he can be seen by
his style of riding, and it was no doubt always so. Nor
had this trapper lost his pale-face instincts so entirely as
to indulge in the Indian’s usual atrocious cruelty to his
horse. He can scarcely be said to have had the feelings
of a member of the society with the exuberantly long
name and truly benevolent method; but he had the sense
to see the commercial value of the care he might bestow
on his rough-and-ready companion, and at least treated
him with common consideration. This the good little
fellow repaid with a love and unselfish devotion which
only an animal can show.

Right here and now I would fain pour out my heart-felt
admiration for the truest of our four-footed friends, our
dogs and horses. Have you never had a horse, my brother,
to whom you told your secrets and your griefs? Have you
never had a dog who was to you even as a child, for whom
you wept bitter tears and honest when you had laid him
at rest in some quiet spot, hallowed alone by his virtues
and your sorrow; who, for his short term of years had
grown into your very inmost heart by his faithful love,
his unswerving loyalty, his spotless truth of character ?
If not, turn this page, read no more. But if you have
ever given your affection to such a loving creature, if you
have ever held his head between. your hands and looked
long and deep down into his tender, earnest eyes, in which
lurks no thought of treachery, no ideal but yourself, which
view you with a pathetic trustfulness of which you know
you are not worthy, then, my brother, join me in laying

PICCOLA 35

on his grave a wreath of everlasting, and thank God that
you have known that truth and honor and pure faith
which we weaklings of so-called civilization have lost in
our efforts to grasp a higher good not half so well worth
seeking. Truly the poor Indian was right in believing
that he should share the company of his faithful friend
when both should be translated to that equal sky! If the
hereafter is to be filled with the good we have known,
will not many of us ask that such friends as these may be
there? I am humbly conscious that, if honest purpose and
loyalty to her ideal be the test, there 1s certainly one dog
I have owned who should enter the gates in advance of
her master, strive he never so well for what is upright. I
am not so sure that she had not a soul—that she is not
waiting for me now, even as she used to do when I went
away from home. Dear, loving, white-souled Piccola!
Many are the tears which the memory of thee hath evoked!
Though [ live to the term when hfe is but labor and sor-
row, thou shalt daily have thy meed of a tender thought.
Was not Buddha, indeed, a true prophet? But that is an-
other story.

0 e

Vill

Tue Indians were not long in finding out that peltries
were a ready means of getting the guns and calico and
fire-water of the white man, and the white trapper was
not many years alone in the business. The Indian trap-
per whom Remington’s clever eye and hand have depicted
may be a Cree or perhaps a Blackfoot, whom one was
apt to run across in the Selkirk Mountains or elsewhere
on the plains of the British Territory, or well up north in
the Rockies, somewhat antedating the outbreak of the
Civil War. He was tributary to the Hudson Bay Com-
pany, whose badge he wore in his blanket coat of English
manufacture, which he had got in trade. Wherever you
met this coat, you might place its wearer. He had bear-
skin leggings, with surface cleverly seared into ornament-
al patterns, and for the rest the usual Indian outfit. He
rode a pony which had nothing to distinguish it from the
plains pony, except that in winter its coat grew to so re-
markable a length as almost to conceal the identity of the
animal. Unless you saw it in motion you might take it
for a huge species of bear—with a tail.

Such long coats are not uncommon among any breed
of horses. We are wont to imagine that the Arabian
always has a bright, glossy coat; but during the chill
rainy season of the regions north of the Arabian desert—
and it can be as bleak and cold on those treeless wastes as
heart can desire—the Arabian puts on a coat all but as
long and rough as a sheep. Unlike the Indian’s pony, he

D
} ) BO \\\\\\

AN INDIAN TRAPPER

|
|
'
:

PAD RIDING 39

gets fed during the severe season, for his master is not
quite so improvident as the red man; and he does not get
so gaunt and miserable as his transatlantic cousin. But,
like the bronco, it takes but a week or so of grass to scour
him out into a coat as sleek as that of a race-track favorite.

The Indian trapper rode a pad which was not unlike
an air-cushion, cinched in place and provided with a pair
of very short stirrups hung exactly from the middle. This
dragged his heels to the rear, in the fashion of the old-
time Sioux, and gave him a very awkward look. By just
what process, from a bareback seat, the fellow managed
to drift into this one, which is quite peculiar to himself,
it is hard to guess. Habits change by slow degrees, and
each step is wont to bring a new condition somewhat re-
sembling its predecessor. Here we have a seat which has
wandered as far from the bareback as one can well imag-
ine, and this in a comparatively short period. Among
civilized peoples a novel invention may often immediately
change a given method of doing a thing; among savages
changes are very gradual; among semi-civilized peoples
change is so slow that one may almost say that it never
occurs.

Unlike the old-time Sioux, the Indian trapper would
sit all over his horse, weaving from side to side, and shift-
ing his pad at every movement. His pony’s back was
always sore. His pad-lining soon got hard with sweat
and galled the skin, and the last thing which would ever
occur to him would be to take steps to relieve his patient
comrade’s suffering. He never attempted to change his
pad-lining or cinch the pad more carefully. On went the
pad, up jumped the trapper; and why shouldn’t the pony
buck, as he invariably did? Sore backs are as much at
the root of the bucking habit as the utterly insufficient
breaking of the pony.

40 SORE BACKS

This matter of sore backs furnishes a curious study. In
every southern country outside of the United States, and
among all wild or semi-civilized nations which are not
peculiarly horse lovers, no heed whatever is paid to saddle
or pack galls. The condition of the donkeys in the East,
in Africa, or in Spain and Italy, is as lamentable as it is
short-sighted. It never enters the minds of the owners
of these patient brutes that a sore back is a commercial
loss; nor do they couple the idea of cruelty with dumb
creatures at all. It is not until you reach Teutonic na-
tions that both these ideas are extended so as to reduce
the discomfort of animals to a minimum.

This is not so odd; one does not have to be so very old
to remember the time when, even among us, calves were
tied by all four legs and slung head down on their way
to market; when common pity never extended to ani-
mals. Even to-day, not very far from home, one may
find many breaches of the should-be commandment:
“Thou shalt treat thy dumb servant as thou wouldst thy
son.” In those countries where the doctrine of transmi-
gration has obtained a hold on the people, animals are
better off ; one does not like to abuse a creature which
may contain the soul of one’s great-grandmother. But
bad as the cruelty of neglect may be, an American Indian
is perhaps more actively cruel to his pony than any other
person. He never wears spurs, not even as a matter of
vanity, for spurs would prevent his pounding his pony
with his heels at every stride, as is his wont; but he will
ride him till he drops dead in his tracks, when there is no
necessity of his making speed; he will lash him to the
raw; he will even stick his knife into him to make him
gallop faster,and an Apache will give his pony a dig with
his knife from sheer malice when he dismounts.

Ix

THERE is no horse superior to the bronco for endurance ;
few are his equals. His only competitor in the equine
race is his lowly cousin, the ass, of whom I shall say much
anon. The bronco came by his toughness and grit natu-
rally enough; he got them from the Spanish stock of
Moorish descent, the individuals of which breed, aban-
doned in American wilds in the sixteenth century by the
early searchers for gold and for the Fountain of Youth,
were his immediate ancestors; and his hardy life has, by
survival of the fittest, increased this endurance tenfold.
He is not handsome. His middle-piece is distended by
grass food ; it is so loosely joined to his quarters that one
can scarcely understand where he gets his weight-carrying
capacity, and his hip is very short. He has a hammer-
head, partly due to the pronounced ewe-neck which all
plains or steppes horses seem to acquire by their nomad
life. He has a bit too much daylight under him, which
shows his good blood as well as the fact that he has had
generations of sharp and prolonged running to do. His
legs are naturally perfect, rather ight in muscle and slen-
der in bone, but the bone is dense, the muscle of strong
quality, and the sinews firm. Still, in an Indian’s hands
his legs finally give way at the knees from sharp stopping
with a gag-bit, and curbs will start on his houghs, for a
redskin will turn on a ten-cent piece.

The pony is naturally quick, but his master wants him
to be quicker. His hunting and all his sports require work

492 BRONCO ENDURANCE

which outdoes polo. One form of racing is to place two
long parallel strips of buffalo-hide on the ground at an
interval of but a few feet, and, starting from a distance,
to ride up to these strips, cross the first, turn between the
two, and gallop back to the starting-point. A fraction
of asecond lost on a turn loses the race. Until one thinks
of what it means, a twentieth part of a second is no great
loss. But take two horses of equal speed in a hurdle race
with twenty obstacles. One pauses at each hurdle just
one-twentieth of a second; the other flies his hurdles with-
out a pause. This lost second means that he will be forty-
five feet behind at the winning-post—four good lengths.
Another Indian sport is to ride up to a log hung horizon-
tally and just high enough to allow the pony but not the
rider to get under, touch it, and return. If the pony is
stopped too soon, the Indian loses time in touching the
log; if too late, he gets scraped off. The sudden jerking
of the pony on its haunches is sure eventually both to start
curbs or spavin, and to break his knees. Still the pony
retains wonderfully good legs considering.

The toughness and strength of the plains pony can
scarcely be exaggerated. He will live through a winter
that will kill the hardiest cattle. He worries through the
long months when the snow has covered up the bunch-
grass on a diet of cotton-wood boughs, which the Indian
cuts down for him; and though he emerges from this
ordeal a pretty sorry specimen of a horse, it takes but a
few weeks in the spring for him to get himself into splen-
did condition and fit for the trials of the war-path. His
fast has done him good, as some say sea-sickness will do
him good who goes down to the sea in ships. He can go
unheard-of distances. Colonel Dodge records an instance
coming under his observation where a pony carried the
mail three hundred miles in three consecutive nights, and

OUR CLIMATE 43

back over the same road the next week, and kept this up
for six months without loss of condition. He can carry
any weight. Mr. Parkman speaks of a chief known as
Le Cochon, on account of his three hundred pounds avoir-
dupois, who, nevertheless, rode his ponies as bravely as a
man of half the bulk. He as often carries two people as
one. There is simply no end to this wonderful product of
the prairies. He works many years. So long as he will
fat up in the spring, his age is immaterial to the Indian.

It has been claimed by some that the American climate
is, par excellence, adapted to the horse. California and
Kentucky vie for superiority, and: both produce such won-
derful results as “Sunol” and “ Nancy Hanks.” Man cer-
tainly has done wonders with the horse upon our soil ; and
alone the horse has done wonders for himself. I have
sought for great performances by horses in every land.
“One hears wonderful traditions of speed and endurance
and much unsupported testimony elsewhere ; but for re-
corded distance and time, America easily bears off the palm.
We shall recur to this point hereafter. Ever since Brown-
Sequard discovered that he could not always kill an Ameri-
can rabbit by inserting a probe into its brain, and enunci-
ated the doctrine of the superior energy and endurance of
the American mammal, facts have been accumulating to
prove his position sound.

One peculiarity of the pony is his absence of crest. His
ewe-neck suggests the curious query of what has become
of the high, well-shaped neck of his ancestor the Barb. I
_was on the point of saying arched neck—but this is the
one thing which the Arabian or Barb rarely has, being
ridden with a bit which keeps his nose in the air. But he
has a peculiarly fine neck and wide, deep, open throttle of
perfect shape, and with bit and bridoon carries his head
just right. There are two ways of accounting for the

44 EWE-NECKS

ewe-neck. The Indian’s gag-bit, invariably applied with
a jerk, throws up the pony’s head instead of bringing it
down, as the slow and light application of the school-curb
will do, and this, it is thought by many, tends to develop
the ewe-neck. But this is scarcely a theory which can be
borne out by the facts, for the Arabian retains his fine
crest under the same course of treatment. A more suffi-
cient reason may be found in the fact that the starvation
which the pony annually undergoes in the winter months
tends to deplete him of every superfluous ounce of flesh
wherever it may lie. The crest in the horse is mostly
meat, and its annual depletion, never quite replaced, has
finally brought down the Indian pony’s neck nearer to the
outline of the skeleton. It was with much ado under his
scant diet that the pony held on to life during the winter ;
he could not scrape together enough food to flesh up a
merely ornamental appendage like a crest. Most Moors
and Arabs, on the other hand, prize the beauty of the high-
built neck, and breed for it; and their steeds are far bet-
ter fed. There is rarely snow where they dwell; forage
of some kind is to be had in the oases, and the master al-
ways stores up some barley and straw for his steed; or in
case of need will starve his daughters to feed his mares.
The Indian cares for his pony only for what he can do
for him, and once lost, the crest would with difficulty be
replaced, for few Indians have any conception of breeding.
The bronco’s mean crest is distressing, but it is in inverse
ratio to his endurance and usefulness. Well fed and cared
for, he will regain his crest to a marked extent.

As we shall later see when we reach the land of the
pure-bred Arabian, there are many more points of simi-
larity than are generally supposed to exist between this
steed of royal lineage and his country cousin across the
sea. The city dwellers, or those who live near enough to

Er re ween

AN ARABIAN BRONCO 45

the busy haunts of men to cater to the wants of the
Franks who “have an eye for a horse,” breed a well-
rounded, up-headed fellow—the one we all see painted.
But the real Arabian mare—the Anazeh—the progenitress
of all that is fast and enduring, the worshipped of the
sons of the Prophet, is quite another creature. She is for
all the world like a small thorough-bred in training—or a
bronco. But that, again, is another story.

xX

From one kind of bronco we will skip to another. The
Indian must have transportation as well as riding ponies,
and as the patient ass is the follower of Mohammed, so is
the travaux (or traineau) pony to the Indian. It is hard
to say which bears the most load according to his capac-
ity, the donkey or the pony. On the whole, perhaps,
weight for weight, the palm must be awarded to the ass ;
but either earns what he gets with fourfold more right
than his master. The burdens the ass bears in the Orient
break him down to the extent of forgetting how to kick.
Fancy driving even an overworked Kentucky mule by the
tail, as they do the donkey in many parts of the East, and
guiding him by a tweak of that appendage, close to his
treacherous heels! In a later chapter I shall sing pzans
to this noblest of the equine race.

The travaux pony is equally worked out of all idea of
bucking. He furnishes the sole means of transportation
of the Indian camp, except sometimes a dog hitched toa
diminutive traineau, and managed—half for sport, half
work—by a boy; and, weight for weight, drags on his
tepee-poles more than the best mule in Uncle Sam’s sery-
ice does on an army-wagon. When camp is broken, the
squaws strip the tent-poles of their buffalo-skin coverings,
and it is these poles which furnish the wheels of the Ind-
ian vehicle. Vehicle is, perhaps, an odd term to us who
make the word synonymous with rotary progression ; but
vehicles on runners are to-day used at all seasons in many

———————

THE TRAVAUX PONY

Tie he

TRAVAUX SADDLES 49

parts of the Cumberland Mountains. They are of domes-
tic manufacture, and are simply constructed of bent sap-
lings lashed with green withes. As a rule, a cow or
young steer is hitched singly into these sleds, which run
with light loads all over the country—on mud roads in
summer, and but for a short while on snow in midwinter.
I have talked with old men in Eastern Kentucky who had
never seen a wheel. That sounds odd, but it is true.

The Blackfoot makes the neatest trappings for the tra-
vaux ponies and pack-saddles. The pony is fitted with a
huge leathern bag, heavily fringed and gaudy with red and
blue flannel strips and beads of many colors. Over this
goes the pack-saddle, which is not very dissimilar to the
riding-saddle ; but it is of coarser build, and has a perpen-
dicular pommel and cantle. In the pommel is a notch to
receive one end of the tepee-poles, which are sometimes.
bound together two or three on each side, and, trailing
past either flank of the pony, are held in place by two
pieces of wood lashed to them just behind his tail and a
bit farther back. In the socket so made rides the par-
fleche, a sort of rawhide trunk, and this receives the camp
utensils—plunder, children, sometimes an old man or wom-
an, puppies, and all the other camp impedimenta—while
a squaw rides behind the pack-saddle on the pony, inditf-
ferently astride or sidewise, with her feet on the poles,
and perhaps a youngster bestrides its neck. Thus laden,
the wonderful little beast, which is rarely up to fourteen
hands, plods along all day, covering unheard-of distances,
and living on what bunch-grass he can pick up in spare
moments, with a mouthful of water now and again.

There are apt to be several ponies to carry the plunder
of the occupants of one tepee, and often one of them is
loaded down with the rougher stuff, while a second may
be decked out with the finery and carry only one squaw—

4

50 SQUAW RIDERS

particularly if she happens to be a new purchase and a
favorite of the chief.

A squaw is usually about as good a horseman as her
buck, and rides his saddle or bareback with as much ease
as a city woman rocks in her chair. She is often as plucky
as heis. Indeed, it isnot uncommon to find women in the
fighting ranks, and doing a man’s full duty; and if the
squaw does not often join her lord in the killing and capt-
ure of the enemy, she can out-do him at all times in cru-
elty to prisoners. Perhaps no human being is so fiendish
in the pastime of torturing prisoners as an Indian squaw.
She out-herods Herod in barbarity.

XI

Tse Comanche of the Fort Sill region is a good type
of the Indian of to-day. He is the most expert horse-
stealer on the plains, if we can credit the Indians them-
selves, who yield to him the palm as a sneak thief—with
them a title of honor rather than of reproach. There is
no boldness or dash in his method, but he is all the more
dangerous. The Indian has been much misconceived. It
is not strange that many novelists should have taken him
as the hero of their books; few readers could check off
their errors, and he was a new character who served as a
vehicle for any number of qualities which might best fit
into any given plot. But the red man has been as much
overwrought as the Arabian horse. He is a brute, pure
and simple, and has practically always been so. If you
want the truth about him, consult people who have spent
their lives among his ilk, not those who theorize on be-
nevolent general principles at a judiciously safe distance.
Read Our Wild Indians, and you will know more about
him than most of those who think his vices are all attribu-

‘ table to the white man.

Not that we can avoid responsibility for much that is
evil in the red man—vile disease of body and mind and
character ; but he is none the less a brute whose nature
is a fit hot-bed for our worst vices. It is politics and dol-
lars which have used him as a shuttlecock. The Indian
problem is reducible to the simple question whether this
broad land of ours is for the pale-face or the redskin. If,

2 INDIAN FOOD

as elsewhere, civilization has here a right to extend the
borders of its garments, the white man is responsible only |
for his excess of wrong—for the manner, not the fact of
his taking. This excess is no greater than that attribu-
table to any other nation which seizes and civilizes a bar-
barous land ; and, after all is said, the Indian is more sin-
ning than sinned against. He is and remains the most
vicious brute the sun ever shone upon.

The Comanche eats dog and horse flesh—as all Indians
do more or less—and is by no means above a diet of skunk
when other edibles fail him. Indeed, anything is chuck
to the Indian in case of need, and while he has his bonne
bouche, it is, as a rule, quantity and not quality he seeks.

The Comanche is fond of gay clothes, and has a trick
of wrapping a sheet around his body, doubling in the
ends, and letting the rest fall about his legs. This gives
him the look of wearing the skirts or leg-gear of the Ori-
ental. He uses a Texas cowboy’s tree, a wooden stirrup,
into which he thrusts his foot as far as a fox-hunter, and
leathers even longer than the cowboy’s, perhaps the long-
est used by any rider. He is the only Indian who rides
after this fashion. He, if any one, has the forked-radish
seat. Between him and his saddle he packs all his extra
blankets and most of his other plunder, so that he is some-
times perched high above his mount. For bridle and bit,
he uses whatever he can beg, borrow, or steal.

In one particular the Comanche is noteworthy. He
knows more about a horse and horse-breeding than any
other Indian. It strikes one as rather singular that the
redskin has never developed an instinct for raising horses.
And yet it is not strange. The conditions themselves
have done so much for the bronco, and until of late years
wild ponies have been so easily procurable in unlimited
numbers, that he has not yet been pushed into breeding.

a. Tn Sa ms - ss See ae Saye =

ay’

MODERN COMANCHE

ow

ae RP aber

os

—

ee)
aj .

Se Ay

“PINTO” HORSES 55

And it is a rule with the red man not to do the unneces-
sary. ‘¢ Never do to-day what you can by any possibility
put off till to-morrow” may be said to be his motto—ex-
cept on the war-path. Is it alone his ?

The Comanche is particularly wedded to and apt to
ride a pinto (“ painted” or piebald) horse, and never keeps
any but a pinto stallion. He chooses his ponies well, and
shows more good sense in breeding than one would give
him credit for. The corollary to this is that he is far less
cruel to his beasts, and though he begins to use them as
yearlings, the ponies often last through many years. In
this he resembles his Oriental brother. Yearlings are very
frequently seen under saddle among the Arabs. The Co-
manche is capable of making as fine cavalry as exists, if
subjected to discipline and carefully drilled. But the
process may be difficult.

XII

Tue Apache of the present day is the exact reverse of
the Comanche. His Aabetat is the Sierra Madre Mount-
ains in Arizona. He is not born and bred with horses, he
knows little about them, and looks upon ponies as in-
tended rather for food than for transportation or the war-
path ; or, at all events, as ultimately destined for the ew-
sine. He at times outdoes the Frenchman in hippophagy,
for he will eat every one of his ponies during the winter,
and rely upon stealing fresh ones in the spring. He and
the Cheyenne are the most dashing of the Indian horse-
thieves. He raids down in Chihuahua, where the va-
queros raise stock for the Mexican army, and often drives
off large numbers. When pursued, the Apache takes to
the mountains, and is not infrequently compelled to aban-
don his herd. But such is his expert boldness that he
rarely lacks a supply at his neighbor’s expense. Not con-
tent with ponies, he steals his saddle and bridle in Mex-
ico; he wears spurs when he can get them to drive on his
pony, and if these do not suffice to make him go his gait,
he will goad him with a knife. The Apache is hideously
cruel by nature, even more so than other Indians, if this
were possible; and his pony is often the sufferer. He
takes no particular interest in him. Except for his sum-
mer’s use and his winter’s salt-junk, the pony has no fut-
ure value. He takes a certain care of him only for the
present value of the little fellow. In the mountains, where
the sharp, flinty stones wear down the pony’s unshod feet,

AN APACHE INDIAN

RAWHIDE SHOES 59

this Indian will shrink rawhide over the hoofs in lieu of
shoes, and this resists extremely well the attrition of the
mountain paths. Arrian, of Nicomedia, tells us that the
Macedonians, under Alexander, did the same to their cay-
alry horses in the Hindoo Koosh, and no doubt the habit
was much older than Alexander. On the whole, the
Apache, guoad horses, is at the foot of the scale. There
can be no comparative excellence to the Indian as a
whole; it is comparative badness. In this, too, the
Apache reaches the superlative.

In what I say anent the Indian I may perchance be ac-
cused of what many intelligent judges would call a crim-
inal unwillingness to understand a really noble nature.
But, so far as my experience goes, those men who main-
tain that the faults of the Indian are chargeable solely to
the whites, and that he can be managed in any other way
than by repression, either view the situation from an in-
experienced and safe distance, or from a financial (2. e.
Indian contract) stand- point, or from one of “ practical
politics.” There are men, benevolent and noble men, who,
after studying the subject, truly believe that the Indian
can be civilized; but they only serve to prove the rule.
Those men who have spent their lives among the Indians,
and have nothing to make out of them, hold but one opin-
ion. Narrow politics and the money in it are the curse of
our country. If the Indian could be given over to the
army to care for he would behave himself, for he knows
that he receives justice, both in peace and war, from the
blue-coats. But so long as Indian agents can grow rich
fast, and there are a lot of fat jobs for the men who vote
the successful ticket, so long will the Indian be cheated
out of his rations, go on the war-path in revenge, and be
doomed to fall under the sabre of the unwilling soldier.
If there is or ever has been a more lamentable spectacle

60 THE TRUE INDIAN

in the political life of any nation than the cross-purposes
of our Indian and War Departments, I have failed to find
it. We Americans, thanks to the inexhaustible riches of
our soil, are giants in all we do; and we are giants in
folly as well as in creation; witness our Silver Bill, our
McKinley Tariff, our Pension Legislation, and our Indian
Problem.

XIII

Previous to our Civil War, the lack of knowledge
abroad with regard to the United States was singular.
We were ignored in the economy of nations, in the
schools and society of the Old World, as of no impor-
tance. To most people America was as yet undiscovered.
Only the most advanced thinkers had divined that we
were working out the problem of the future. To see
their countries become Americanized was the nightmare
of rulers, as it is now the dream of the more intelligent
of the peoples. The blot of slavery was still upon us, and
we were numerically among the smaller nations. When,
sent to a monastic school in Belgium at the age of ten,
I was led into the petite cour and introduced by the
Pére Supérieur to the crowd of eagerly expectant boys,
“Tenez, mes enfants, voila votre nouveau camarade, le
jeune Américain!’ I well remember a fair-faced lad (he
was a son of a banished Polish noble) who went up to
the father and plucked him by his skirt, with “ Mais, mon
pere, il est blanc comme nous.” His keen disappoint-
ment at my not being black, for he had never seen a
negro, he always rather laid up against me. And when
later I attended the Friedrich-Werderschen Gymnasium
in Berlin, the only two ideas I could ever find that boys
of my age had assimilated out of the shreds and patches
they had been taught about America, were Niagara and
slavery. How much did a Massachusetts lad who had
left home in his first decade know about slavery, or

62 A PSYCHICAL PHENOMENON

how many, in those stage-coach days, had been to the
great falls? ‘“ Ach, du bist kein Amerikaner,’ my play-
mates would exclaim, “wenn du Niagaara nicht gesehen
hast!” imagining, no doubt, that this world-famed cata-
ract was at every man’s back door. And my never even’
having seen a slave stamped me still more of an impostor.

To wander for a moment from anything akin to horse-
flesh or America, to what, if imaginative, I would trans-
form into a psychical phenomenon: The little Polish noble
before referred to and | became fast friends, and for years
wandered arm in arm around the playground. Nearly
forty years ago we separated, and neither, for four dec-
ades, heard aught of the other, nor made any effort to
hunt him up. In April last I landed at Constantinople—
as usual with tourists out of money —and repaired at
once to my bankers. My letter of credit and draft went
into Mr. A’s private office for approval. Almost at once
out he came with, “Bless me, you are the very man!”
‘No doubt,” I replied; “I always have been, but why
just now?” ‘“ Were you ever at school in Belgium?’ he
asked. “Yes.” ‘Did you have a school-mate named
Ladislas Oz ski?” “Why, yes.” . “Well, he is\maam
Mo er Pacha, Inspector-General of Cavalry, and Aide-
de-camp to H. I. M. the Sultan, and only last week he
told me he once had a school-mate named Theodore Dodge,
and asked me to write to my correspondents in America,
and see if I could find trace of him!” Here, then, had
my ancient school-friend, for the first time in forty years,
sought to hunt me up, and I, for the first time in my life,
had turned up at Constantinople. And yet it was mere
coincidence. Is not this such stuff as dreams are made
of—or superstition, or psychology? How easy to warp
this occurrence into something, let us say, spooky!

The ignorance on the part of Europeans concerning

OUR CAVALRY 63

us was, however, in nowise more curious, and was much
less culpable, than our own ignorance of to-day respect-
ing our South American neighbors, despite even the Pan-
Americans. How many of us can tell the form of goy-
ernment of half the South American States, or their
geographical features or limits, or their chief products,
or their population, or climate, or even their capital cities,
unless he is still in the grammar-school.

Our Civil War wrought a change. We hewed our-
selves into notice by the doughtiest blows delivered in
war since the era of Napoleon. Yet were the most con-
servative among the military autocrats of Europe unwill-
ing, till towards the very end, to look upon us in any
other light than as armed mobs, and even in the war of
66 they declined to profit by our experience. But by
1870 the Germans, with their keen instinct for war and
more numerous ties with the States, had adopted many
of the methods we had first devised, and to-day, not
only are our campaigns studied as samples (of good and
bad alike, as almost all campaigns must be), but fair jus-
tice is done to our actual merit in the province of war,
and to the exceptional ability of some American generals.

Among other ideas, they have borrowed from the ver-
satiity of our cavalry arm. Cavalry which fought on
foot had been sneered at for generations. It could not,
said the beaux sabreurs, be even good mounted infantry.
A cavalryman of this ilk must “ride like a hinfantry
hadjutant.” He was of hybrid growth—neither fish, flesh,
nor good red-herring; and this, though history, among
other instances, shows us that Alexander’s Companions—
as at Sangala, modern Lahore—dismounted and took in-
trenchments from which even his phalanx had recoiled,
while no body of five thousand cavalry ever held its own
in pitched battle so long by virtue of repeated and vigor-

64 IRREGULAR HORSE

ous charges, and with such heavy losses, as the Compan-
ions at the Hydaspes. We Americans were wiser; our
cavalry was well suited to our needs, and when it became
worthy the name, was singularly effective on our peculiar
terrain. Our Western cavalry is now the pattern of the
cavalry of the future. Even Prussia is about to abolish
the peculiar scope of its cuirassiers, whose uniform Bis-
marck has so long honored, and cavalry will soon become
largely irregular—if a regular dragoon, who mostly skir-
mishes on foot and rarely charges in the saddle, may be
so dubbed.

XIV

Ovr frontier cavalryman is the beau ideal of an irreg-
ular. The irregular horseman of all ages was recruited
from among roving, unintelligent classes, and had, except
in his own peculiar province, as plentiful a lack of good
as he had a superabundance of bad qualities. Our trooper
is intelligent, and trained in the hardest of schools. Few
civilians, who find it so easy to criticise the operations of
the army in the West, would make much of a success in
hunting a band of a few hundred Indians in a pathless or
a waterless desert bigger than New York and New Eng-
land combined. And yet, thus handicapped, what splen-
did work our cavalry has done! While one civil depart-
ment of the Government has for years been busy sowing
the seeds of strife and furnishing the red man with arms
of precision, the best of cartridges and plenty of them,
how ably have our handful of blue-coats, under orders of
another, managed to quell the Indian uprisings! <A force
of fifty thousand men constantly on foot, said that eminent
soldier, William Tecumseh Sherman (and he early made his
mark in estimating the number needed for a bigger piece
of work), would have been none too great to do justice to
our Indian problem since the war; the actual force has
been less than a third of this number. Let whoso is
tempted to criticise the army make himself familiar with
some of the deeds of heroism of the past twenty years by
our soldiers on the plains. Criticism blanches before
their recital. But the soldier is no boaster: you must
seek his story from other lips than his.

5

66 INDIAN COURAGE

When in the field the cavalryman is allowed some lati-
tude in suiting his dress to his own ideas of comfort, while
kept within certain regulation bounds. It is thus our art-
ist has represented him. He is apt to wear a soft hat—
there is no better campaigning hat than the slouch, as
thousands of old soldiers can testify— and boots ad lib. ;
his uniform is patterned on his own individuality after a
few days’ march. His enormous saddle-bags are much
better filled at the start than at the finish, and a couple
of canteens with the indispensable tin cup are slung at the
cantle. Huis sabre he considers less useful than a revolver,
and in a charge it is a question whether the latter be not
by far the preferable weapon. Against Indians it certain-
ly is so; for while your Indian is occasionally heroic be-
yond what the white man ever dreams, as a rule he is
cowardly beyond belief, and you can rarely reach him
with the naked blade. Cornered, or frenzied by supersti-
tion or passion or tribal pride, his constancy is marvel-
lous; in open fight he will often shirk danger like the
veriest poltroon. Like Sir Boyle Roche’s Irishman, he
would rather be a coward for five minutes than a dead
man all his life.

No experience the trooper could possibly have could be
a better training than Indian warfare, and at the end of
his enlistment the intelligent cavalryman has perhaps no
equal as a light dragoon. He labors under some serious
disadvantages. His horse is an American, 7.e., one which
comes from the States, and is in nowise allied to the
bronco. This horse is larger and stronger, but less hardy,
needs to be acclimated, and never can acquire the old hard
stomach of the plains pony. Used to grain, he more
speedily breaks down under lack of forage, and he is
vastly overweighted. The cavalry pack is very heavy

-

for pursuit of a foe who has nothing but his own precious

= = ——7
— SSSw—

_

UNITED STATES CAVALRYMAN

THE AMERICAN HORSE 69

carcass to transport, and never spares his many ponies, as
the soldier must his single horse. It has been suggested
that the California horse be tried, and in the South-west
this has been done, but without such results as to satisfy
all authorities. The California horse is small—fourteen
and a half to fifteen hands—weighs under nine hundred
pounds, and cannot well carry a heavy trooper and pack
whose weight overruns two hundred and thirty pounds.
But given light men of not exceeding a hundred and forty
pounds, recruited in the South-west, given a pack reduced
to the lowest limits, this horse would be of the greatest
utility. He is acclimated, has the much-enduring stom-
ach of the old stock, is more active, and does not so soon
get used up.

In thus criticising the American horse, it will not do to
underrate him. He is capable of very great feats of en-
durance. Without question, the hardest continuous dis-
tance rides are those habitually performed by our cavalry
on the plains. This is partly due to the exceptional
knowledge of the capacity of the horse to perform which
our cavalry officers have acquired in their hard service,
but partly also to the horse himself. And when we note
that this animal is the common country horse, bought by
the Government at a low price—the horse which will not
command a price high enough to be worth sending far to
market—it speaks well for the quality of our American
stock. After a second summer in the ranks he becomes
used to exceptional feats, and can be kept on hard service
without grain for a month.

Considering all the circumstances—that the cavalry re-
cruit is often a city-bred lad, who knows practically noth-
ing about a horse, and has to be taught it all; that he
is employed too much on duties which unfit him for his
work; that he as well as his horse has to be acclimated ;

70 OUR CAVALRY SEAT

and that the whole business which is new to him is an
old story to the Indian—it is astonishing how well he
does. His performances reflect unlimited credit upon his
superiors. And when he has learned his business, he is
certainly not surpassed by any cavalryman who bestrides
a saddle.

Our cavalry seat in its best form is perhaps as good as
can be. For long marches the saddle is comfortable, and
the leathers are about the proper length for the work. It
is neither the one extreme nor the other. You see some
cavalrymen with stirrups altogether too long; but the
well-trained United States trooper has as good a seat as
any rider can have. I think it may be admitted that
however good for rough-riding or for cross-country work,
or racing, or polo, the English saddle may be, it is not as
good for long-distance riding as a correct form of what
we call a cavalry-tree. When a man sits in a saddle for
thirty or forty consecutive hours, with but a few minutes’
relief at a time, he can do better in a tree less long and
flat. With some commands it is usual to girth a horse far
back, so as to get the saddle well away from the withers,
much as they do in most foreign armies, and thus save
the weight from bearing too much on the fore-quarters ;
but the usefulness of the habit is still an open question.
The place where the United States trooper rides is not
far from the place where a man who sits in the middle of
an English saddle rides. It is the withers which should
determine the position of the saddle; and as the girth al-
ways slips more or less, it is the make of the tree and the
way the saddle fits and the slant of the horse’s shoulder
which determine where the weight shall be. Some horses
are bound to carry their weight more forward than oth-
ers. If you seek to alter the place, you must alter the
tree or look out for sore backs. |

ARMY HATERS ri!

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The skill of
the soldier is measured by his performance. It is no
doubt natural that we Americans should be a nation of
army haters, but it is a pity that for the scruple of thanks
our little regular army ever gets there should be so many
ounces of grumbling. Uncle Sam has no public servants
who work so faithfully and endure such hardships and
danger. Why should sixty-five million Americans still
harbor an inherited rancor against thirty thousand of our
own countrymen because they professionally wear a
uniform? The volunteers were always the pets of the
nation; the regulars come in for more than their share of
abuse. And yet what generals won our battles? What
troops stood such decimation? That a volunteer deserves
a certain credit beyond a regular for equal service no one
will be found to dispute; but let us not forget the one in
the services of the other.

XV

Waar has this to do with horsemanship, say you?
True, we seem to have wandered; but we can retrace our
steps. Let me quote some isolated facts quite apart from
the Civil War, to show that our cavalrymen on Indian
service have not only stout hearts under their army blue,
but stout seats in the saddle as well, and earn credit for
them both. Mention need not be made of the risk every
scouting party or detachment runs of perishing in an
Indian ambush, like Custer or Forsyth; nor of horrible
marches of many days with the thermometer at 40° be-
low zero, like the command of Henry, when the bulk of
the men were frozen to death, or frost-bitten so as to lose
their feet and hands. Let us look at some good distance
riding, for it is in this that our men especially excel. —

But to do this calls out another side issue by reminding
us of the celebrated ride between Berlin and Vienna, and
we may as well recall its incidents. There has been much
honestly severe criticism of this noteworthy performance.

‘But what good came of it at last ?
Said little Peterkin.
Why, that I cannot tell, said he.
But ’twas a famous victory.”

Let us view it from every side.

Imprimis: so far as the endurance of the riders is con-
cerned it counts for nothing. The best time was three
hundred and fifty miles in three days—a mere trifle.

AMERICAN VITALITY (6

Why, in 1858, J. Powers rode one hundred and fifty miles
in six hours and forty-three minutes in San Francisco ;
in 1868, N. H. Mowry rode, on the San Francisco race-
track, in the sight of gathered thousands, three hundred
miles in fourteen hours, nine minutes; and one Anderson,
in the same city, rode one thousand three hundred and
four miles in ninety hours. The fact that these men fre-
quently changed horses only adds to the splendid charac-
ter of the feat, so far as the man is concerned. But this
is not all there is to the Berlin- Vienna ride.

Many years ago Dr. Brown-Sequard, in a lecture to a
Harvard class, was illustrating how instantaneously death
followed any lesion to brain tissue or spinal marrow. “I
insert: my probe between the vertebre of this rabbit,” said
he, taking up a specimen which was nibbling at a cabbage
on the table before him, “and you see that it at once ex-
pires.”” The doctor’s remark was, to his surprise, followed
by a general titter throughout the class, for, though he
had duly suited his action to his words, when he laid it
down the rabbit went as calmly at the cabbage again as
if not in the slightest degree inconvenienced. ‘This singu-
lar fact and other similar ones which he later noticed
here, but had never observed among European animals,
led Dr. Brown-Sequard, after careful tests, to enunciate
the theory that the mammal of North America has more
vitality than that of Europe. This theory is supported
by many facts, and was fairly proven sound by the nu-
merous cases of recovery from extraordinary capital oper-
ations during our Civil War, when the antiseptic method
was unknown. It has now been accepted by all who have
studied the subject. The word “vitality,” thus used, we
understand to mean the ability to perform exceptional
physical feats, or to endure excessive hardship without
death or material injury.

74 THE BERLIN-VIENNA RIDE

The ride of these seven-score army officers between Ber-
lin and Vienna has two interesting aspects: the amount
of endurance of the animals ridden, and the judgment of
the riders as to the capacity of their horses to perform.
How these two items compare with what our cavalry is
daily experiencing on the plains is a fruitful subject of in-
quiry.

As the crow flies, it is three hundred and twenty-five
English miles from Berlin to Vienna. By the road it is
variously called three hundred and fifty to three hundred
and seventy; it is certainly short of the latter distance.
Count Stahremberg, the winner, covered the distance from
Vienna to Berlin (which, owing to the mountainous sec-
tion being crossed in the early part of the ride, is easier
than the course from Berlin to Vienna) in some minutes
Jess than three days. Three other men came in within
three days and three hours. The best German rider, Lieu-
tenant Reitzenstein, took a trifle over seventy-three and
one-half hours. This sounds like a set of wonderful per-
formances. Are.they really so ?

The race was go-as-you-please. The riders successively
started from Vienna or Berlin at different hours, and rode
at any gait or speed, and by any road they chose. The
horses were the very best; no one not owning a horse
noted for unusual endurance would have been fool enough
to enter. There were many thorough-breds, many native
horses, Prussians and Hungarians, some ponies from the
Carpathian and Transylvanian uplands. The animals had
all been prepared by weeks of careful training. They car-
ried the least possible weight—the winner, e.g., rides but one
hundred and twenty-eight pounds, plus saddle and bridle.
The roads were the very best. Under these most favor-
able conditions the winner rode one hundred and twenty
miles a day for three consecutive days; the others less.

A WONDERFUL PONY 75

There has been a disposition among Anglo-Saxons
to underrate this performance. The large number of
horses killed or foundered with good right distresses our
sense of pure sport. But for all that it was a famous ride,
though open to serious criticism. Any horse ridden one
hundred and twenty-five miles in twenty-four hours per-
forms a great feat; one ridden two hundred miles in forty-
eight hours, a greater; to ride three hundred and fifty
miles in three days or a bit over is little short of marvel-
lous, if you bring the horse in free from permanent in-
jury. But there’s the rub, and it is on this point that
there is a word to say.

Comparisons may be odorous, as Mrs. Malaprop avers,
but they are interesting and useful. Few people out of
the Army know just what our cavalry is capable of, and
this ride affords an opportunity, not to be hghtly neglect-
ed, to point a moral and adorn a tale.

The nearest approach to the Stahremberg ride by an
American which we can at the moment recall is that of
the pony which Colonel Richard I. Dodge personally
knew, and which I have already mentioned. His owner
was a professional express rider, who carried the mail
from El Paso to Chihuahua, thither once a week and
back the next. As the country was infested by Apaches,
the man had to ride by night and hide by day. His prac-
tice was to ride the distance, three hundred miles, in three
consecutive nights, and rest his pony four days between
trips. “Six months of this work had not diminished the
fire or flesh of that wonderful pony,” says Colonel Dodge.
It is true that three hundred miles is not three hundred
and fifty, but this pony—probably not over fourteen hands,
and with rider, mail, and the usual plains trappings, carry-
ing at lowest two hundred pounds—used to make the
three hundred miles in some sixty hours (¢.e. three nights

76 THOROUGH-BRED VS. PONY

and the intervening two days), an equal average rate of
speed as that of Stahremberg and a much higher rate while
going, and no one pretends that the Count or any other
of the Berlin-Vienna riders could have turned round and
done the same thing over again the succeeding week;
whereas this little marvel kept on doing it every week
for six months, and no one knows how much longer, over
a country having no roads deserving the name, by night,
and feeding only on bunch-grass. Which of the two is
the better performance? This one cannot, perhaps, be
equalled; but to ride and repeat nearly as great distances
has never been and is not to-day. considered an excep-
tional thing on the plains.

And if this pony outdid the winner of the great Ger-
man race, by how far does he outrank the losers? The
horse ridden by Count Stahremberg was brought in in
fairly good condition, but died within a day or two. The
horse of the German winner died. A very high percent-
age of the others either died or broke down midway, or
were ridden home moribund or ruined. They were kept
up, on dit, by all kinds of stimulants and nostrums on the
road. No accounts have reached us showing the condi-
tion of the horses’ backs under the saddle, always a prime
proof of careful or unintelligent treatment. In fact, the
number of dead or maimed animals seems to be purposely
suppressed. That it was the ponies which came in with
the least injury will not surprise our Western men. While
a thorough-bred may outpace a pony, a ride which will
kill him will not permanently disable the little runt of
the prairie. The latter’s ancestry has had to struggle
with too much hardship to be easily killed, while the
thorough-breds have been warmly housed and artificially
handled. The pony’s heritage is to do and endure; the
thorough-bred’s to make pace.

XVI

Now, it may be interesting to give a few rides of our
own cavalry on the plains, not as a contrast, but as a
matter which all horsemen should be glad to know.

‘In 1879 several single couriers with the news of his
imminent danger rode from Thornburg’s “‘rat-hole” to
General Merritt’s column, one hundred and seventy miles,
in less than twenty-four hours. The exact time of each
was not taken. Rescue was more important than rec-
ords. In 1891 two troopers of the Eighth Cavalry rode
with despatches one hundred and ten miles in twenty
hours, and Captain Fountain rode eighty-four miles in
eight hours, and one hundred and ten miles in twenty-
three. In 1876 Colonel Lawton rode from Red Cloud
Agency, Nebraska, to Sidney Station, Nebraska, one hun-
dred and twenty-five miles, with despatches for General
Crook, in twenty-six hours. Rides of from one hundred
and twenty to one hundred and fifty miles have repeatedly
been made within the day and night by our ordinary
troop-horses when not specially prepared for the work,
and over very bad ground, and it is extremely rare that
they have suffered serious injury.

There are few three-day rides by single horsemen which
can readily be quoted; but other performances may be
given, which are akin to this one. We put aside all mere
hearsay rides. Of these there is no end; but it is well
to put on record only such rides as are proven by official
reports, and of which the distances can be measured by
clear evidence:

&

ay

78 OUR CAVALRY HORSE

It is plain that one man or horse travelling alone can
go much farther or faster than two travelling together,
and the more the individuals the slower the speed. The
speed and endurance of a troop is that of the poorest horse.
Extra weight infinitely adds to a horse’s task and dimin-
ishes his course, and his capacity to go depends upon the
chance to feed, water, and care for him suitably on the
road. It isin marching detachments over great distances,
under exceptionally difficult conditions, that our cavalry
officers show peculiar success. Perhaps a knowledge of
pace and the instinctive feel of the horse’s condition is the
highest grade of horsemanship. Civilians are wont to
think that to play polo, or hunt, or win a race over the
flat or over sticks, or perform high-school airs demand the
highest skill; but let any one undertake to ride a horse, or,
better, to lead a troop one hundred miles in twenty-four
hours, and despite all he may have learned in peaceful
sports, he will find his knowledge of real horsemanship dis-
tinctly limited. Not all our cavalry officers are equally
gifted, but some have made rides which are unsurpassed.

It must be remembered that our cavalry horse is, ab
origine, a very common fellow. He is bought by the Goy-
ernment at a price which brings out mainly those ani-
mals which are not quite good enough to command the
top of the market, and are held for sale at a rather low
figure. They go out to the plains, and are there got into
condition while at work. They are not, as abroad, raised
in studs boasting sires of the highest lineage. On the
march the troop-horse carries very little less than two
hundred and fifty pounds—eighty-eight pounds for equip-
ment and baggage, and, say, one hundred and sixty for
the rider. In camp he is well fed; on the march he can-
not always be, and he is watered at irregular intervals.
All these things tell against him.

oe

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A NOTEWORTHY RIDE "9

In 1873 Colonel Mackenzie rode his command into
Mexico after Lepan and Kickapoo Indians, beat them in
a sharp fight, and returned across the border, making one
hundred and forty-five miles in twenty-eight hours. ¢In
1874 he again rode his command into Mexico after horse-
thieves, making there and back, eighty-five miles, in fif-
teen hours. In 1880, Captain A.E. Wood, Fourth Cavalry,
one of the most thorough horsemen I have ever known,
rode, with eight men, in pursuit of a thieving deserter, one
hundred and forty miles in thirty-one hours. Let him tell
his own story. It shows just how the trick is done:

“In the month of September, 1880, I was stationed at
Fort Reno, Indian Territory; the paymaster had visited
us, and in those days, after such a visit, some desertion
was expected.

‘‘ About noon one day the latter part of September, the
post commander sent for and astonished me by stating
that the first sergeant of his company—Twenty-third In-
fantry —had deserted, taking with him a considerable
amount of the company fund, and he wanted me to catch
him if possible. He had discovered that the sergeant had
bought one strong Indian pony and had stolen another.

“The direction taken by the sergeant was not known,
but under the circumstances I thought that he intended
to reach the railroad as soon as possible. The nearest
railroad was in Southern Kansas—the nearest point Ar-
kansas City, one hundred and forty miles as the trail then
went. I took a detail of two non-commissioned officers
and six men from G troop, Fourth Cavalry.

“The detail was taken from the roster, except the first
sergeant of G troop, who asked to go with me; the horses
belonged to the riders; none were selected as especially
qualified for the trip. I rode the same horse that I had
been riding for months.

80 CARE OF BACKS

“T took two pack-mules with the men’s rations; they
were loaded with about eighty pounds each. We left the
post at 1.35 p.m. The day was quite hot, and knowing
what was before me, I did not push the animals very hard
for the first twenty-five miles, which distance we had made
by 6pm. This distance brought us to Kingfisher Creek,
where we halted for one hour—unsaddled, got some-
thing to eat, let the horses roll and graze, then groomed
their backs and legs, saddled up and started at 7 p.m.

“We started and walked for thirty minutes, then took a
trot for fifty minutes, when we dismounted and rested for
ten minutes; adjusted the saddles, mounted, and took the
trot for fifty minutes, dismounted and walked for ten
minutes. We thus trotted at about a six-mile gait for a
little more than fifty minutes, and dismounted and walked
for ten minutes, until 12 p.m., when we halted and rested
for twenty minutes. We then mounted and kept up
the trotting for fifty minutes, dismounting and walking
for ten minutes, until about 4.50 a.m., a little after day-
break, when we were so overcome with sleep that I al-
lowed the men to dismount, unsaddle, and sleep for about
an hour. My mind was so busy that I could not sleep
much, so I awoke the men. We groomed the backs and
rubbed the legs of the horses for a short time and re-
sumed the journey as before. When we had gone about
one hundred and twenty miles we again halted, unsaddled,
let the horses rest, and made some coffee. This rest took
three-quarters of an hour, after which we started and tray-
elled as before until we reached Arkansas City at 8.30 p.m.
—thirty-one hours. Men and horses were extremely tired;
one horse was quite lame infront. We rested the remain-
der of the night, the next day and night, and then marched
to Caldwell, Kansas, thirty-five miles, the succeeding day.
We remained at Caldwell two nights and a day, and

FAST TIME 81

marched back to Fort Reno, a distance of one hundred
and fifteen miles by ordinary marches. All but one horse
seemed to be rested when we reached Caldwell. This
horse was unserviceable when we reached Fort Reno, the
others were apparently as good as ever. The above is
a record of the hardest ride I ever undertook. The fa-
tigue was very great; but a good night’s rest completely
restored all of us.

“ At that time our mounts were purchased in Missouri
and Kansas. The horse I rode was twelve years old; the
others were a little younger. I think that the horse that
was rendered unserviceable was made so by bad riding.
His rider was not a very good horseman, and rode too
heavily forward. I tried to correct this, but it is impossi-
ble to teach all the niceties of horsemanship on such a
trip.”

In 1870 four men of Company H, First Cavalry, bore
despatches from Fort Harney to Fort Warner, one hun-
dred and forty miles, over a bad road—twenty of it sand
—with httle and bad water, in twenty-two hours, eighteen
and a half of which was actual marching time. The horses
were in such good condition at the end of the ride that
after one day’s rest the men started back, and made the
home trip at the rate of sixty milesa day. In 1879 Cap-
tain Dodge, with his troop, rode eighty miles in sixteen
hours, and Lieutenant Wood, with his troop, rode seventy
miles in twelve hours. In December, 1890, Captain Fechet,
with troops F and G, Eighth Cavalry, left Fort Yates at
midnight, reached Sitting Bull’s camp, forty-five miles dis-
tant, at 7.20 a.m., drove off his band, and rescued the sur-
vivors of the Indian police who had arrested and in the
mélée killed Sitting Bull. The two troops then scouted
the country for ten miles around and marched back, reach-

ing Oak Oreek at 2 p.m.—a total distance of eighty-five
6

y

82 RAIDERS AND PURSUERS

miles in fourteen hours. ‘“ The roads were frozen hard
and half covered with ice and snow. At the end of the
ride there was not a saddle-boil nor a broken-down horse
or man.” In 1880 Colonel Henry, with four troops, rode
one hundred and eight miles in thirty-three hours, being
in the saddle twenty-two hours. One horse dropped dead
at the end of the march, but there was not a sore-backed
horse in the regiment, and they started out again after a
rest of twenty-four hours. The same command made a
night march of fifty miles in ten hours.

General Merritt in 1879, with four troops, and ham-
pered by a battalion of infantry in wagons, rode one
hundred and seventy miles to the relief of Payne in sixty-
six and one-half hours, and reached the scene in prime
order and ready to go into a fight. Very long distances
have been covered by cavalry regiments at the rate of
sixty miles a day. Colonel Henry, an expert on this sub-

ject, speaking of hardening the men and horses of a com-

mand by a month’s drills of from fifteen to twenty miles
at rapid gaits, aptly says: “A cavalry command thus
hardened, and with increased feeds, ought to be able to
make fifty to sixty miles a day as long as required; and
to such a command one hundred miles in twenty - four
hours ought to be easy. The horse, like the athlete,
needs training, and when this is done his endurance is
limited only by that of his rider.”

In 1877 General Miles organized in Arizona a plan for
accustoming men and horses to severe work by rides
across the plains by a party of “ raiders,’ followed by
another of “pursuers.” The parties were usually about
twenty strong. The pursuers were not allowed to start
until eighteen hours after the raiders, but the raiders were
bound to rest six hours after marching eighteen hours,
and again twelve after marching twelve more. The pur-

Pik i ed ces eet ate, ee ye Be

i —— oe

Se fs

——"

WHO WINS THE PRIZE? 83

suers could “go as you please,” but were ordered not to
injure stock by hard riding. Of these rides, which are
not under the spur of compulsion, a few may be given as
of interest. On September 17th, Lieutenant Scott, Sixth
Cavalry, and twenty-five men, started from Fort Stanton
towards Fort Bayard, and was overtaken in forty-two and
one half hours marching time, at a distance of one hun-
dred and thirty miles. The pursuers, Lieutenant Persh-
ing and twenty -seven men, made the one hundred and
thirty miles in fifty-four and one-half hours from start
to capture. On September 25th, Lieutenant McGrath,
Fourth Cavalry, and twenty-two men, started from Fort
Bowie to Fort Apache; he made one hundred and seven-
ty-three miles in forty-two hours’ marching time. On
September 26-27, Lieutenant Scott and twenty-five men,
in pursuit of Lieutenant Pershing, made one hundred and
ten miles in twenty-six hours ten minutes. On Novem-
ber 1-3, Lieutenant Pershing and twenty-two men, pur-
suing Captain Wallace, made one hundred and thirty
miles in fifty-seven hours. Captain Chaffee, in pursuit of
Captain Kerr, made on September 24-25 seventy miles in
twenty hours with seventeen men.

These are but a few instances which any of our cavalry
officers can duplicate from their own knowledge. I could
quote very many more. Now, if we take the conditions
under which these rides have been made, viz., a common-
bred native troop horse, not always kept hard and ready
for work; the exceptional weight carried, for all but the
courier work was done with full equipment; the fact that
most of the courses were over country without roads, or
only trails, which are the merest apology for roads, and
often hilly and badly cut up; that the pace must be made
for the slowest horses, and be such that weak factors in
the troop shall be respected ; that the incentive was thir-

84 THE SOLDIERS PLUCK

teen dollars a month and simple duty, and not a splendid
money prize of five thousand dollars and the commenda-
tion of emperors; and, above all, that the commands have
uniformly been brought in without injury to man or
beast, we shall find matter for justifiable self-gratulation.

XVII

I wave from youth been reasonably familiar with the
performances of European cavalry, and have studied the
Arabian horse in the French army in Algiers, and in his
native haunts on the Libyan and Syrian deserts. I have
sought assiduously for records of great performances ; but
exceptional work is only called out by exceptional needs,
and abroad these are apt to be wanting. Granted that
the German cavalry, for example, is marvellously drilled ;
that it has the stomach to fight has been a notorious fact
ever since the days of Ziethen and Seidlitz. Granted
that it can perform precise evolutions or charge without
confusion on the battle-field in masses greater than our
entire cavalry force; yet this by no means reaches the
heart of distance riding. Such a thing as our raider and
pursuer drills would never be dreamed of in Germany.
All our work on the plains tends to distance riding, and
in no other regular army in the world does this obtain.
The Austro-Hungarian cavalry is better fitted than the
German for distance riding, and has, as a pattern, the
steppes man and horse, who are unexcelled in this very
thing. In Algeria, while the horse of the Nineteenth
Corps d’ Armée is all mounted on Arabians, there is apt to
be no call for excessive marches, and there is no prepara-
tion for them. The Spahis, or light cavalrymen of native
birth, are in constant movement all over the country, but
they have the true Oriental trick of not overworking
themselves; and so far as wonderful individual distance

86 UNRELIABLE EVIDENCE

rides are concerned, I have been unable to pin down a
single such ride to reliable evidence. An Arab sheik out
in the desert, who owns a high-bred mare, will tell you of
marvellous performances, but they are as nebulous as his
own Thousand and One Nights. I once sought to pur-
chase some speed—a drive of eighty miles over the excel-
lent turnpike from Soussa to Tunis—in order to catch a
steamer; but though the owner of some really fine Ara-
bians had been telling about the three hundred kilometres
(one hundred and eighty-six miles) a day they could do,
no amount of money could induce him to agree to take
me over the course of eighty miles with four horses and
a light vehicle in less than twenty hours.

It used to be asserted that the Turcoman cavalry could
ride in large bodies one hundred miles a day for a week,
or even more; but, though all the steppes horses of the
world, like our broncos, are incomparable stayers on their
own terrain, this distance must be cut down by a large
percentage. My ancient school-friend, now a_ pacha,
major-general, and chief of the forty thousand odd Kurd-
ish cavalry of the Turkish Empire, though absolutely
familiar with the subject, was unwilling to vouch for
such a statement. The Kurdish is practically the same
as the Turcoman horse. In talking it over, this gentle-
man cited one of his own distance rides, fifteen hundred
kilometres in forty-five days, as a great performance,
which he thought established the reputation of the horse
of Asia Minor beyond cavil. But this is only thirty-three
miles a day. It was unnecessary to argue the matter, as
it would not have elicited more accurate statistics.

After all said, the palm for distance riding must be
awarded to our own cavalry officers. Taking all the con-
ditions into account, there are probably no civilized horse-
men who can ride so far with a body of men and bring

{
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THE AMERICAN MAMMAL 87

them to the end of their journey in as clean a condition
as the best of our officers on the plains. The talent to do
this is by no means universal; but it is wide-spread. And
though we may marvel at the recent three hundred and
fifty miles ridden in from seventy-two to eighty hours by
the most expert foreign horsemen on their picked horses,
the record of dead and foundered steeds leads us to be-
lieve that we could have done as well and saved our
horses.

This brings us again to the question of the endurance
of the American mammal. Except the ass, there is per-
haps no creature of the equine race as stubbornly endur-
ing as the bronco. This is largely due to the American
climate. The record of running and trotting time in
America tends to prove the same thing; and our athletic
records, considering how recently born our athletic fad is,
are of high grade. The fact that the common States’
horse can be taken and, after short training, made to do
such marvels of distance work, not only proves the intelli-
gence of our officers but sustains the claim of superior
vitality in the horse.

XVIII

Anp now, my hard-riding cross-country brothers, ye
who win glory in the polo-field; ye who deem that twen-
ty-five or thirty miles in fine weather, over the best of
roads, without other weight than your own avoirdupois
and a light saddle, is a good day’s work for man and
beast ; ye who (I know you don’t mean it, or do it with-
out reflection) are wont to scoff at the West Point rider,
or listen to the persuasive ranchman as he runs down the
work of the Army because it does not always chime in
with his own peculiar interests; ye who flatter yourselves
that you and your ilk are peerless horsemen, and who run
no risk beyond an occasional spill— will you not agree
with me that the above Army rides are hard jewels to
match? If you and I, on our thousand-dollar imported
mounts— not to quote fancy prices—should cover even
seventy miles in thirty-one hours (we should prefer to do
it in two instalments, you know, chappie!), should we not
have a good week’s glory at the club, and be the cynosure
of neighboring eyes? But do you think we should care,
with Captain Wood, to double up that distance, sit thirty-
one consecutive hours in the saddle, and do one hundred
and forty miles for the sake of—thirteen dollars a month
and duty? Not but what, in my youth and prime, I
might have done; not but what to-day you might, under
parallel circumstances, do that very thing! Good Amer-
ican grit is the same at all times and in all places. I am
not discounting your ability to perform; and that your

DON’T RUN DOWN THE ARMY! 89

generous horseman’s heart—for no man who loves a horse
e’er lacks the touch of nature—must warm towards the
blue-coats who can accomplish such feats it needs no
words to tell. It takes gimp, brother, it takes intelli-
gence, it takes that sympathetic knowledge of the horse
which wealladmire. Let me ask you to study these little
items—you can find no end of others if you will take the
trouble to hunt them up—and when you feel inclined to
criticise the Army because it does not accomplish the im-
possible, just stop and think. Men who can ride such dis-
tances as these are apt to do all that flesh and blood can
stand. Ta-ta!

XIX

In constant association with the cavalryman comes
that most faithful servant—the only good Indian except
a dead one—the Indian scout. There are numbers of
these men enlisted in the Army, and many more when oc-
casion demands have been temporarily in service. These
men are not to be confounded with the Indians who have
recently been recruited, with questionable results, in the
rank and file. The scouts are men of exceptional relli-
ability and intelligence, and as a rule have proved to be
valuable in a high degree. Some have rendered unusual
service. The Indian scout receives the pay and allowance
of the cavalry soldier. He may have come of any tribe.
He finds his own ponies, but has issued to him a Govern-
ment saddle and equipments, and barring spurs, for which
he substitutes the invariable quirt, delights in Uncle Sam’s
uniform, as, more’s the pity, every soldier does not. Why
is the profession which, honorably filled, is the noblest of
all professions, if courage, endurance, ‘and all the most
manly qualities in their highest expression can ennoble a
profession, looked on askance by all Americans? It is a
fact of which we should be heartily ashamed, that the
United States uniform, which has covered the breasts of

so many heroes, from George Washington to Ulysses S.

Grant, is to-day a badge of ostracism. It is this, more
than any other one fact, which lies at the root of the nu-
merous desertions from the Army.

Since the aborigines have been kept on the reserva-

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DRUBBING HIS RIBS 93

tions, the Indian scout has ridden an imitation of the cav-
alry seat, and has broken himself of kicking his pony’s
ribs at every stride. The Indian is vain and imitative,
and these two qualities make him a servant of the repub-
lic equally tractable and reliable. We are indebted to him
for much of the best service, and in his ranks have been
numbered many men whose names are household words.

This habit of drubbing the horse’s ribs is one by no
means confined to the Indian, though he indulges in it to
excess. You see it in Central Park, in Rotten Row, in all
the cavalry of Europe, among the Arabs, on the steppes
of Russia. Its special use among all these appears to be
to keep the horse at a rapid walk; when a horse is on a
faster gait, it is chiefly the Indian who keeps up the pound-
ing. It is of no particular value ; for, like the use of the
whip, familiarity soon breeds contempt, and the horse per-
forms no better for the punishment and less willingly for
the worry. It is an ungainly trick, too, much on a par
with swinging the legs at a trot. In a soldier particularly
one wishes to see that sort of precision which should be a
sequence of a perfect setting-up ; and the trick of using
the heels at every moment sadly mars the military seat.
There are other ways of keeping a horse at his best which
are not so objectionable as this.

XX

We have travelled so near the border that we cannot
well afford not to pay a visit to our neighbors. All ex-
cept jealously conservative Canadians will acknowledge
that there are many things which the Dominion might
learn to advantage from the States ; and there are incon-
testably others in which the Dominion might give us
points. Among these, what we have been discussing sug-
gests its management of the Indian, which has always
been in marked contrast to our own. Among other in-
struments of our neighbor’s Indian Department is a bri-
gade of cavalry known as the Canadian Mounted Police.

This is an uncommonly fine body of men, numbering on -

its roster many of the better classes. They have the usual
military organization, but are distributed in small troops
all over Canada. Their duties are chiefly to suppress the
whiskey trade—for fire-water has always been and is still
the greatest of the red man’s foes—keep the Indians in sub-
jection, and aid the sheriffs of the various counties. These
men ride a bred-up bronco. Their saddle is what is
known as the Montana tree, and for this style of saddle
they ride with rather too short a stirrup to suit our notions
—a, seat akin to the English military seat. On a trot they
pound, as with such short stirrups they cannot well avoid
doing. The seat of the United States soldier is apparently
contrasted to theirs, and each method not only has its ad-
vocates, but produces in many individuals the best of
horsemanship. The seat of this rider gives him a pur-

—$

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MOUNTED POLICE

CANADIAN

HANDS AND HEELS 97

chase with the thigh, the inside of the knee, and when he
closes his legs, as he must in the ranks, with the upper
part of the calf. It is in accordance with the old saw of
“ands and ’eels low, ’ead and ’eart *igh,’ under which so
many splendid horsemen have grown up—except that his
bridle hand is raised by the blanket roll or carbine. He
seems to be sitting, as he faces us, in just the style he ought
not to sit. No one but a Mexican or the ghost of a knight
in armor rides in thisform. It is not unnatural for a man
to thrust out his feet as a change of position, but it is the
very worst seat in which a man can indulge if he retains
it habitually.

The world seems to be sliding into other notions than
it used to have. The ’ands and ’eels low applies to the
hands only. The English cross-country rider of to-day
has his foot no more than level when at rest, and keeps
his toe well down when in motion. This has partly come
about from the trick of holding the stirrup in place when
leaping, and partly from the fact that the Briton, even
after hounds, does not ride with leathers as short as years
ago. We used to hear, particularly during our war, many
an Old Country man ridicule the American cavalry seat,
because our men hang their toes when in the saddle,
rather than depress their heels, as her Majesty’s troopers
and school-riders are supposed to do. In some respects
this is not strange, for many an Englishman will, as a
matter of habit or of keeping his hand in, criticise every-
thing he runs across, whether he knows anything about it
or not. It is merely a trick, a sort of weak offshoot of the -
excellent character which gives him his energy and cour-
age and stick-to-ativeness. And the veriest little London
cockney, who has never thrown his leg across anything
but a broken-down ninepence-an-hour *Ampstead ’Eath

‘ack, will undertake to criticise the riding of the cowboy
7

98 REPUBLICS

or the Southerner. But the variation between the seats
of the two soldiers in question is not great; they are, in
actual fact, nearly alike. Make a composite photograph
of five hundred American and another of five hundred
British troopers, and it will be found that the three lines
which establish the seat—the back-bone, the thigh-bone,
and the shank-bone—will lie with small variation upon
each other, while the position on the back of the horse
will in neither case be far from the correct one. The
low-carried toe merely gives the appearance of a straighter
leg; there is practically the same seat. One advantage of
“heels down” is that it lends a bit more griping power
to the upper muscle of the calf; but to gain the ankle-play
which is essential to comfortable riding with long stirrups,
the foot should be level, so as to yield as much up as down
motion. Neither extreme is beneficial. Though I have
always been an advocate of the old-fashioned seat, ac-
quaintance with many wonderful riders with toes pendent
has taught me that this style has its advantages. It ap-
proaches nearer the bareback seat than any other, and by
far the greater number of civilized equestrians ride with
toe rather than heel depressed.

The Canadian Mounted Police is one of the most effi-
cient organizations which exist, and it accomplishes its
purpose because it is not interfered with. Its work tells
and is appreciated, as the much harder and more danger-
ous duties of our cavalry are not. There are some benefits
which accrue to the individual from a centralized govern-
ment which our own does not so well afford. That a
true republic, well governed, is the best of governments
can scarcely be denied; but in an illy or laxly governed
republic abuses and hardships spring up as by magic and
thrive apace. By republic I do not mean the soz-disant
republics of the world. I know of but three real repub-

POLITICS. TABOO 99

lics—Switzerland, Great Britain, and America. But this
is politics; and, according to the Loyal Legion rule, who-
ever refers to politics at a meeting of the Commandery
is for the first offence fined thirty dollars, and for the sec-
ond is dismissed the Order. Let us consider this a meet-
ing, and enforce the rule.

i

XXI.

TuE cowboy is in the saddle more than any man on
the plains. He rides what is well known as the cowboy’s
saddle, or Brazos tree. It is adapted from the old Span-
ish saddle—is, in fact, almost similar—and differs sensibly
from the Mexican. The line of its seat from cantle to
horn, viewed sidewise, is a semicircle; there is no flat
place to sit on. This shape gives the cowboy, seen from
the side, all but as perpendicular a seat in the saddle as
the old knight in armor. There are, of course, other sad-
dles in use. The Texas saddle has a much flatter seat
than the Brazos tree; the Cheyenne saddle a still flatter
one, with a high cantle and a different cut of pommel-
arch and bearing, and some individuals may ride any pe-
culiar saddle; but all must have the horn and high cantle.
In no other tree would the cowboy be at home or fit for
service. Not only this, but in a flat English saddle the
cowboy cuts a sorry figure. One of the best-known men
in America, the owner of a big Western ranch—where, of
course, he rides @ la cowboy, and when East noted as a
bold and skilful rider in the Meadow Brook Hunt, where
of course, too, he rides a flat saddle—told me that once his
ranch superintendent, a well-known bronco- buster, when
East, was compelled to ride an English saddle, and that
the man was fairly slipping off sidewise every minute or
two. He simply could not ride the thing at all, nor for a
long time get the hang of it.

The cowboy is careful of his ponies, not only from a

NAVAJO BLANKETS 101

horseman’s motives, but because he is held to account for
them. Unlike the Indian, he rarely has a sore-backed nag.
He often uses a gunny-bag saddle-cloth next the pony’s
skin, the hempen fibre of which keeps the back cool, and
over this, for padding, his woollen blanket. In the South-
west he is apt to sport a variegated saddle- cloth with
fringed edge, such as the Mexicans parade; and if he can
manage to get hold of a Navajo blanket he is fixed.
These wonderful bits of handwork, of bright, agreeable
colors, are worth from fifty dollars upwards, never seem
to wear out, are cool and pleasant to the pony’s skin, do
not gall, and are by long odds the best thing under a sad-
dle which exists. The Indian will give from two ponies
upwards for one of them, when he can buy a wite for one
pony, and not a very good pony (or wife) at that. The
cowboy’s saddle is held in place by one very wide or two
narrower hair cinchas, though the single cincha is more
a Californian than a plains habit; if one, it is, among
plains riders, always put a full hand-breadth back of what
in the East we call the girth-place. The rear girth gets a
purchase on the back slope of the ribs.

The cowboy’s bit is any kind of a curb with a long gag.
He rides under all conditions with a loose rein, the bit
ends of which are often made of chain, to prevent the
pony from chewing it off, and this clanks a rhythmic
jingle to his easy lope. His pony is as surefooted as a
mountain goat, and will safely scramble with his big load
up a cliff, or side down a bank which would make our
tenderfoot hair stand on end. ‘The loose rein and the
sharp gag enable the cowboy with the least jerk to pull
his pony back on his haunches, for the pony is unused to
a steady hold. The cowboy is assuredly no three-legged
rider. The bit hangs in a fancy trade-bridle, which the
cowboy ornaments in various fashions to suit his own

102 FEEL OF THE MOUTH

ideas of style. The effect of its use on the pony is pre-
cisely the reverse of that which is made by a bit ona
horse suppled by school methods or even bitted, and
which has been ridden on a light touch. The latter
brings down his head to the hand, with an arched neck,
easy mouth, and a give-and-take feel of the hand. The
pony, at the least intimation of the bit, long before the
rein 1s taut, Jerks up his head, and must have a tough
mouth, or an exceptional fright, to make him take hold
of you.

This habit of using a severe bit and of never allowing
the horse to take hold of it is partaken by the majority
of the riders of the world. All Orientals, without excep-
tion, bit a horse in this fashion. I have at intervals seen
a man in the Orient with an easy bit, playing it with a
light touch—by touch I mean an actual feel of the
horse’s mouth-—and with a neat and easy hand; but it is
very rare. <A loose rein gives no useful touch. You can
start your horse with the spur or whip, or with a word;
you can stop him with the merest touch of the rein; you
can guide him by the rein on his neck. But I deem it
impossible to communicate with a horse as intimately
with this loose rein as you can with the touch of a bit
and bridoon, well adjusted, and which you always hold so
as to have the least possible delicate feel of the horse’s
mouth. Such a touch not only yields a sense of compan-
ionship between man and beast, but the horse unquestion-
ably likes the pleasant conversation which thus goes on.
A man may talk with his horse in words, and of these an
intelligent horse is very fond; but they will at least be
rare. If he is in the habit of talking to him through the
rein and bit, his hands will be always talking—and it is
this that pleases and controls the true saddle- beast. I
will discuss this point again when I come to speak of

COWBOY LIGHTING THE RANGE FIRE

THE COWBOY’S RIG 105

school methods. Even though the discussion may be
quite one-sided, I fancy we shall not disagree.

The most striking part of the cowboy’s rig are the cha-
parajos, or huge leather overalls, he is apt to wear. These
originated in the mesquite or chaparral country, where
the cattle business had its origin, and where jeans or a
pair of the best cords will be torn to shreds in a day.
When the chaparajos are seen out of this region, they
have been retained from force of habit. This singular
garment is made of cowhide, weighs five or six pounds,
and used invariably to have the edge cut into a long
fringe; but this ornamentation has begun to disappear.
It boasts no seat, which could with difficulty be made to
fit. On the left leg of the chaparajos is a pocket for cig-
arettes or chewing-tobacco, matches, and small sundries.
The chaparajos could not comfortably be worn in any
other saddle than one which gave a short, upright, “ forked-
radish” seat. They are too much like trousers made of
stove-pipe.

At the cowboy’s saddle- bow usually hangs a rawhide
or hair or Mexican grass rope, from forty feet long up-
wards, to use for every purpose, from roping cattle to haul-
ing out a mired team; and his rifle,a 73-Winchester, rests
crosswise at the horn, in a broad pouch-like strap, which
protects the lock from injury ; or is slung under the left
leg, where it can lie with equal security. He boasts few
riches. What he has is apt to be in dollars, or owed him
by the ranchman, or occasionally in a few steers. He buys
a pair of eighteen -dollar boots, a pair of fifteen-dollar
gloves, and the rest of his rig and dress is scarcely worth
a five-dollar bill. This is by no means from extravagance.
He must keep his feet well shod and his legs protected.
Without the very best gloves he would shortly have no
skin left on his hands. It is self-protection and well-

ieee
5

106 MOUNTING A BRONCO

studied economy that makes him spend so much on these
two articles of attire. And so long as they are orna-
mental as well as useful, he is as well satisfied with them
as a New York swell used to be with a cover-coat with
long swallow-tails sticking out from under it.

Broncos with manners are fewer and farther between ~

than even angels’ visits. The cowboy’s bronco is never
what we should call half-broken. By the time he has
been ridden enough to be well broken in he is usually all
broken up. He is a difficult fellow to mount, being rid-
den but once every four or five days. If he were not so
small one could never mount him without assistance. He
will back away, plunge forward, swerve, kick, strike,
squeal, rush full at you with mouth wide open, or per-
form a hundred other antics, any one of which would
compel us simple-minded park riders to hurry him off to
the nearest auction-room — or advertise him at private
sale as a horse of exceptional courage and unflagging
spirit. He is, in every sense, what we are wont to char-
acterize as a dangerous brute. But the cowboy can al-
ways see him and go him one better. Familiarity breeds
contempt. For what he calls violence he ropes the
bronco and chokes the violence out of him with the wind;
to what we call violence he pays no manner of heed.
He approaches him at the left shoulder, with a wary eye
to what the pony may be up to, and gathers the rein in
his left hand. Not infrequently he puts his hand over
the pony’s eye while he grabs the left stirrup and gets his
foot in it, following up the bronco’s antics as best he may
—man and horse not unlikely executing a most exhilarat-
ing pas de deux. Then, grabbing the pommel with the
right hand and the pony’s withers with the left, and if
possible getting his left elbow in the hollow of the neck
just forward of the withers, nothing which the pony can

RISENG (TO) AC -EROT 107

do can keep him out of the saddle. In fact, a plunge
which drags him from his feet will all the more certainly
swing him to his seat. Then, after a series of bucks more
or less severe, according as to how much the pony has
been ‘“ busted,’ during which exercise the cowboy’s spurs
go time and again into the pony’s flanks, and the pony
acts like the veriest wild beast, the mastery is established
where it properly belongs, the pony steadies down after
a fashion, and harmony, such as it is, reigns till the next
time of mounting. ;

The cowboy universally rides a lope, as do all people
who use wild horses. The bronco has no other gait, in
fact, unless a sort of fox-trot. The cowboy’s seat is un-
suited to an open trot. He won’t ride it if he can help
it, and it may as well be confessed, he cannot—and no
one can —sit close without pounding to the long rangy
trot of a big thorough-bred, though it is the perfection of
gaits if you rise to it. There is a good deal of nonsense
talked about rising to a trot—almost as much as there is
about drinking iced- water. The fact is that all peoples,
wild and semi-civilized, who are used to horses, rise to a
trot. They don’t do it often because they prefer and
train their horses to other and better gaits; but if their
mount falls into a trot, or they happen to ride a trotting
horse, they naturally rise, as a matter of course. It is
only those who stick exclusively to the old ramrod pat-
tern who do not do so.

I seem to have roped iced-water into the question, but
I will use it only to quote a clever friend of mine, a doc-
tor of no mean repute. Said he to me one day: “ Why
do you all declaim against iced-water? Of course it can
be abused by drinking in a heated condition—so can any
other food or drink be abused. But all animals drink
iced-water a good part of the year. When you water a

i s

108 COWBOY ACROSS COUNTRY

farm-horse or your cows at the brook in January, what
else are they drinking? And yet, does it hurt them?
No,” suiting the action to the word, ‘“ iced-water is a health-

_ ful drink, properly used.”

We hear from many that the cowboy can do every-
thing. Rumors run that some of Buffalo Bill’s cowboys
rode English horses in their own saddles and beat every-
thing to hounds somewhere in the Midland counties—
we won’t be specific and say the Belvoir. Those who
know the country this implies and its riders accept this
statement cum grano. but assume its truth. One often
sees a dare-devil of an English lad just out of college
who imagines, because he has once or twice led the field
on one of the squire’s crack hunters, that he is the best
rider in it. But, in truth, he is risking his horse’s, not to
count his own less valuable neck, at every obstacle he
clears, and pumping the last ounce out of his generous
beast, while wiser and older riders close behind him are
saving their horses and bringing them in fresh and able.
It is not riding. a fabulous distance, or at the greatest
speed, or with the most conspicuous daring, which is the
test, but getting in at the death with the least exertion to
man and beast. The highest proof of artistic horseman-
ship is to accomplish your task with the least expenditure
of physical force. To keep the horse in good condition 1s,
among civilized people, a greater test than the speed or
daring of the rider. Witness the Berlin-Vienna ride. So
in the great tests of distance made by plains ponies and
civilized horses one element is apt to be forgotten. The
latter must be brought in without injury; the pony may
be killed by the feat. No question whatever that if the
pony and the thorough - bred, under even conditions, be
ridden until both fall in their tracks, the pony will be
beaten in speed and distance. It seems to me clear that

ENGLISHMEN ON THE PLAINS 109

thorough-breds have always beaten ponies; but that the
pony will recover from what may kill the thorough-bred
is equally clear. In the Berlin- Vienna ride no doubt
fewer of the ponies died; but those thorough-breds which
died a day or two after could probably have gone much
farther and left the ponies still farther behind, before
they dropped. The grit of the thorough-bred is a wonder-
ful element. So long as you keep him moving he will
resist death in a manner utterly inexplicable ; when, if you
stop him, he may die in a few hours.

But the cowboy is unequalled in his own province, and
this is enough of fame. His seat is astonishing. It isa
common feat for him to put a playing-card on the saddle,
or a dollar piece under each foot in the stirrup, or under
his knees, and ride a vigorous bucker. Still he cannot
ride a flat saddle until he learns the trick of it. And
while no cowboy, without serving his apprenticeship in
the hunting-field, would hold his own with practised rid-
ers there, it is certain that he would much sooner learn
to ride across country well than even the best of cross-
country men could vie with him in controlling a vicious
bronco, or indeed, in riding over the rough country he is
wont to cover. It is the universal experience of the
plains that the best English rider fights shy of ground
which the cowboy will gallop over, until he catches on to
it and confides in the sure feet of his little mount. Some
men never learn to ride; but it stands to reason, caeteris
paribus, that the man who makes riding his business will
be a stouter horseman than one to whom it is a mere
diversion.

-

XXII

As a rough-rider the cowboy is facile princeps; as a

horse-breaker he devotes too little time to his task, nor
does he go to work in the way best calculated to produce
a quiet nag. Bronco-busting is a distinct art. The bron-
co- buster may be a ‘ professional,” who has originally
taken up the work to replenish his exchequer, depleted
by whiskey or poker, and sticks to it for lack of an easier
job, and because he is at low-water-mark; or he may be a
cow-puncher in slack times. As a rule he cannot stick it
out very long, for the business is sure to end by busting

the buster. It is unquestionably the most violent form

of athletics, and the bronco- buster, though he must be
strong and active, is not, as a rule, in the exceptional con-
dition necessary for great feats of strength and endur-
ance. Indeed, training would scarcely help him much.
Whatever his strength and health, the bronco- buster is
sure to get hurt sooner or later. He works it off and on
at ten dollars a bronco. All cowboys do more or less
breaking, and some ranches always break their own ponies,
and generally have better ones for so doing, because they
give each pony more time.

The typical bronco-buster sbould weigh a hundred and

- seventy or a hundred and eighty pounds. Weight does

the business when a light man can accomplish noth-
ing, though one of the most successful bronco-riders of
whom I ever heard was a long-geared, lank Texas lad,
who would stick to his horse till his head would snap

“BUSTING.” 111

like a whip with the bucking, and he himself lose con-
sciousness. Indeed, it is not uncommon for violent pitch-
ing to produce hemorrhage of the lungs, while hernia,
cracked bones, and serious sprains are frequent disasters.
There is no creature in the service of man which can
put its master to such violent efforts in its subjugation as
the bronco. Of course a better plan would be the more
gradual one of civilized trainers, but for this there is no
leisure. ,

The whole secret of “ busting” (the word is advisedly
used, as picturesquely expressive of the process, in contra-
diction to breaking) lies in completely exhausting the
bronco at the first lesson; he will never buck “ for keeps”
more than once. Buffalo Bill’s ponies have been allowed
to throw their riders, or the rider has judiciously slipped
off at the right intervals, thus impressing the idea on the
bronco’s intelligence that he can surely throw his man if
he sticks long enough to his bucking. But once ridden
to the verge of falling in his tracks, the pony will not do
his level worst again, but content himself with grunting
and yelling, “knocking his teeth out” and playing the
devil generally. The buster must be careful to keep well
away from sheds and timber, and have room enough to
cut a wide swath. He must be able to stick to his saddle
like a leech, with or without stirrups. If, indeed, he needs
his stirrups for a hold, he is not looked on as much of a
rider ; and it is a matter of pride with the “sure enough ”
buster not to rely on anything but what old horsemen. call
glue. To show his contempt for the bronco’s power, he
will ply the quirt at every jump. It is a fair fight and
no favor between man and beast. But the buster has
been there before, and knows exactly what he is about;
the bronco is new to the business, and though he in-
variably makes a good fight, he is sure to have to give

|

112 PRELIMINARIES

in. Some ponies take more busting than others, and
some always buck more or less, however well broken.
In fact, when the punchers turn out of a cold morning,
the ponies will pitch through the entire outfit, and the
crowd stands around to see each man mount, watch
the fun, and chaff the rider. If a pony chances to win
a heat and his rider comes a cropper, it is what genial
John Leech calls a “little ’olliday” to the rest of the
boys.

Two rides will usually bust a bronco so that the aver-
age cow-puncher can use him, but he would scarcely keep
company long with most Central Park riders. Two men
generally work together. They enter the corral, where
there is apt to be a good bunch of ponies; and these, as
if guessing what is to come, at once jump away, and go
careering madly around the enclosure. One man handles
the rope, which he trails along the ground until he selects
his pony, and then, with a sudden and dexterous snap,
drags it over his head. A good roper can cast twenty-five
feet. Then both men seize hold, dig their heels into the
ground to stop the pony—knack will enable even one
man to jerk him up, if need be—and finally get a turn
round the snubbing-post in the centre of the corral.
There they have the pony fast, and they gradually work
him up to it. The pony does not submit to this vigorous
coaxing in any amiable mood. He bucks and plunges,
kicks and squeals, and charges straight at his tormentors,
who have to play a regular game of hide-and-seek behind
the snubbing-post to save themselves from broken bones.
But even a bronco with his lungs. pumped dry will suc-
cumb, and finally the men get the winded pony snubbed
up close to the post, where one can hold him while the
other gets behind him and catches another rope on one
fore-foot. Then, as the pony starts, he yanks the foot

7
— —

|

SS —_=—

ean ata es

>

THE FIGHT 115

back, and in nine cases out of ten down goes the pony;
but not always. Some obstinate ones will sink on the
other knee, and with the nose on the ground still have
four points to stand on. But by-and-by down he must ;
the snubbing-rope is made fast, the saddle is fitted on tant
bien que mal, the cincha, worked under, and the whole
made fast. Sometimes it is difficult to get a bit in the
pony’s mouth, and they put on a hackamore, which is a
halter-like rope arrangement, a sort of Rarey hitch, with
an extra twist around his jaw, instead. Then the second
rope is loosed and the pony is let up, still held by the
snubbing-post rope. This is gradually loosened so as to
let the pony have a little fun all to himself, which he is
sure to do, pitching round in a pretty lively fashion for
twenty minutes or half an hour to rid himself of the sad-
dle, despite the choking of the rope. This takes the feather
edge off him, and he will end up his play covered with
foam and quite a bit tired. Some extra vigorous busters
ride the pony right off, but the more judicious prefer
to let him tire himself out first. When this is done the
pony is gradually worked out on the prairie between
two ropes, and may perhaps have to be thrown again
to cinch him up and get ready for the ride. To keep
him down while the rider gets ready, the other man
sits on his head, and the rider puts aside his six-shooter
and hat and coat and everything superfluous, but keeps
his spurs and quirt. Then he seizes the saddle and
gets his left foot in the stirrup, the pony is gradually
unwound, and the instant he reaches his feet the buster
is in the saddle. It is incredible how active these men
can be.

Now the real fun begins, and the rider and pony go at
it in earnest. The other man sometimes goes along on
another horse, with a rope to catch the pony if things

116 THE SURRENDER

work wrong; but he is a wall-flower, and takes no part in
the dancing. It is pretty rough sport. The pony may be
a running bucker, or may stand stock-still and pitch in
place at unexpected intervals; he may buck over a bank ;
‘he may pitch a somerset forward; he may rear and fall
over backward. The rider wants both to stick to his pony
and be ready to vault off in short measure if essential. He
uses all the legs nature has given him, stirrup or no stir-
rup, and lashes his pony at every rise with all his might.
The suaviter i modo is absolutely sunk in the fortiter in
re. When the pony rises the trick is to get away from the
cantle, and the heavy buster has a fashion when the pony
comes down of settling himself in his seat with a hard jolt
and a sort of an “ Ugh!”—a thing that helps fag out the
little fellow, which weighs barely four times as much as
the man, was tired before he began, and is now working
a dozen times as hard. One way or other the pony will
keep his resistance up for a certain length of time, accord-
ing to disposition; but in a couple of hours he will be
ridden down. Unless he gets his rider into a snarl, and
thus earns a let-up, he will be so played out that he
will go along pretty quietly, with but slight attacks of
his bucking fever. He has found his master, and he
knows it.

One more ride will be the final polish of his primary-
schooling. The kindergartening has been omitted. The
second ride will be a repetition of the first in a slightly
modified and less dangerous form. After this the pony is
considered “busted ;” but his grammar-schooling he gets
from the cowboy’s use. He never reaches the high or
normal school, let alone the college; but he has a true
Yankee knack of educating himself, and the amount of
information and skill he will pick up of his own accord at
cow-punching is wonderful. He is, of course, taught to

FINAL EDUCATION 117

guide by the neck, and he twists and turns in the perform-

ance of his duties with extraordinary intelligence and
quickness ; but a good deal of what he does is not so much {
taught by an educational process as picked up by repeti- \
tion of the same work, which, after all, is the only way a
horse ever learns.

e

XX

I nave above referred to “ Buffalo Bill.’ There has
probably been no American in Europe since General
Grant who has become so universally known. Not to
know “B. B.” argues yourself unknown. You see him
mentioned in print, or hear him spoken of on every street
corner as “ Boofalo” or “ Beel,” in every part of the earth
where men and women like amusement. He has familiar-
ized the Old World with America; or, I should say, has
given the Old World a certain conception of America
which is ineffaceable. Whether it is to our advantage to
have the universe believe that our common sports are rid-
ing pitching ponies, or shooting glass balls from the sad-
dle, and that an American Vestibule Limited is, after all,
really nothing but a Concord stage-coach, lable to be at-
tacked by savages, is perhaps questionable. We all know
Colonel Cody, admire his manly qualities, and feel happy
at his financial success—thoroughly well-earned by a cap-
ital “sho,” than which Phineas T. himself never origi-
nated a better. But it gives people a queer idea of us some-
times, and lends color to the plausibility of the statement
I recently saw in Galignani’s Messenger anent one of our
well-known publishers, that “he had been very carefully
brought up, and had even had the benefit of an university
education.” And once I earned the suspicion if not the
positive dislike of a very charming woman, @ laquelle je
contais flewrette, as we were riding through the Gap of
Dunloe by mildly denying her positive assertion that

THE TIRELESS COWBOY 119

Colonel Cody was a regimental commander of our regu-
lar army. In fact, she became convinced, to my keen
chagrin, that I myself was no army officer, for, said she,
“JT know a gentleman who has seen his commission.”
“ Buffalo Bill” represents one phase of our civilization
most admirably ; but we have, in the eyes of the semi-in-
telligent abroad, fallen as a nation to the estate of Indian
fighters and bronco-busters, partly owing to the education
given the average circus-public by the otherwise irre-
proachable Wild West. For all that, hail to “ B. B.,” and
here’s a bumper to his future !

The cowboy will stay in the saddle an almost unheard-
of period, often forty-eight hours at a time, when holding
big bunches of cattle. He is up by daylight, and works
till dark, and then well on into the night, or all night long
by turns. He is faithful and untiring, and wedded to his
master’s interests. Much of the vice attributed to the
cowboy must be laid to the score of the “bad man” of
the plains, a class which used to exist in great numbers,
but has been for the most part hunted down and run out
by the ranchmen, who were the greatest sufferers.

This term “ bad man” always strikes me as an odd coin-
age for a set of fellows no more noted for abstemiousness
in language than mule-drivers. Its very moderation, how-
ever, lends it force, though at first blush it sounds like
what the children call goody-goody. And out on the
plains there is far less overwrought language than in the
slums of cities. The language is picturesquely forcible,
but rarely flavored with Billingsgate. The cowboy is no
saint, but he is a manly fellow, and averages quite as well
as the farmer or mechanic; the stranger who has been
cast on his hospitality, and has accepted it as frankly as
it was tendered, would say much higher.

The cowboy rides with the easy balance bred of con-

120 THE COWBOY’S PICTURESQUENESS

stant habit, swaying about in the saddle much like a
drunken man, but with a graceful method in his reeling.
He does not, however, ride all over his horse like the Ind-
ian on his pad or bareback. When he ropes a steer or a
pony, he gets well over on the nigh side, and throws his
weight against the strain, resting the back of the right :
thigh in the saddle. He can perform all the tricks of the
Indian, and much of his fun as well as his work is astride
his ponies. On foot he reminds one of Jack ashore, part-
ly from the stiffness of his chaparajos, partly from his
own stiffness bred of the saddle habit; but with his loose
garments, his bright kerchief, and his jingling spurs, he is
a most attractive fellow, in perfect keeping with his sur-
roundings.
The best cowboys are usually bred to the business,
which is by no means an easy one to learn. The South-
west yields the best supply. They are apt to claim kin-
ship with the South rather than the East. The term
“round-up” originated in the southern Alleghanies, “ cor-
ral” in Mexico. The cattle business is of Mexican origin,
and the dress and method of riding are unquestionably of
Spanish descent; but, as in every other business, there
are men from every section who succeed, and vastly more
who fail. As a whole, with all his virtues and all his
faults, he is distinctly an American product, and one, take
him for what he is, and what he has done, to be distinctly
proud of.
I fear I have unintentionally given the bronco a bad
reputation for manners. He has no worse than any wild
horse with equal grit and strength would have; and I
have been referring mostly to the simon-pure, uncracked
article. After much use and care, the pony often becomes
very reliable. Roosevelt speaks with great affection of
his pet hunting-pony, and many a ranchman I have known

ODD WA we Ons HVECHING, 121

has had quiet, well-behaved broncos all through the outfit.
As a rule, the bronk is rough and ready because his master
is so; but gentle treatment has its effect with even him.
Broncos become tractable to a degree scarcely known
where the demand for steadiness exists less. It is a com-
mon habit in some localities, when you want your pony to
stand and wait for you, to toss the bridle-rein over his
head and let it dangle. Many a pony by this simple de-
vice will stand all day and scarcely move from place. It,
or an equivalent to it, is very necessary on a plain where
there is nothing to hitch to. Moreover, the bronco will
face the music in hunting or on the war-path as it is diffi-
cult to teach a civilized horse to do.

Many busters, when they have earned a little money,
like to take to quieter pursuits as a rest from the violence
of their life. But the instinct comes back again, and a
man will go to his old work on slight provocation. A
friend of mine who keenly enjoys fun of the cowboy kind
told me a good story of the cook of an outfit he was once
with when on a mining tour. Jim was a quiet slouch of
a fellow, mighty clever over his pots and pans, and the
boys lived in clover all winter long; but he couldn’t be
got near a pony. He seemed to have a special aversion
to anything on four legs unless he could cut it up for the
kettle. Finally, in the spring, when the ponies had to be
got to work again, there was a deal of talk each day about
this or that bronk, and a lot of swearing at the hard work
each man would have to do to get the little brutes into
order. Jim used to join the circle sometimes after he had
washed up, and would sit and watch the pitching, while
many a jeer was flung at him because they couldn’t get
him to take a turn.

Finally, one day when one of the best of the outfit had
tried all his ponies except one piebald, a notorious outlaw,

122 AN “OUTLAW”

which it was really a risky business to touch, but which
looked sheepish enough when let alone, Jim was asked if
he didn’t want the job of saddling and riding him. Jim
said he guessed not, but he thought he “ would be spryer
about doin’ it if he’d got to,’ which piece of bravado
elicited universal laughter, and numerous taunts to Jim
to try. ‘“ Waval, boys, I don’t know much about them
bronks,” said Jim, “but [’ve got a dollar or two laid by
for a rainy day, and Id like to bet I ken ride him.” Ina
moment every man’s pocket was empty, for they thought
Jim didn’t know what he was about. The old cook acted
rather foolish, but said if the boys would rope and saddle
the bronk, and would help him mount, he’d take a bet or
two, and in five minutes he stood booked to win more dol-
lars than he could earn at the fire in five years, at odds
which left him with a goodish margin of ready money in
case he failed.

Jim made a good deal of fuss getting ready and putting
on a pair of spurs, but stood the chaff pretty well. ‘“ Made
yer will, Jim?’ ‘ Why not tie a pot on yer head, Jim ?”
“Said yer prayers, Jim?’ “Where shall we plant ye,
Jim?” and so on, ad infinitum. Finally Jim was up, and
the crowd backed away, for they all knew the old pie-
bald outlaw. For an instant the bronk stood still, ears
back, and eye full of vicious mischief. He had not been
mounted for months. Then he arched his back and gave
a little hoist and a lash-out with his off hind-leg. The
boys all looked to see Jim topple; but the quondam cook
was transformed beyond recognition. The slouch had all
gone out of him; he sat like a Centaur, heeding neither
rein or stirrup. Nettled at Jim’s strong grasp, which or-
dinary exertions did not appear to loosen, the bronk now
started in in earnest. He reared and plunged upward, he
plunged forward head down, he kicked as only a Kentucky

“BUS tT ER POR THE 101 123

mule or an outlaw bronk can kick, he pitched and came
down on stiff legs with a force which would have unseated
nine out of ten of all the boys in the outfit. Jim never
budged from the saddle. He seemed lashed to it. The
boys stared with eyes like saucers. ‘ Hollo!” and a long
“Whew!” was all you heard. The fun went on. Jim ap-
peared to care for the piebald’s pitching no more than for
the rocking of a chair. Finally, after some minutes of the
hottest kind of work, he seemed to wake up to it, as
the piebald began to find he had caught a Tartar. It
was a “game” Jim “did not understand.” He chuckled
audibly, grabbed off his hat, slapped the bronk over the
head, kicked him between hoists, rolled all over him as he
plunged around, laughed outright, and screamed to the
blue-looking crowd, “Cotched a tenderfoot, boys, didn’t
yer? be gad, ye didn’t know Id been four years buster
for the 101! Go it, ye divil,” he yelled, as he slapped the
bronk again and again with his storm-bleached hat, snap-
ped up the reins, dug his heavy spurs into the outlaw’s
flanks, and drove the half-frightened, half-astonished brute
hither and yon at will. “ Guess Pll go bustin’ agin! Feels
hike old times! Ha’n’t had so much fun for a twelve-
month! Hooray !”’

A sorrier crowd or a poorer you never saw, but no one
opened his mouth to Jim. Every man paid up without a
question. It was the event of the spring in all that sec-
tion.

XXIV

Tur American cowboy has a Mexican cousin, the va-
quero, who does cow-punching in Chihuahua, and raises
horses for the Mexican cavalry and occasional shipment
across the Rio Grande. The vaquero is generally a peon,
and as lazy, shiftless, and unreliable a vagabond as all
men held to involuntary servitude are wont to be. He is
essentially a low-down fellow in his habits and instincts.
Anything is grub to him which is not poison, and he will
thrive on offal which no human being except a starving
savage will touch.

In his way the vaquero is a sort of tinsel imitation of a
Mexican gentleman, and very cheap tinsel at that. Our
cowboy is independent, and quite sufficient unto himself.
Everything not. cowboy is tenderfoot, cumbering the
ground, and of no use in the world’s economy except as a
consumer of beef. He has as long an array of manly qual-
ities as any fellow living, and, despite many rough-and-
tumble traits, compels our honest admiration. Not only
this, but the percentage of American cowboys who are
not pretty decent fellows is small. One cannot claim so
much for the vaquero in question, though the term “ va-
quero” covers a great territory and class, and applies to
the just and the unjust alike.

Our Chihuahua vaquero wears white cotton clothes, and
goat-skin chaparajos with the hair left on, naked feet clad
in huarachos or sandals, and big jangling spurs. A gourd
lashed to his cantle does the duty of canteen. He rides

A MEXICAN VAQUERO

—————

A POOR LOT 127

the Mexican tree, and his saddle is loaded down with an
abundance of cheap plunder. His seat is the same as the
Mexican gentleman’s—forked, with toe stuck far out to
the front, and balancing in the saddle. He is supposed to
be a famous rider, and is a very good one. He breaks his
own ponies, which sufficiently proves his case. He likes
to show off, in the true style of the Latin nations and
their offshoots, and will often ride a half-busted bronco
with his feet stuck out parade fashion, much as a Yankee
boy would carry a chip on his shoulder on the school-
ground; but in breaking in his pony he gripes with thigh
and knee and calf and heels besides, as any rider perforce
must.

The Mexican cow- ponies are proverbially tough and
serviceable ; but the vaquero has to turn in most of his
good-sized ponies, and is apt to be seen on a rackabones
of undersized or old stock, or on a mare with a foal at
foot. His gait is the lope, with an occasional fox- trot,
and he uses his quirt as constantly as an American Indian.
No savage can be more cruel to his pony than a vaquero,
or pay less heed to his welfare. Averaging the vaquero
of Northern Mexico, one American cowboy is worth half
a dozen of him to work; and, though he is used to Apache
raids, worth more than a gross of him to fight. In view
of the origin of both these cow-punchers, this is not a sin-
gular fact.

And yet it is strange that the vaquero should bear so ill
a reputation. Let us not be unjust. No doubt there are
good vaqueros; but are they, like the good Indian, all
with the “great majority?’ I trow not. Give a doga
bad name, and— Well, the vaquero has the bad name;
let us hope that he has not quite earned it. Even Judas
Iscariot has had learned defenders, and an excellent tech-
nical case can be made out for him. Shall the vaquero

128 BROWN BEAUTIES

lack an advocate? He comes of good stock; I have, in
many qualities, rarely seen a finer subject-race than the
Mexican Indian. I do not think the Spaniard on Ameri-
can soil has thriven, in body or mind; but the aborigines
of Mexico have kept their fine physique, their good looks,
and their amiable character; they have had no chance
whatever to gain in intelligence, though they do not lack
mother-gumption. I hardly think I have ever seen a
oreater percentage of pretty women than in Mexico, among
the peasants. One must, to be sure, conjure away dirt
and some rather trying habits; but then beauty, abstract-
ly speaking, may no doubt reside beneath a grimy exte-
rior. I do not refer to that peculiar quality of beauty
neatly called appetitlich by the Germans. To evoke one’s
appetite requires cleanliness rather than the thing we call
beauty, and I do not know that I ever saw a Mexican
Indian girl whom I would care to embrace; but they are
well-grown, plump, straight, have fine eyes and teeth, and
in their unsewn garments of dirty cotton cloth, with a
xerapa loosely thrown about head and shoulders, they are
certainly fine specimens of womanhood, and graceful be-
yond the corseted beauty of civilization.

3ut the skin! say you. Well, the skin is brown, but it
shows the red blood gushing heartily beneath; and—let
us see—even so good a judge as the King of Dahomey
preferred his lustrous, black-skinned, fattened beauties to
the most exquisite of pale-face women. And let me con-
fess to a weakness for a brown skin. I am sure that
three out of four of my travelled, susceptible male friends

_ —at least, if they will be honest about it—have grown to

like the brown skin of the maidens of the Orient. Ought
I to acknowledge that I, too, stand midway between the
King of Dahomey and the European connoisseur in
beauty ?

DOG STORIES 129

‘I am black, but comely,

O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
As the tents of Kedar,

As the curtains of Solomon,”

has a more distinct meaning to me to-day than before [
learned to know the East. I scarcely dare confess to hay-
ing felt a momentary disappointment in the matter of
complexions when I once emerged from a burial of sev-
eral weeks among Orientals, far from the contact of
whites. That the disappointment was due to the fact
that [ came out upon a lot of unwashed humanity, and
that on a white skin dirt sits less gracefully than on a
brown one, in nowise alters the captivating quality of the
dark-hued women of the far East.

All of which reminds me of a story. I find, as I grow
older, that I am more and more frequently reminded of a
story. I hold the dangerous tendency in check; I shorten
the curb-chain by a link; but the tendency will now and
then shy at some statement made in perfect innocence,
and give a mad plunge off in the direction of a story.
And my gripe on the rein is more lax than of old. It is
not my fault, it is your misfortune; I am incapable of
kicking a supposititious canine under the table in order to
tell a good dog story, but this one must out.

Many years ago, down in Richmond, I was standing
with a friend at his doorway while he gave instructions
to an old colored servant. There chanced to pass one of
the beauties of the city—and there were beauties in those
days. We both took off our hats, courtesy in our atti-
tude, admiration in our hearts. ‘“Isn’t she a beauty?’
said I. “Jsn’t she a beauty?” echoed he. “Just isn’t she,
Uncle Jed?’ said my friend. ‘“ Miss Ellen’s a mighty fine
leddy,” responded the old servitor, in a deferential but

somewhat hesitating tone. “ Why, what do you mean,
9

130 BLACK AND WHITE

Uncle Jed?” insisted my friend, rather nettled, and curious
withal, at the old darky’s manner. “ Well, Mars’ Tom,”
stuttered out the old man, “to tell de hones’ truf, we
niggers doan tink de white leddies is so hansum as de
brack ones.” This was a revelation to me, not then un-
derstood, but now very clear.

Our muttons, or lambs, z.e. the Mexican maidens, have
been strayed from. Let us return cross-lots to them, and
thence along our highway.

XAXXV

TueE prototype of the vaquero, the Mexican gentleman,
is a rider of quite another quality. No city man ever ac-
quires the second-nature seat on a horse which one can
boast who spends all the working-hours of the day, and at
times most of his nights, in the saddle. He may be a
better horseman; he may have a better style, actually or
according to local notions or traditions; he may be able
to ride on the road, or do some one special thing, such as
riding to hounds, or playing polo, or tent pegging, or tilt-
ing, exceptionally well; but, for all that, a chair is more
natural to him than a saddle; and to ask him to ride six-
teen consecutive hours, which the cavalryman or the cow-
boy does every day, and will double up with a smile, is to
ask him to work to the point of complete exhaustion.

Horsemanship is a broader term than mere riding. It
of necessity comprises the latter to a certain extent. A
good horseman must be a good rider, though he may not
be a perfect one, from age or disability. But the best
rider may be a very poor horseman. The best wild rider
never spares his horse; a good horsemen’s first thought
is for his beast. Still the horseman may by no means be
able to equal the rider’s feats of daring, endurance, skill,
or agility. Whether horseman or riders, we city folks,
compared to the saddle-bred man whose lifework is astride
a horse, are and remain tenderfoots.

I used myself to be something of a rider once, though
it is not for me to say so, and age has withered my once

132 TWEED SUITS, ET AL.

good performance. I am something of a horseman yet,
but old army wounds have kept me out of the saddle now
some five years past, and threaten to end what for nearly
four decades has been my happiest pastime. I have long
ago yielded my place to the younger generation, to whose
sturdy courage and fast growing skill I yield my very
honest admiration. But though they must increase as I
must decrease, they will not take it amiss if I descant
upon what I once could do, and still well know, though
performance be of the past; and they will not feel that I
criticise unkindly. From the mass of chatty chaff they
may perhaps glean a few kernels of grain; for it has not
fallen to the lot of every horseman to study the horses of
so many lands. Moreover, I fancy that my hand has not
yet lost its cunning; and that, when I find a promising ©
young horse, I can still vie with many another man in
making him a perfect saddle-beast. I should scarce dare
compete with the rough-riding “trainer” or the bronco-
buster; but I feel that I might still accomplish results in
the way of the niceties of equitation.

The Mexican gentleman, like most Southerners, is a
good rider within his limits. He is the very reverse of
the Englishman, who, with his reductio ad semplicitatem
of everything, has stripped the beauties of equestrianism
to the bone. With his tweed suits and his brusque man-
ners, with his disregard of everything which lends a touch
of charm to daily life, he has driven out much that is
beautiful and more that is gallant in social and equestrian
pleasures alike. With lace ruffles and buckled shoes have
quite disappeared not only the beauties of equitation, but
the graceful outward courtesies to the other sex; and the
place of the latter has not been filled by the acknowledg-
ment conveyed in the cavalier manner now in vogue that
women have grown in wisdom to the point of taking care

—=——-

MAN RIDER ON THE PASEO DE LA REFORMA

GENTLE

OLD-FASHIONED POLISH 135

of themselves. Women are glad, no doubt, of some eman-
cipation, but does she whom we love and admire as the
real woman of to-day want to be left to her own resources
any more than did her grandmother? Has she tired of
the willing ministration of the other sex? We have by
no means lost our heart courtesies, but whither has the
old-fashioned polish taken its flight? We are indebted
for much to the Old Country; do not let us borrow too
largely. Despite our ante bellum accusation that the
South affiliated with the British aristocracy, the Southron
has retained his gallantry to women, as we of the Eastern
States, to our serious detriment, have not. The best rule
in equitation, as in other arts, is first the useful, then the
ornamental; but, having the useful, by no means let the
ornamental elude you, unless the twain be incompatible.

Our artist has drawn the typical rider on the Paseo de
la Reforma, the Rotten Row or Harlem Lane of the City
of Mexico. It is to be regretted that telegraph and rail-
road are spoiling national types. Whatever country is
invaded by news and cheap clothing loses first its na-
tional costume and then its national characteristics. Can
you remember how things looked forty years ago on the
Continent of Europe? You could tell an Englishman, a
Frenchman, a German, an American as far as you could see
him. Not so to-day. The travelled man is cast in about
the same mould, and unless the type is pronounced, all na-
tions look more or less alike. The rubbing up against one
another of the various nations robs each of the piquancy
it used to possess. Italy to-day is no longer the Italy you
once posted through in your own carriage; and Mexico
is going the same road. In another decade there will
scarcely be a sombrero left. But one still sees an occa-
sional swell who clings to his national costume, and a fine
bird he is, too, afoot or a-horseback.

136 EQUESTRIAN AIRS

In this style ride both the statesman and the swell, the
banker and, when he can afford it, his clerk. And very
much so rode the Englishman of half a century ago. I
have of late years heard excellent English horsemen brush
aside all reference to the high-school of equitation as
worthy only of asnob. but there were some very decent
“snobs” in England back in the thirties, when celebrated
members of both Houses, the leaders of fashion, the most
noted generals—the very heroes, indeed, who had beaten
Boney—and every one pretending to be in the social swim
would go prancing up and down the Row, passaging,
piaffing, traversing, to the admiration of all beholders.
The brave men who served under Wellington and Nelson
were not cut on the tweed-suit pattern by any means.
Even the M. F. H. fell into the trick of it in the park.
They were not called snobs then; the initial letter was
dropped; and when a Briton slurs at the better education
of the horse to-day, he casts a stone at his own ancestry
over the shoulder of the lover of the high-school. I shall
recur to this high-school business.

The first thing in our Mexican friend which strikes us
is his horse. This is not the bronco of the plains. He is
evidently imported from Spain, or lately bred from im-
ported stock without that long struggle for existence
which has given the pony his wonderful endurance and
robbed him of every mark of external beauty. Here we
revert to the original Moorish type. The high and long-
maned crest, arched with pride, the full red nostril, large
and docile eye, rounded barrel, high croup, tail set on and
carried to match the head, clean legs, high action, and per-
fect poise. How he fills our artistic eye, how we dwell
upon him !—until we remember that performance comes
first, beauty after, and that the English thorough-bred,
which can give a distance to the best of this exquisite

A CLOTHES-PIN RIDER 137

creature’s family and beat him handily, has developed
from the same blood far other lines than these; or, indeed,
that the meanest runt of a plains pony, on a ride of one
hundred miles across the Bad Lands, would leave the
beautiful animal dead in his tracks full twoscore miles
behind !

There is one point in which our steed is not Moorish—
and it was the Moorish horse, or Barb, which came across
with the Spaniards. This is the croup and tail. The
Barb carries a poor tail; it is the Arabian whose tail is so
high-set. And in Spain, too, the tail is, as a rule, low-car-
ried, showing its evident origin. You must cross the Lib-
yan desert to the east before you get the best tail. And
in Mexico one does not often see as perfect a croup as the
saddle-beast depicted. He may have been imported from
the Orient.

The Mexican swell rides on a saddle worth a fortune.
It is loaded with silver trimmings, and hanging over it is
an expensive xerapa, or Spanish blanket, which adds to
the magnificence of the whole. His queer-shaped stirrups

are redolent of the old mines. Huis bridle is in hike man- —

ner adorned with metal in the shape of half a dozen big
silver plates, and to his bit is attached a pair of knotted
red-cord reins, which he holds high up and loose. He is
dressed in a black velvet jacket, fringed and embroidered
with silver; and a large and expensive sombrero, perched
on his head, is tilted over one ear. His legs are incased
in dark tight-fitting breeches, with silver button and chain
trimming down the side seams, but cut so as, in summer
weather, to unbutton from knee to foot and flap aside.
His spurs are silver, big and heavy and costly, and fitted
to buckle round his high-cut heel. Under his left leg is
fastened a broad-bladed and beautiful curved sword, with
a hilt worthy an hidalgo.

138 RISING TO .A “TROT

The seat of the average Mexican exquisite is the perfect
pattern of a clothes-pin. Leaning against the cantle, he will
stretch his legs forward and outward, with heels depressed
in a fashion which reminds one of Sydney Smith’s saying,
that he did not object to a clergyman riding if only he
rode very badly and turned out his toes. It is the very
converse of riding close to your horse. In what it origi-
nates it is hard to guess, unless bravado. The cowboy,
with an equally short seat and long stirrups, keeps his legs
where they belong, and if his leg is out of perpendicular,
it will be so tothe rear. Not all Mexicans ride the clothes-
pin seat. There are many riders of good style to be seen
in the City of Mexico, and there are good horsemen. But
when the pure Mexican rider puts on a bit of “side” he is
deliciously ungainly in a horseman sense, though always
picturesque to the every-day beholder.

The rack rarely, the canter all but universally, is ridden
by the Mexican. It is only the Englishman and those he
has taught who ride what can be called a trot. With all
others the trot is a mere jog, though a good open trot is
one of the easiest gaits for a horse to go, and, risen to, one
of the most delightful on the road. Luckily, as the horses
of the world gain in breeding by the infusion of English
stock, so the world is learning the English habit of rising.
When I was a school-boy in Prussia I was fairly hooted out
of rising to a trot, a habit I had previously learned in Eng-
land. But now you see the Prussians—all the Continental
officers, in fact—riding @ 7? Anglaise in full uniform, and
one may see a lancer or hussar trotting through the streets
with a handful of despatches, leaning over his horse’s neck
and rising to the gait ina fashion which would have court-
martialled him in the old ramrod Anglophobia days of
Frederick William IV. For all they laugh at England
for her military pretensions, they adopt many good things

TROT AND CANTER 139

from her, not the least of which is the course of cross-
country riding which all foreign officers are now required
to take; or rather a course of as near its requirements as
non-hunting countries can conjure up. Jumping has al-
ways been part of the drill of the Prussian cavalryman ;
but since the growth of English ideas this exercise has
been broadened and made more of. It is, however, not
mere jumping of a thirty-inch obstacle but steady drill
which really helps shake a man into his saddle in the form
needed for cavalry evolutions.

The canter of the Mexican is the old park canter, with -
a superabundant use of the curb to make the horse prance
and play and show his action. The horse is as fond and
proud of this as the rider. The best saddle-horse is, of
course, the one which will absolutely follow his master’s
mood; upon whose neck the reins can be flung if one
wishes to saunter along the road, or if one wishes to dis-
mount and rest sub tegmine fagr; and who, at call, can
show his paces to the best advantage. Most horses are
treated solely as a means of transportation, even in hunt-
ing and polo; few receive the training every intelligent
horse is as much entitled to as the American child to his
common schooling. And ina sense the Mexican has edu-
cated his horse to better advantage. Because his horse is
prancing it is no reason why we should look down upon
him. He is doing nothing more than the men who used
to go titupping down Rotten Row every fine afternoon of
fiftv years ago; and he may be a better rider than he
looks. The steady, business-like gaits of the English nag
of to-day are in perfect keeping with his rider’s business
suit; but you notice that the Mexican wears a differ-
ent habit. Why, then, should not his riding be in keep-
ing with his dress?

This trot and canter controversy is not yet settled. The

140 FAST WALKING

Englishman claims that his horse can go seven miles on a
trot for six he can go on a canter with the same exertion.
Our cavalry officers on the plains—and they are the best
judges of distance riding alive—have arrived at a similar
conclusion, and all long marches are made at alternate
walk or trot, or walk alone. Most cavalry does this. It
is astonishing how fast a walk can be, not in the excep-
tional horse, but in a large body of cavalry. General
Forsyth marched four troops of the Seventh Cavalry from
Fort Meade, Da., to Fort Riley, Kan., a distance of seven
hundred and twenty-nine miles. This was measured by
odometers, checked off by the railroad mileage when tray-
elling along it. “The maximum rate per hour was 4.91
miles ; the minimum rate was 3.20 miles. The mean aver-
age per hour for the entire march was 4.11 miles. It is
to be understood that the gait considered is the walk, as
that was the one pursued during the march.” Now the
speed of the average saddle-beast on a walk is, in the
Eastern States, barely three miles an hour, because he is
not educated. If you have owned a horse which could
walk four full miles, you have been lucky. Most men,
walking a three-and-a-half-mile gait, out-pace the riders
they meet who are walking their horses. It takes a very
busy horse to out-walk a fair pedestrian. Yet here, by
training, we have four troops of cavalry averaging over
four miles an hour.

The trot is unquestionably an easy gait for the horse.
But you cannot make a Southerner or a plainsman. adopt
this theory. The Southern horse goes his so-called arti-
ficial gaits, or canters; you cannot give away a trotter
for the saddle. The bronco canters all but exclusively.
The matter seems to depend on inbred habit, and compar-
ative statistics on the subject, however interesting, could
scarcely be made accurate.

MEXICO OF NO GOOD 141

Altogether, the horsemanship of our neighbor in Mex-
ico is not entirely to be commended. That the cattle
business originated there, and that that admirable rider,
the cowboy, traces his descent to that peninsula, is the
best that can be said of the land, in an equine sense. In-
deed, Mexico has all but outlived her usefulness. I do
not believe that even railroads will do for her what it has
been expected they would. Given certain factors of land
and people and civilization, such as we understand it, is of
no benefit, and cannot be made to grow.

XV

To return to the States, and to follow out the text on’
which we have been so far preaching. It will be accepted
as a truism that the man or people that does any given
thing the most constantly will be apt to excel in that one
thing. Let us apply this to the riding of the Southerner
and our own riding in the East. Now the climate and
soil, the thicker population, the more industrious habits
of the Eastern and Middle States produced excellent roads
at a much earlier period than in the South. In fact, there
are few places in the South to-day where the highways
can be called even tolerable. The soil is intractable for
roads. Good roads are wont to be followed by wheeled
transportation, poor roads force people to cling to the sad-
dle. When the Northern farmer goes to the nearest town
he drives, because the roads are good, and he can carry
his stuff to better advantage; the Southerner rides, be-
cause the roads for a great part of the year are impassa-
ble to wheels. This breeds the universal habit of horse-
back-work. The same thing applies to women. ‘To visit
their neighbors, go to church or shopping in the nearest
village, the women must make use of the saddle. This
necessity of the country, where the roads are bad, becomes
habit of the city, where the roads are better. The South-
erner has been in the saddle constantly for many genera-
tions, and to-day boys and girls alike ride the colts in
pasture with, like the Numidian of old, only a stick to
guide them. In the North these conditions and habits

RIDING A RECENT FAD 143

ceased long ago. Riding is a mere fashion of very recent
origin, though it has acquired such an impetus that it has
doubtless come to stay.

It is curious how short the period is since riding became
even a fad, let alone a fashion. I was put on the retired
list of the Army, and went to Boston in 1870. As I had
always done, I kept up my habit of daily riding, and for
years after that time, so unusual was the sight of a man
in the saddle, except on procession days, that the urchins
on the street used to hoot at me, or even throw a derisive
pebble in my wake. Up to 1882 you could count the ha-
bitual riders of Boston on your fingers, and it was about
the same in New York. For several years I rode in and
out of Boston a handsome mare sired by Alexander’s
“Norman,” and the opinion of horseback-work was well
voiced by a noted horseman who once said to me, “ What
are you doing with that mare in the saddle?) Why, she
belongs on the track!” as if you ought not to disgrace a
fine horse by throwing your leg across him. Shortly af-
ter began the fad, and in a dozen years we have made
such vast strides forward that riding now appears to be a
matter of ancient history. You surprise a young man to-
day by telling him that in 1880 practically no one rode;
yet such was the fact all through the Eastern States.

It is noticeable that we Eastern riders are touchy on
the subject of equestrianism, like most people not to the
manner born. We are fain to believe, perhaps, not that
the Southerner knows nothing about riding, but that what
he knows is either all wrong or else not worth our learn-
ing. It must be confessed that for the very few years we
have been at it we have accomplished wonders, and our
riding to hounds, though the poor benighted pack may be
all too often wheedled into chasing aniseseed, has, so far
as concerns pluck and enthusiasm, grown to be almost be-

144 ENGLISH SADDLE-BEASTS

yond criticism. This and polo are the things in which we
have made marked progress, and we have done well to
take our model from our British cousins, for in these
sports they are masters. But in road-riding the English
can teach us nothing. Much as the English ride they
know little of the niceties of equitation. What is called
a good saddle-beast in England will not pass muster among
those who breed exclusively for the saddle, and ride vast-
ly more. Thoroughly familiar with the saddle, their style
of road-riding is none the less far from perfect. They are
so permeated with the hunting idea that they are con-
stantly riding to cover in the park.

Now it is incontestable that the Southerner—though he,
too, shows points of criticism, as of necessity any class of
riders must do—is on the whole a better model for road-
riding than exists elsewhere ; and it is also true that he
breeds and trains far better saddle-horses than England
has known for two generations. We Yankees are too
new and narrow in our recently-acquired sport to be able
to see this fact, though it is under our very eyes. This is
natural enough, for we got our riding fever along with our
athletic fad from across the pond, but it is regrettable.
Fox-hunting, though on a distinctly cruder plan than in
the old country, has been a constant practice in the South
for two hundred years; despite which the English hunt-

ing model is indisputably better. But in road-riding the

Southern gentleman is far ahead of the Briton as to his
gaits and seat and style. A man who hunts regularly
rides on the road a half-dozen times to once he follows
the hounds; one who hunts occasionally does so a hun-
dred times as often. And yet each, as well as the man
who never hunts, patterns his seat for the road on the
hunting model, which was intended for as different a pur-
pose from mere road-riding as the cowboy’s. And each

Wie
YR

YW

A SOUTHERN RIDER

SCOPE OF ROAD-RIDING 147

persists in riding a constant, never-varied trot. The nice
balance and quick response of the accomplished. saddle-
beast are overlooked. A horse is nowadays not even
permitted to guide by the neck, while as for suppling his
croup, or giving him a light forehand, no one ever dreams
of it. All this is, to say the least, a distinct loss. Some
men deem such education superfluous ; some cross-country
men brush such things aside as trivial and unnecessary.
The world could doubtless have wagged along without
many of the good things it has—Homer, Michael Angelo,
Beethoven. but by how much is it better for having
them! So with equitation. The opposition to the horse’s
education among hunting men is the medizval outcry of
class prejudice. The more lberal the world, the less
there is of it; the more we ride, the more we shall find
that a horse well educated is a horse twice told.

Our imitation of the English comes of a sincere desire
to flatter; and imitation is what oils the. wheels of prog-
ress. When we have not what is worthy of imitation at
home, let us by all means go abroad; but when we have
the best in our very midst, it is little to our credit to go
searching elsewhere.

The first duty of the cross-country rider is to save his
horse, because the service required of him on each occa-
sion of use is exceptionally great. The performance of a
good hunter throughout a hard day’s sport is very taxing.
The road-rider need not seek to save his horse, because he
covers but a tithe of the distance at any one time. Hence
the rule of the road is that the horse shall, first of all, sub-
serve his rider’s comfort. The most comfort resides pri-
marily in ease, next in variety of gaits. And no one who
has learned the Southern gaits can deny their superior
ease. The proof lies in the fact that they enable a man
to ride without undue exertion in hot as well as cold

148 THE SOUTHERN SEAT

weather. To one who knows it, nothing can be more in-
spiriting than a fine open trot; but a horse which can
go Southern gaits can trot besides, and, if the rider is as
clever as he, without injury to his other paces.

The Southern seat is practically the same as the true
military seat; and except that the bridle-hand is wont to
be held a trifle too high—which isa habit caught from the
high pommel or roll of blankets or other baggage in
front of the soldier—this seat, when not exaggerated, is, all
things considered, the best for road-riding, and perhaps
would enable a man to do a greater variety of things in
the saddle than any other one style. And though the
English pigskin is perhaps a neater and more available
rig for our city needs, the Southerner is, in gaits and style
and knowledge of road work, by far the best model for
us to copy, as his saddle-beast is the best for us to buy.
This question of gaits is one to which we shall specially
recur when, in our equestrian trip across the water to the
original home of the horse, we find the habits that obtain
there.

XXVII

Taxine him as the type of a class, the Central Park
rider has his good points and he has his bad ones. When
he is new to his work and over-imitates the English style,
he is at his worst; when he is used to the saddle he
throws aside blind imitation and rides well. He steers
clear of the showy tendencies of the Gaul, the military
flavor which still clings to the civilian Teuton, and the
extreme hunting type of the Briton.

I am aware that in what I say I am liable to be mis-
construed by many of our riding-men, to be looked upon
as impregnated with Anglophobia. This is an error.
I have lived many years in England, and yield to no man
in my admiration for the open-hearted, generous, plucky,
prejudiced, self-adoring Briton. But love me love my—
horse is unintelligent if proverbial. ‘ How can you love
that drunken wretch?” asked a sympathetic friend of a
lachrymose wife. “You be still!” came the quick and
positive reply; “I love every bone in his body—but con-
found his nasty ways!” Here isa neat distinction. We
may love our British cousin and yet not adopt his style.

There is no better horseman than the Briton, no better
rider. Feware as good. At his own sports—hunting and
polo and racing—he may almost be said to be unequalled.
But from these premises one must not draw the conclu-
sion that he is master of everything else. Too many
hard-riding English cross-country men have found on our
plains that they could not hold a candle to the average

150 BRITON VS. SOUTHRON

cowboy, to make this assumption safe. Very few English
cavalry officers could ride across our plains as our own
have learned by rough experience to do. And the color
which fox-hunting lends to road-riding seriously limits
the average Briton’s skill in the park. Still the best rider
of England is well worthy of imitation. The trouble
with our young men, whose few months in the saddle
makes them feel as if they had nothing more to learn, is
that they imitate the English groom—and the poor one
at that—and not the English gentleman. As well study
art from prize-package chromos! Some of the tricks
which one sees taken up from time to time have their
origin among the poorest horsemen. The elbows akimbo
or the swinging legs illustrate my meaning. Of course
Swelldom must have a new shibboleth every now and
then. Hands must be shaken just so, or hats must be
taken off or kept on by some mystic rule, or some un-
meaning lingo must be used at meeting or parting. This
is all well enough as a pastime, or as a cachet of the
order, as a password; but when tricks in the saddle are
adopted from some questionable source, they may in
truth indicate that a man belongs to a certain clique, but
they do not demonstrate that he knows how to ride.
And this last happens to be the poimt of view we are tak-
ing. Such things are as harmless as they are ephemeral,
but it must be expected that they will evoke the smile
rather than the admiration of those who know.

To recur to our British-Southron controversy, and put-
ting aside the peculiar uses of the English seat, let us sup-
pose an Englishman and a Southerner passing under the
eye of an unprejudiced Arab, a man riding in the style of
neither and yet a born horseman. The former trots by on
his rangy thorough-bred, with stirrups short, leaning over
his horse’s withers, both hands busy with his reins, but

MAN

TING

A HUN

SOUTHERN GAITS 153.

showing entire familiarity with and control of his splen-
did mount, and his legs perhaps swinging to and fro with
the motion. The latter comes along on an equally well-
bred horse with longer leathers, upright in the saddle, one
hand with a single curb lightly reining in his quickly
moving single-footer. Though the Arab is used to both
the shorter stirrups and the leaning seat, think you he
would hesitate on pronouncing the Southerner the more
graceful and expert? It is not that the Englishman is
not a good pattern, but that for road-riding we have a
better one at home. Assertions such as these are wont
to provoke a sneer from the Anglomaniac; but a sneer is
not argument; it is the resort of ignorance. Answer
there is none, unless a man will in the same breath main-

tain that education is unfitted for a horse, as some assert _

that it is lost on women. Despite our slight veneer of
Anglomania, however, we are sound American within,
and shall not long neglect what can be taught us by our
own countrymen, who have been in the saddle as many
generations as the English, and been compelled to a much
greater degree to use horses for daily work as well as
pleasure. One may see it coming now. The Kentucky
horse is by no means as often despoiled of his accomplish-
ments when he reaches a New York owner as he used to
be, and a better welcome is given him at the Horse-show.
But either the Southern gaits should be recognized as
suitable ones for a park hack in addition to the walk, trot,
and canter, or else a special class should be provided. It
is a mistake to overlook these gaits—the most universally
employed of any among all peoples which are adepts in
horsemanship.

I have often seen in England a man who prided himself
on the speed of his park-hack’s walk. He called it a
“walk ”—so would a Southerner; but it was a “running-

154 A RUNNING-WALK

walk,” not a flat-footed one, which, as horses sometimes
will, his nag had inherited from some distant ancestor or
picked up of his own accord. No horse, except one spe-
cially trained, walks flat-footed more than four miles an
hour. The running-walk will add a mile or a mile and a
half to this speed. The Englishman saw no difference,
even if it was an amble or a rack his horse fell into; he
still called it a walk, because it was neither trot nor can-
ter. But the flat-footed walk, the running-walk, the am-
ble, and the rack are all as distinct as trot and canter.
The English in Egypt will ride the racking donkey week
in, week out, and yet I never met one who knew why the
little fellow was so easy, or what gait he was going. . They
will condemn in the horse what they like in the ass.
These so-called artificial paces are not such in fact.
Every horse under the excitement of the whip or of
fright will fall into one or other of them. Every people
which habitually rides at a walk—z.e., travels on horse-
back—trains the horse, by simple urging, into these paces ;
even the ass-colts in Southern Europe or in the Orient
running-walk. I have seen many a racker of true Nor-
man blood. You find the gaits among all sorts and con-
ditions of horses; but the Southerner has caught the idea,
and has developed it into an art; he has trained his sad-
dle-beasts to perfect paces, and has bred for their perpetu-
ation. These are no more artificial than the trot, which
is, indeed, by some of the best English authorities, pro-
nounced an artificial gait. The marvellous Cossack pony
“ Seri,’ whom Sotnik Dmitri Peshkof rode in the winter
of 1890-91 across Siberia from the Pacific to St. Peters-
burg, five thousand five hundred miles, in one hundred and
ninety-three days—over twenty-eight miles a day, includ-
ing several detentions, or thirty-seven miles per travelling
day, mostly on roads covered with snow - drifts—was a

4

“PHA VINE” 155

running-walker, and did the bulk of the distance at this
gait. This is one of the very best records of extreme dis-
tance ridden on the books—meaning a course of thousands
rather than hundreds of miles. No comparison of endur-
ance required can well be instituted between this perform-
ance and the heretofore quoted ride of three hundred
miles in three consecutive nights, repeated weekly for six
months and over, though the latter strikes me as by far
the greater feat ; for the average per day is nearly forty-
three miles for an equal or longer period, and the exer-
_tion of the long night rides vastly more taxing.

My daughters for years rode a noble little thorough-bred
Kentucky saddle-horse, handsome as a picture and easy
as a cradle, who could walk flat-footed four miles and
a half in sixty-minutes; could running-walk five and a
half, rack seven, single-foot up to twelve, and in harness
or under saddle trot a ’forty-gait as square as any horse
ever shod. This does not count his canter and gallop,
manners, or divers other accomplishments. Each gait was
so distinct that you could call it out by a word or a turn
of the bridle-wrist, and tell it from the others with your
eyes shut. Was “ Pea Vine” not a better park hack than
if he were confined to the plain walk, trot, and canter?
And yet most of our Eastern fashionables would answer
nay, and on general principles our above-cited Briton
would sneer at the idea of riding “artificial” gaits, though
he has, without knowing it, been felicitating himself on
his nag’s possessing such a gait. I must, however, say
that I think a Briton would be more open to conviction
by a proper demonstration than some of our home imi-
tators of his methods.

It is odd how obtuse even an old horseman can be who
has not studied these gaits. I have seen judges at horse-
shows and prize competitions give a walking prize to a

156 KNOWLEDGE OF GAITS

running-walker over flat-footed walkers who were going
a superb gait. Of course the “runner” (as they often
call him for short south of Mason and Dixon’s line) out-
footed the others. You might as well give a prize for
speed to a horse who won a trotting race at a gallop.
The amble is oftemw called a walk. ‘“ You have no idea
how easy and fast my new horse can walk!’ I have fre-
quently heard from people whose recent purchase couldn’t
walk three miles an hour, but would amble a four and a
half gait. Perhaps it is no wonder. I have known few
horsemen who could analyze the several gaits, though
they might recognize them. It was only when Muy-
bridge’s lens told the story that people found out how a
horse moves his feet at a gallop. I think I have met not
exceeding half a dozen men in the course of my life who
could describe the sequence of a horse’s feet at every gait,
the intervals at which they reach the ground, and especially
what a horse does when he changes gaits or changes lead
in the canter or gallop, though I have met thousands
who knew all the gaits blindfolded. These are pleasant
technical studies, but they are perhaps rather beyond the
domain of essential knowledge. We do not need to be
philological critics in order thoroughly to enjoy ‘“ Hamlet.”
It is not through lack of technical knowledge, but by dis-
regard of the thing itself that the refinements of equita-
tion have disappeared.

The day of practical horsemanship has come, and well
it is perhaps. No one doubts the superiority for average
use of a hack well trained @ ? Anglaise over the nervous,
fidgety, watch-springy creature of the high-school. But
is there not a middle point between ignorance and over-
training? A small amount of knowledge of a great art,
or intimacy with a small art, are wont to make the pos-
sessor “feel his oats.” “Oh, you play the violin, do you?”

BANJO VS. VIOLIN 157

says the chappie who carries a felt-covered banjo under
his arm on the way to the sea-side, or to an evening call
on some pretty girl; “the fiddle isn’t of much account
nowadays.” It is true, is it not? And yet when a man
has devoted over forty years to the instrument, has played
the sonatas of Beethoven and Mozart for a generation,
and owns a Stradivarius, does not this crude criticism
sound harsh? The pity of it is that life is not long enough
to explain the A BC of music to the banjoist. Certes, he
can amuse his audience better than the man with the bow,
who has not the remotest desire to compete with him; but
is it because the violin is not the superior instrument, or
because the player and audience lack equal cultivation ?
That there is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time
to mourn and a time to dance is recognized by even the
violinist, but—well, I was going to say that the banjo-
horse is a capital mount for the banjo-boy or the banjo-
oirl; but if a man with loving persistence has embraced
his Cremona for twoscore years, has drawn forth its deli-
cate tones as a comfort through the gloom of nights of
sorrow, and has burst forth with it at the daybreak of re-
newed Pope in anthems of gladness, both his soul and the
quivering song-laden wood wrapt in mutual affectionate
bliss, he prefers this poet of instruments to the banjo ;
when a man has once studied equitation in its finer feat-
ures, and has trained his horses to perfect gaits and man-
ners, he prefers the educated steed. But we have not yet
reached the point where brains go for as much as money,
or for what some people are pleased to call Society, though
we are fast getting there. The Chinese are ahead of us;
among them the school-master ranks as he should. When
one thinks of the society which clusters about our College
greens and the world-famous work which emanates from
their studious closets, and then goes to his book-shelves,

158 ANCESTRY

takes down a certain light blue book, entitled Soczety As I
Have Found It, reads a page or two, and then contem-
plates this outcome of what some people consider all
that is choicest, may he not truly rejoice that his life’s
ticket is numbered in the thousands and not within
four hundred? Did not the genial Autocrat say some-
thing anent the clergymen and doctors—the Brahmins
—of New England being good enough ancestry for any
one? And is not a pedigree honestly traced back to the
brave men who landed at Plymouth Rock better than a

coat of arms got up by a heraldry expert (!) for some —

nouveau riche who doesn’t know who was his great-
orandfather? I for one am proud that my grandfather
was pastor of First Church, Haverhill, and that my
oreat-grandfather was one of the heroes of Bunker Hill;
but I would give more to-day for old Seth Pomeroy’s
anvil, or the vice which clamped the muskets he repaired
for the Massachusetts militia, than for the sword he
wore as a colonel in the French wars. The Dodge who
landed with the Salem company in 1629 is a forebear
who satisfies all my ambition for ancestry. If we
Americans cease to be proud of the thew and sinew of

our forefathers, of the soil and the laws which have.

brought forth such a man as Abraham Lincoln and made

him President of the Republic, what have we left? Are

we to become a plutocracy pure and simple?

XXVIII

Wuen we reach the cross-country rider of our Eastern
_ States, as typified in such hunts as the Genesee Valley,
the Meadow Brook, the Radnor, or the Myopia, we touch
our hats with a thrill of admiration as the red-coats ride
to the meet, and wonder at the genuine Yankee grit and
intelligence which have so soon popularized this sport
among us. Not that we can have the real article in
hunting in our severe northern climate, or under condi-
tions which substitute a drag for Reynard’s nimble legs
and cunning twists and turns. Still, it is rare that a fox in
our Eastern States will give you as good a run as a drag.
The country is such that you cannot ride over it in every
direction at will, as you can in England, and a fox has so
many covers near at hand that you can never be sure of
even a short run. This does not apply to the Genesee
Valley. Fox-hunting there is the rule, and a drag is laid
only to accommodate those who ride to jump fences in-
stead of jumping fences because they are hunting across
a country and won’t be left behind. but the boldness,
skill, and enthusiasm of our hunting-men are beyond
praise, and there is plucky riding and good among them.
It is, moreover, certain that in no part of the Old Country
is there such breakneck timber as we find in several of
our hunts—say the Meadow Brook.

I have often thought that as fine an exhibit of horse-
manship as can be found is that of the middle-aged Eng-
lish country -gentleman, who has ridden to hounds since

160 AMERICAN FOX-HUNTING

boyhood, has outgrown the dare-devil, and lost somewhat
of the muscle and elasticity of his youth, but who still, by
his fine sense of the capacity of his horse, his ight hands,
and perfect judgment, is able to keep in the next field
with the hounds throughout a long run over a stiff coun-
try. As there is perhaps no animal equal to the best
hunter in his all-round qualities, unless it be an Al Ken-
tucky combined horse, so there is perhaps no more perfect
thing in equitation than this intelligent riding. It soars
above the breakneck performance as a line of Milton
above the epic of Commencement. We do not often see
this kind of thing here; the dare-devil still predominates :
but none the less, hail to the youth and strength and man-
liness which have sought an outlet in this splendid sport!
A generation ago the same spirit thronged the tented
field, and marched up to the Bloody Angle with teeth set
and heart aglow with heroic passion. And it is this true
Anglo-Saxon mettle which can always be relied on to
come to the fore in our times of need. May it never die
out!

In a few sections of country fox-hunting is older; in
fact, has become not only almost an hereditary sport, but
one in which the farmers take an equal part and interest.
This is as it should be. Hunting can never thrive when
only the rich may indulge in it. When a country is so stiff
that none but exceptional horses can get over it, and a
field is limited to a dozen men on nags averaging a couple
of thousand dollars each, it is hard to see a future in the
sport. Were it not for some localities where the sport
has run through a generation or two, even though there
has been no regular Hunt and M. F. H., one would fear
its extinction when fashion shall have brought some other
form of athletics into prominence. But it is probable that
hunting has taken firm root; and though our climate can-

GENTLEMAN RIDER IN CENTRAL PARK

BIG OR LITTLE HORSES? 163

not be coaxed, nor foxes quickly bred, there is small dan-
ger that the riding part of the sport will soon be lost.

This sport has shown us what capital material we have
in this country for hunters. Our American horses are
wonderful in their serviceableness. They have done bet-
ter across our country than the expensive imported Eng-
lish and Irish ones. The difficulty of acclimation of the
latter has something to do with this; but few things have
shown the adaptability of our stock to any work better
than the number of horses of trotting blood that have
turned out fast gallopers, big timber-jumpers, and stayers
besides.

There seems to be a growing tendency to breed for size.
May it not be a mistake? It is doubtful if the hunter of
over sixteen hands averages as well, all things considered,
as the one which is somewhat under this measure, though
big thorough-breds are needed for some men. Certainly,
for plain saddle-work fifteen-two is a better size, com-
manding vastly more activity if less stride. Moreover,
big horses are not always weight-carriers any more than
they are weight-pullers. The work of the world is done,
the speed of the world is attained, the races of the world
are won, by the smaller specimens; but to-day’s fashion
is set for either a polo-pony or a sixteen-and-a-half hands
thorough-bred. The ten inches between the two are
skipped, though the best performances have almost inva-
riably been between these two limits and well under the
higher one.

I may here say a word anent the American horse as a
racer. Some Englishmen are wont to underrate our cli-
mate, so far as it relates to horse-breeding ; but this has nev-
er been a country of racing. Our national sport has, until
lately, been trotting; and a country which has produced
a “Sunol,” an “Arion,” and a “ Nancy Hanks,” may well

ti

164 AMERICAN THOROUGH-BREDS

claim pre-eminence for its effect upon the horse. There is
nothing in breeding to parallel our reducing trotting speed
from 2.26% by “Lady Suffolk”—which many men still
remember to have seen—down to “ Nancy Hanks’s” 2.05
in 1892. Nor need we feel like taking a back seat in
racing. We have had altogether too much good-luck, even
by our second-raters, on English turf, to feel discouraged,
and our records are of the very best. So good an author-
ity as Count Lehndorf, in his Horse- Breeding Recollec-
tions, SAYS:

“Experience points to America as the source from
which to draw in future the regenerating fluid, for, al-
though the American thorough-bred takes its origin from
England, and is still more or less related to its English
prototype, the exterior appearance and the more recently
shown ‘superiority of American horses lead to the conclu-
sion that the evidently favorable climate, and the, to a
creat extent, virgin soil of America—in every respect dif-
ferent from ours—gradually restore the whole nature of
the horse to its pristine vigor, and make the American
racer appear eminently qualified to exercise an invigo-
rating influence on the condition of the thorough-breds of
the mother-country, enfeebled, perhaps, by oft-repeated
inbreeding.”

This is from a source entirely impartial, and one often
quoted in England.

XXIX

We have during the past dozen years drawn from our
tap of Anglomania a mug brimful of good. How easy it
is to blow away the froth which rests on the excellent
draught below! One of the most exhilarating of our im-
ported sports is polo, and as it happens that our plains
furnish so excellent a mount, and our increasing out-of-
doors habits so many players, the game may well become
a national one. The motto of the day in English sports
is speed. Fox-bunting of the last generation was a mod-
est performance at a hand-gallop; Sir Roger de Coverley
rode to hounds at a canter. But within twoscore years
the cross-country pace has been run up to racing speed.
More and more thorough blood has been called for in
both park and field, and the old-fashioned hunter of our
sires could not live through the shortest burst to-day.
The same thing applies to polo—the faster and more able
the pony the better the performance of his rider. You
can get enormous weight-carrying capacity in an un-
derbred pony, as well as remarkable endurance, but not at
speed. When you call on a fourteen-hands pony to carry
a hundred and sixty pounds and upwards at speed, you
must have blood. Even the veriest weed of an undersized
thorough-bred will do wonders in this way. The sudden
bursts of racing pace called out at polo have made the
English breed for small thorough-breds. Capital polo
mounts have been raised from the handy little Exmoor
pony with blooded sires. More barrel comes of this cross

—————-

- a |

166 ENDURANCE AT SPEED

together with a certain hardiness; but the little knife-
blade thorough-bred will often carry as big a man, and en-
durance at speed is the inheritance only of his race. These
words, in fact, sum up that peculiar quality which has not
yet been reached in any other animal, except, perhaps, in
the greyhound. But when we say thorough-bred there
is a limited and a broader meaning. The pure Arabian is
not, guoad the Stud Book, a thorough-bred ; qwoad blood
he is so. But to speak of the good blood in the plains pony
sounds absurd until you reflect upon where he came from.

So much for the English pony. When we come to
riders, it will be many years before we can boast the skill
of our transatlantic cousins, or either of us that of the
Japanese, with their light cup-wands for mallets and
feather-weight balls. The American polo-fields by no
means exhibit the play you see in England. Many a man
here indulges in recklessness which would warn him off
the ground at Hurlingham, though our cracks are realiy
experts. It takes years at the game to produce the at-
mosphere which breeds perfection, and in the twenty it
has been played in England it has wellnigh reached this
point. But it is well to persevere. We are making marked
progress in all our sports, and polo may yet become as
much of a national game as base-ball, though let us hope
without its commercial aspect.

The American polo-pony is no other than our little
bronco friend. Many come from Texas, Wyoming, Mon-
tana. The clever cow-pony is ready trained for the polo-
ground. He will catch the idea of the game as quickly
as he caught the trick of cow-punching, and he has al-
ready learned to stop and turn and twist as only he can
do. It must not be forgotten that he has precisely the
same blood in his veins which has placed the English thor-
ough-bred so far above all other horses. He has increased

COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S TYPICAL SADDLE-HORSE

|
|

A SORRY SPECIMEN 169

his stock of endurance and hardiness by his struggle for
existence on the plains, and for this game he is, perhaps,
the equal of any pony, whatever his breeding, and within
the limits of the polo-field his speed is as great—some
good judges say greater. That is an open question. He
is fast enough.

When he is taken off the cars on arrival here from his
familiar haunts on the cattle-ranges, he is the sorriest,
gauntest, most miserable equine specimen one can find in
a day’s tramp. He doesn’t look worth a peck of oats.
But he will reward your care. In a month or two you
would never guess your plump, handsome, able little pony
to be the same individual. You cannot kill a bronco. No
other animal will recover from such Strapazen, as the
Germans phrase it. And when he has undergone the tort-
ure of docking, and is finally invested with the pig-skin,
nothing but the brand remains of the ragged little hero of
the plains.

The pony is used to a single gag-bit ; but he is tracta-
ble in his own odd way, and not a few will learn to work
perfectly in a snaffle. So many of our polo-players re-
quire the bridle as a means of support that the loose rein
of the cowboy will by no means do. The perfect polo-
rider has not yet made his appearance. Under him the
bronco would more quickly become the perfect polo-
pony. It would take but a few months’ training to teach
him to guide by the legs alone, if need be. Indeed, his
Indian master made him do just this. He learns to fol-
low the ball in a few days. There is no sport in which
training would be better rewarded than in polo, and
though it would be useless to aim at the delicacy of the
haute école—tor the sharp runs and stops of polo make
this as practically impossible as it is in hunting — still,
given a rider with perfect seat, without a suspicion of

170 THE POLO SEAT

riding the bridle, and a pony. which was taught to guide
by leg-pressure alone, and it would seem that they should,
other things being equal, be the best players in the game.

The polo-player’s seat varies very little from the nat-
ural, and the best of them are consummate horsemen.
Few things call out good riding more than polo; nothing
trains a man quicker or better. While hunting can never
attain more than an imitative standing in our rigorous
climate, polo may become domesticated, and, except that
it must be played on ponies, is as good an educator in
horsemanship. |

St, ~ot

XXX

Ir there is any one kind of riding between the worst of
which and the best there is a great gulf fixed, it is the
jockey’s. Unless that demolisher of pet traditions and
shams—instantaneous photography —had shown us the
extremity to which bad jockeyship could be carried, we
should scarcely credit the mechanical possibility of some
of the positions the track-rider can assume. The average
jockey has no more to do with winning a race than the
time-keeper—in a neck-and-neck race by no means so
much. You will see him suspended, as it were, in four-
fold straps—his stirrups and the bridle-reins—one quadru-
ped bestriding another, and not the more intelligent atop.
He relies as much on the reins as he does on the leathers,
and has no control over his horse, no power to save or
coax him whatsoever. Considering who the jockeys are,
what their training is, and what the average race is like,

this is no great wonder. But Fordham and Cannon and .

Archer did not ride this way, not to mention older celeb-
rities; nor do our own better jockeys. It is a thousand
pities that we have no photographs of Archer stealing
one of his celebrated races. The ability to ride a puller in
a snaffle-bridle, or to win with a slack rein without whip
or spur, is as unusual as the art of coaxing a horse, and of
making the most of his courage or nervousness or obsti-
nacy. How many modern jockeys study their horses, or
can cut and whip a race out of a slug, or wheedle it out of
a sulky jade? They use steel and whalebone on the will-

172 A PHENOMENAL JOCKEY

ing and unwilling alike. Delicate mouth-touching is the
rarest of the jockey’s arts; almost every jockey here
“rides twice as fast as his horse is going.”

Waiting races are not run in America. Running is
made from start to finish in the majority of cases. But
when a race is run between a few good jockeys, this rule
is not always followed. There has as yet been no phe-
nomenal jockey produced in the States; but it may
fairly be claimed that our best jockeys come well up in
the second rank. Do not misunderstand this phrase.
Among great captains only Alexander, Ceesar, Hannibal,
Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick, and Napoleon are placed
by the best critics in the first rank; such men as Philip,
Pompey, Turenne, Marlborough, Prince Eugene, Welling-
ton, Lee, and Von Moltke come only in the second rank,
which, after all, is good enough for any one but a demigod.
That the common jockey here is less good than in Eng-
land is simply due to the fact that there he serves at least
a species of apprenticeship, while here he springs full-
armed from his own brain.

Please note that I am not undertaking to criticise the
riding of our better jockeys ; I have seen some beautiful
work at home. I purposely use no names, lest some
should think me partial or unsound—you see I am wise
in my generation—and refer only to individuals who are
now translated. Nor am I an habctue of the race-track; I
do not consider my opinion the wltema thule on this sub-
ject, as I might on—well, never mind now. But that we
have not had a man who could, by his profession alone,
before he had got within a distance of middle life, accu-
mulate a fortune of over a million dollars, is clear; yet
Archer did it. With our running-horses we have done
great things; our American records are not to be ques-
tioned, and we need not be ashamed of our records in

ee

JOCKEYS

A PHENOMENAL DRIVER 175

England, from the days of game “ Prioress” down. But
while we have had truly phenomenal drivers of trotting-
horses — among the dead let me piously refer to that
noble horseman, Hiram Woodruff—I do not think we can
claim to have developed a genius among jockeys. It is
perhaps no wonder, for great as are the strides made by
us in raising and running thorough-breds, the sport is not
what it is in England; whereas trotting has long been
our national sport, and at this we are so far beyond the
rest of the world that trotters from any other part of the
globe. are “not in it.” Those beautiful black Orloffs
which came over from Russia to out-trot us some twenty
years ago, and which were really able ten or twenty
milers, were simply nowhere. They would have gone
into the ’thirty class.

In olden times cathedrals were built, as they cannot be
to-day, because then the whole sentiment, love, and am-
bition of the people were centred in the work. Unless a
thing is a national institution, so to speak, it can never
‘become truly great, as it surely will if it is upheld by the
entire community. So with any sport. Base-ball thrives
in America, cricket in England, because each evokes the
popular interest. Racing is a more national affair in
Great Britain than it is with us.

ae
4 a

XXXI

THERE have always been in America a few isolated ex-
ponents of the high-school of equitation. Very naturally
they have as a rule been foreigners, in most cases riding-
school teachers, sometimes men stranded on our coasts
with no resource but what they had learned in better
times at home. In our old regular army there used to
be many high-school riders; to-day there are few; the
old style has given out with us as it has in England. We
are in the era of the practical; the artistic has been lost
sight of. No doubt this is for the best; it is our immense
American practicality which has taught the world what
the doctrine of the greatest good to the greatest number
can accomplish. But, stripped of all its artistic qualities,
life becomes sadly prosaic ; and no one, I ween, will claim
our age of telegraph and telephone, of sixty miles an hour
on the rail, and five hundred knots a day at sea, to be an
artistic age. When a painter cannot, for love or money,
buy colors which have not in some measure been adulter-
ated, how can he expect his pictures to last? The old
Dutch masters of the fourteenth century still show up in
their original colors, as bright and glowing as the day
they were laid on. It is a serious question whether any
canvas or fresco produced to-day can last two genera-
tions. We can indeed build a Brooklyn Bridge, but
whom could we select to decorate a Vatican ?

The high-school rider does not thrive because he fails
to appeal to our practical side. He will begin by telling

THE HIGH-SCHOOL AIRS eae

you that it will take you five years to learn the rudi-
ments of horsemanship, when you want to ride with
the hounds, at least as far as the first wall where you
and your steed part company, so soon as the next fixt-
ures are made; and as a result you turn your back on his
manége and go to a more humdrum school. You want to
ride @ la banjo—and right you are!

At his best, however, this rider is in his way more of
an artist than any other man who makes horsemanship
his profession. My former simile of playing the violin is
distinctly applicable to him. Some of the work he can do
is like Paganini’s “ Carnival of Venice ;’ some of it like a
smooth adagio of Kiicken. The art to-day threatens to
be lost; there are few masters left, but we have had some
American experts who have done great things. Fancy
bringing a horse to such a degree of confidence in your
power and his own that you can back him up to an obsta-
cle, however small, and make him jump it backward!
Yet this has been done, while the trot and gallop back-
ward have always been high-school airs. By trotting
and galloping backward I do not mean that a horse at-
tains any speed; he merely takes the gait, z.e. uses his feet
in the true sequence of the gait, and progresses backward
at avery slow rate. Nor is it a gallop; it is more prop-
erly a canter or a prance. The name “ gallop backward”
was given when the mechanical action of the gallop was
not understood, and it still clings.

The chief point of criticism of the school-rider is per-
haps that he is too little tolerant of the knowledge of
others. This is a common error in artists of every pro-
fession. ‘They were all wrong, those old chaps!” is still
the cry of the long-haired fraternity. I speak feelingly
because I have at times been imbued with the spirit as 1

have enjoyed the delights of the high-school. But I have
12

178 OLD MAIDS—BLESS THEM!

seen too many splendid performers in the saddle all over
the world, who were anything but school- men, to have
a grain of prejudice left. I think I can see the high-
school horse and his rider as they actually are.

I once knew a charming old maid in England. And,
by-the-way, do you know, my friend, how much you lose
by not cultivating the society of old maids? As the med-
dlesome mother-in-law has been chosen as. the type of a
class whose power for evil or good we all recognize, but of
which we know many lovely members, so has the physi-
cally, mentally, and morally weazened old maid been ig-
norantly chosen as a type of a class that is, if you will
take the trouble to study it, as full of admirable quality
as an egg is full of meat. Why some poet has not arisen
to sing aloud their virtues I know not. Their very charm
is their delicate quaintness. We go wild over a dainty,
odd, old-fashioned bit of china—why, that’s just what your
old maid is, if you’ll study the class as much as you have
bric-a-brac! We all crowd round and do homage to a
bud, and neglect her maiden aunt yonder. Unquestion-
ably the bud has. her charms; what bud has not, carti-
laginous though she be? But that it is imitation—emu-
lation if you will—rather than judgment which makes us
crowd around her, is well shown by the fact that equally
charming, and often far more intelligent buds, are at the
very moment lying perdues in the corner by the sides of
their mammas or their duennas, and sobbing their dear
little souls away—if, forsooth, they are not indulging in
hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. Moreover, the
bud fades or opens, and in either case is lost, while the old
maid is perennial, always delightful, always fresh. If you
know her not, it is your blindness, not her lack of charm.
Study her, friend; she will reward thee as no tenth part
of a popular bud can possibly do.

THE POET OF INSTRUMENTS 179

But to my own old maid. Lovely woman, she once
wrote some charming verses to an entrancing little Danish
air I had exhumed from the relics of a deceased musical
antiquary—I am talking of thirty-odd years ago, and she
was fifteen years my senior then. Well, one day she said,
at a concert to which I had taken her at St. James’s Hall,
where we had listened to Joachim’s wondrous. playing,
“Tf the organ is the king of instruments, surely the violin
is the poet.” Now, the high-school rider is much like the
violin—mind you, I have not used the word “fiddle,” which.
is quite another instrument, of the banjo order. There is
no more delicate thing in the world than a horse’s mouth,
and the high-school rider works on its delicacy, while all
other riders seek to harden it to their own less sensitive
hands. The fact is undeniable; the hands of the high-
school rider are not to be equalled. He must have good
hands; he can accomplish no result without them. Nor
is it the light hand and loose rein of the cowboy or
Arab, for he feels his horse’s mouth at every instant; he
talks to him through the bit as no one else ever can.
The jockey stimulates his horse by the bit, sometimes in
a marvellous way; the cross-country rider does the like,
and rouses his every power at a difficult obstacle. But
the high-school rider talks a language to his steed which
is, indeed, Greek to those who have not studied it, which
is Homeric in its graceful touch and powerful effect.

Associated with this fact is the question whether such
a delicate mouth is what one wants. Well—to be quite
honest, no; not asarule. A man who is travelling needs
a Baedecker rather than a Shakespeare ; we admire, if you
like, the man who reads Browning before breakfast instead
of his newspaper; but—

Alas, my steed has positively got hold of the bit again,
and I fear he will gallop into yonder chestnut grove. But

180 FENCING AS AN ART

there used, in my youth, to be a story of a Briton who
was fed pretty constantly in America on that questionable
confection yclept Washington pie. Being of a quiet and
unresentful habit, he protested not; but one day, after an
undue and perhaps underdone infliction of the entremet,
he is said to have quietly remarked that ‘“‘ doubtless Gen-
eral Washington was a great and good man, but d——
his pie!” .

So with the Browning man. We admire his taste, but
—do not always agree as to his discretion.

Now, a man who is hunting or playing polo cannot pos-
sibly utilize or preserve a Browning, ¢.e., too fine a mouth;
he needs a newspaper-mouth. Both these sports originate
in the rough-and-tumble instincts of our nature, though
now grown somewhat beyond the crudely physical. Nei-
ther belongs to the same category as school-riding. They
are arts in their way, but not arts in the way poetry or
painting or music is an art, while school-riding is just this.
How many men fence to-day? I do not mean the broad-
sword (though there are few enough of these), or that vig-
orous if crude imitation of it, single-stick; I mean the
foils. It is too delicate, too difficult an art to please most
people. We can learn to spar, if we have strength and
courage, “in six easy lessons.” But the small sword, of
which foils are the practice-weapon, is the study of years
and years, and yet years. And it is of that nature, like
all true arts, that it is not necessarily lost by age. None
of the finer arts depend upon brute strength. When a
man grows less able physically, he must yield the palm to
the younger men in the coarser arts; but not so in fen-
cing. The crack fencers are almost always middle-aged
men, whom study of their weapon has made perfect, not
muscle. It demands patience to study fencing, not mere
vigor. So with high-school riding. It is not a sport like

THE SPANISH WALK

hunting or polo, it is an art like fencing or playing the
harp. In these days of sports, fencing and high-school
riding are tabooed. Where school-riding is conserved, so
is fencing, and vice versa. And, to recur to our initial
idea, you do not require the same delicate mouth and
hands for the sports that you must have for the art of
horsemanship.

Again, as to legs and the spur. The only rider who
uses his legs for any other purpose than holding on is the
school-rider. I do not refer to kicking a horse’s croup

182 THE USE OF THE SPUR

around by violent use of the legs, which the Indian and
an occasional civilized rider indulge in. The school-rider’s
seat is very firm; it must be so or he cannot acquire or
keep light hands; and in addition to using his legs to
keep his seat, he uses them intelligently to talk to his
horse. The delicacy of this use of the legs is equalled
only by that of the schoolman’s hands; nothing but to
study the subject, and then to watch a master of the art
ride, can give any idea of what a height this delicacy can

reach. It is such that unless you know something of the ~

art you cannot understand what the master is doing.
Any one can see the skill of a rider who pilots his animal
over six feet of timber; any one can appreciate “ Hail
Columbia” by a brass-band. But it is not every one who
can understand what a master is doing when he makes
his horse piaffer; nor can every one appreciate the over-
ture to “ Lohengrin” at its true worth.

The spur, moreover, by the school method is used not
to punish or urge on the horse, but to convey certain ideas
to him. Like the use of the curb-bit, in contradistinction
or in addition to the use of the snafile, the spur finds in
the school -rider a new power—one never dreamed of by
the rough - riding, cross-country man, or by the active,
hearty polo-player. There is no question that, so far as
the pure art of horsemanship is concerned, the fine work
of the high-school rider soars above any mere sport, just
as the “ linked sweetness” of the ’cello, or the small circle
of the small-sword hover above the rugged blows of the
single-stick, or the lascivious pleasing of a lute. Whether
there is to any given person more enjoyment in the sport
or in the art is a question of each man’s habits, tastes, and
tendencies. Jam far from seeking a quarrel with these.

Do not imagine, because you give your horse a fairly
delicate mouth, that this will necessarily spoil him for an

‘**PATROCLUS ” 183

occasional bit of rougher work. By no means. My “ Pa-
troclus,” the instant I took up the reins, used to give me
the most delicate touch of the bit, and keep it so hour
after hour; but if I wanted a mile or two with the
hounds, I could let out a link of his curb-chain, use the
bridoon rather more than the bit, and Pat would take

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hold of me enough not to mind a twitch on the bit if, in
going over an awkward place, I did the trick less well
than he; and at once, on stopping him, fresh or winded,
he was ready to give me his school-head again without
fret or bore. Any horse can learn to do—almost as much.

What can the high-school rider do? you ask. Well,

|

184 USES OF THE SCHOOL

he can do many wonderful, many beautiful, many useful
things, not to speak of what he has done for horsemanship
in the past. Some of the so-called “airs” of the high-
school are truly wonderful—such as the croupade or the
capriole, or galloping backwards; some, such as the piaffer,
or the Spanish march and trot, are of singular grace; and
the fact that by a school-training a dangerous horse may

be made safe, or a chronic stumbler be taught to catch

himself always, or the average ungainly, clumsily-moving
brute be made light and handy, and responsive to the bit
and legs, demonstrates its usefulness. Is it not useful to
take a puller, or a horse so high-strung that it is a risk for
any one to ride him, and make him moderate and safe for
even a woman to ride, if she is taught what his training
is, and is trained herself? Have you ever watched horses
let loose in a pretty paddock after a long confinement in
the stable, and paid heed to their free step and splendid
bearing? Well, everything they do of their own accord
they can be made to do at the bidding of man by a high-
school training. All this, you think, has no value except
from an artistic. stand-point; but neither, it might be
claimed, has hunting except as an exercise—in other
words, it is art versus exercise. Neither statement is an
argument; and a moderate use of high-school methods
has a distinct value which we will discuss when we come
to tall of road-riding as a separate matter.

The high-school has been of inestimable use in the past ;
to-day, when we think of nothing but athletics, its uses
are not so apparent—to the athletic rider. Although it
can be theoretically demonstrated that a school-rider on
a school-horse ought to do anything and everything bet-
ter than any one else, the truth is that he does not. Given
the perfect rider and the perfect horse, and he would, no
doubt, do so; but no horse or rider ever is perfect. It is

OIL AND WATER 185

like a republican form of government—perfect in theory,
but mighty hard to make as perfect in practice with a
somewhat mixed population; and in the hunting- field it
is, even to an expert, practically impossible to ride on the
delicate school-rein. On the polo-ground it might per-
haps be done. A hunter or a polo-pony must not mind
frequent and sometimes severe twitches on the mouth;
but twitches, unless your bit is very light, ruin the school-
horse. It will not do to forget that each occupies a field
by itself, and that art and the sports can hardly mix: they
are as unlike as oil and water.

Perhaps, to-day, the best uses for school-riding are in
winter, when, on days too disagreeable to be out with sat-

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186 SRO” DEW Ad?

isfaction, one may ride in a manége to the manifest gain
of man and horse; or, in the extreme summer heat, the
well-ventilated school ring is not to be despised.

I wonder, en passant, whether I am living too much in
the past. It is the weakness of—shall I say middle age ?
I often feel like the old darky who was modestly stand-
ing beside a visitor to the “family” on the porch of the
old plantation homestead in Virginia one fine bright night
when Luna was out in her full majesty. “Isn’t that a
fine moon, Uncle Joe %” said the stranger. “ Yes,” slowly
assented the ancient, now somewhat threadbare servitor,
“dat am, fo’ shure, a mighty fine moon, Massa Temple,
but yo’ orter seen dat moon ’fo’ de war!” Many a thing
seems to have lost a part of its ante-bellum flavor in these
later days. Draw the rein on me if I offend too much—
or, better still, be tolerant.

XXXII

Tue chief value of school methods lies in the application
of the simplest of them to plain road-riding. The term
“saddle-horse” threatens to be lost. Any man who owns
a horse which will allow itself to be ridden, will quietly
walk and trot along the road more or less easily, and has
endurance and good-temper, says that he has a saddle-
horse, and really thinks so. Every second man will tell
you he owns “the best saddle-horse in the State.” The
hunting-man calls his hunter a saddle-horse; the scrubbiest
polo-pony with any sort of manners is so dubbed, and
nearly every carriage-horse, too. Now this is all wrong ;
the saddle-horse is a creature and a creation per se; he
must be bred and trained as such. Not that it does him
any harm to work in light harness now and then—all my
saddle- beasts do—but this must be a subsidiary thing.
His saddle qualities must be first considered, and every-
thing done to conserve them.

It is in this that our friends of the Southern States ex-
cel. They have distinct breeds of saddle-horses, which for
generations they have been improving for this purpose
alone, and they have made the strain as nearly perfect as
can be. On the whole, the Southern “ combined ” horse,
which, in addition to perfect saddle gaits and manners,
will work true in harness, is the best general horse in ex-
istence. A pair of such, well mated, are beyond price. I
have owned a few such pairs, but they are rare, and the
difficulty of bringing them East and acclimating them
enhances their value and rarity.

188 THE PARAGON

What is this paragon that you call a saddle-horse? you
ask me. Let me tell you, but without enlarging upon his
“ points,’ which we all of us know and appreciate alike.
If he moves quickly, smoothly, and true at all his gaits, he
is all nght; motion is the test. I have seen horses with
‘“ points”? enough on the stable floor to make you fall down
and worship them, that weren’t worth a shilling a dozen
when you got them out on the road. ‘The perfect
hack,” says my good friend the editor of the Sporting
and Dramatic—and I love to quote a thorough horseman
—‘must have a variety of excellences, such as are very
rarely indeed found in one horse.” He “bends readihy
and obediently to the rider’s hand, though his neck has
never undergone the process of suppling.” True, indeed,
but how often do you find this rare bird, whose price in the
Old Country appears to be about two hundred guineas?
Or how many of us can afford to buy him when found ?
It is just here that the school comes in and enables you to
buy for a quarter of that sum an average young four or
five year old, and in six months of pleasure, for training
is one of the greatest of pleasures, make him the perfect
hack. And the veriest Philistine, presupposing intelli-
gence, can begin with a green horse and, if he is half as
apt at studying his manual as his nag is clever at catch-
ing the trick of it, can educate his purchase and himself
at the same time.

While the price of choice horses in the big marts of
Kentucky—such as Lexington, Mount Sterling, or Paris—
is to-day very high, you can still buy in the country for
from two hundred dollars upwards a well-sired com-
bined colt, who has been taught to “ walk,” or rack, canter,
and trot, and of course to guide by the neck. I recently
rode a beautiful three-year-old in Bath County, who was
fifteen three, as well rounded up as most five-year-olds,

OW, TO TEACH VAY COLT 189

perfectly broken, who had as exceptional manners as he
had beauty, and who was on trial in a friend’s hands at
one hundred and fifty dollars asking price. I have paid —
five hundred for less good ones, and would willingly give
a thousand for a couple well-mated. Beyond simple
training the accomplishments of the country horse will
not extend; it is for yon to teach him. Or, if you still
insist that a trot and canter are all that you want, you
can for the same price, or fifty dollars more, buy in New
York, Philadelphia, or Boston a nice moving colt, broken
to harness, and willing to trot kindly under saddle. The
latter will need much more to make him a saddle-horse,
for he has had no saddle ancestry. Still it can be done.

Where, you say, shall we learn how to teach this colt ?
Well, now you have asked me a delicate question. But if
a man will not cry his own wares, how can he expect
others to advertise them for him? I have tried to tell the
how in a little Chat in the Saddle, named after ‘“ Patro-
clus” and ‘“ Penelope,” two capital nags of mine, still alive
and at work, hale and hearty, at near twenty years old.
And for fifteen years they have not skipped a day’s
work—or, rather, seen a day when they were not fully up
to a good bit of work. If you want higher training, Col.
Anderson’s Modern Horsemanship will help you. Any
of the Baucher manuals will do; and there are a number
of others. But all this is apart, for the Ad. is really not
a paid one.

How much must the colt learn to be worthy the name
of “saddle-horse?” According to my standard the least
education which will make him perfect should include:

1. A busy walk, well up to four miles an hour. If
your colt is naturally a slow walker—many good ones of
trotting ancestry are—and you cannot appeal to his am-
bition so as to encourage him into a good walk which he

190 WHAT MUST HE KNOW?

will maintain of his own accord, he ought to have an am-
ble, or a rack, or a running walk. A slow walker under
saddle is intolerable. You must have at least one loose-
rein gait which gets you along at a minimum of four
miles an hour.

2. A quick, active, nimble trot—not the extended flying
gait of the trotting track, but one which keeps his legs
well under the horse and makes speed by quick gather.
Many a thorough-bred with very limber fetlocks will trot
with a long, rangy gait in the easiest manner possible to
himself and his rider. But his other gaits will not be
collected enough if he has too rangy an action. His in-
heritance is long stride and quick gather, too; but the
former is wanted on the track, not the road.

3. A good canter. Some people think that the faster
the horse canters the better. This is all right for a coy-
ert-hack, who is to take you as speedily as possible to the
appointed place fixed for the meet, where your hunter
will be waiting for you, fresh and able. But a saddle-
beast’s canter is properly measured by its slowness, not
its speed. I by no means refer to some of those lazy
brutes which can canter as slowly as they walk, and im-
press you as being members of the vegetable rather than
the animal kingdom. I mean that a horse, who feels fresh
enough to jump out of his skin and would prefer a sharp
hand- gallop, shall be able to curb his ambition to your
mood, and put all his action and elasticity into-a five-mile-
an-hour canter; that is luxury. But, you object, he is
working a ten-mile gait for a five-mile progress. Exactly
so. If, my brother, you go riding in order to cover dis-
tance, English fashion, you are not doing saddle-work
proper, according to my notion. Remember our rule: If
you are hunting, you must save your horse, because he has
got a big day’s work to do; if you are riding, even on

“PUTTING ON. AIRS” ey

your saddle-horse, to make any considerable distance, regu-
late yourself accordingly—but then you are travelling, not
riding for pleasure. If you go out for the mere ride, it is
for your nag to subserve your comfort, not for you to save
his strength. Do you measure a painting by superficies
or by execution? Is not a square foot of a Gerard Douw
or a Hans Memling worth more than one hundred square
feet of—well, let us say even a Rubens, after he had de-
scended to political wall-paintings, oblivious of his work in
Antwerp? So a saddle-horse’s ability is to be measured
by his gaits, not the distance he can go. Would you ask
to go for a pleasure ride on a “Captain McGown” or a
“ Nancy Hanks” because, forsooth, the one might take you
forty miles in two hours, or the other a mile in 2.05?
Speed is a corollary of the Sunday rider’s problem, not
yours and mine, dear boy, when we ride along the pretty
suburban roads, or on the soft bridle-paths of the Park.

I have often heard it said of a man with a well-trained
horse that he appears to be putting on airs. But why is
he showing off any more than the man who rides along
with his elbows up at an angle of sixty degrees, or swing-
ing his legs, or acting as if he wefe bestriding a Genesee
County hunter, when he is atop of a three-dollar livery-
hack? A man who makes his horse show his paces with-
in reason is as little to be accused of bumptiousness as the
other; and if he were, he has a sounder reason for his van-
ity. If your nag can canter a well-collected four- mile
gait, with all the proud bearing which such an accom-
plishment lends, why must you let him go an uncollected
eight-mile gait, when the slower one is the very poetry of
motion? To dub this “putting on airs” is on all fours
with the outcry against “those d—— literary fellers.”

4. A rack or singlefoot is not a sine qua non; but I
would vastly rather have a racker who could trot besides,

192 ACCOMPLISHMENTS

than a trotting-horse with an amble. You may not see
the difference ; but there is one, just the same, as there is
’twixt tweedledum and tweedledee. If, for saddle, you
have to choose between a good singlefoot and a good trot,
by all means take the singlefoot, unless you prefer fashion
to comfort. Still, the trot is one of the finest of saddie
gaits in its place; it is out of place only when you
use it to the exclusion of everything else ; it then becomes
a species of treadmill.

5. To say that a saddle-horse must ae by the neck
is as absurd as to say that a well-educated man must
know some grammar. Still, in these two-handed days,
when a man cannot blow his nose, let alone assist his
équestrienne, Without losing partial control of his horse,
the statement must be ventured. The saddle -horse’s
neck must be suppled so that, so soon as you take up the
rein, he will give his head to your hand and keep it there.
He must be able to execute the pirouette, z.e. move in a
circle in either direction about one hind-foot, which shall
not leave the ground. His hind-quarters must be sup-
pled so that the use of the spur, or the closing of the legs
shall bring his hind-feet under him, to collect his forces ;
in other words, he must readily come in hand. As a se-
quence to this he must execute the reversed pirouette
round one of his fore-feet. He must traverse—move side-
wise—at least a dozen steps, without effort.

6. He must pass from any one of his gaits to any
other at the slightest indication, and without flurry. He
must start into the canter with either shoulder leading, or
change lead at will when in motion.

7. He must be able to jump handily and in cold blood
any reasonable obstacle, say a fence or wall up to three
feet and a half. If he will face four feet at call, he is an
able jumper.

CUI BONO? 193

8. He must, with good courage and endurance, have
perfect manners, and never sulk, get nervous or flurried,
alone or in company, or act otherwise than as a horse
treated with uniform kindness and firmness should act.
His mouth must be velvet, but still capable of feeling
your hand, and all his instincts must be keen and
lively. :

With these accomplishments you have a “ saddle-horse ”
sufficiently well trained for any ordinary purpose of pleas-
ure ; but you have only laid the foundation for a high-
school education. Your steed has merely got the three
r’s—reading, riting, and rithmetic.

To give a horse this knowledge presupposes some skill
in the trainer; properly to ride such a horse equal knowl-
edge. Every one who rides habitually has time to learn
the art to the above quoted extent; and a horse so trained
need by no means be so delicate that he requires an ex-
pert to ride him. With courage, intelligence, and good
manners, this education will only make him more tracta-
ble and more handy in whatever place you put him.

To do all this is by no means beyond the skill of any
one who is really fond of horses and horsemanship. To
him who rides merely because his doctor has confided to
him that he has a liver, or because every one else rides, I
would say, buy your article ready-made.

But wherein is such a horse the better for road-riding ?
asks our chappie with the crop and irreproachable nether
garments. No whit, friend, unless education be better
than ignorance. If Mother Goose satisfies you, you do
not need Homer or Dante or Shakespeare or Goethe—and
Heaven forefend that I should underrate Mother Goose!
Mind you, I have not said that a hunter or a polo-pony
needs these accomplishments, though he would undenia-

bly be the better for some of them. But these horses
13

194 THE HORSE'S ENJOYMENT

have a definite work cut out for them; the saddle-horse
is merely a companion along the road.

Each and every one of these accomplishments is dis-
tinctly useful. A busy walk enables you to rest your
horse frequently without either of you being bored or
losing ground by lack of speed. The trot enables you to
change gait and equally ease yourself and your steed’s
muscles. To change lead in the canter saves the fore-feet,
for a horse which always leads on one foot runs danger
of going lame by-and-by. It also saves the houghs. The
rack is the easiest of all paces, and is, par eacellence, a hot
weather gait, when a trot is all but impossible except to a
man in training. To shift the fore-quarters quickly means
handiness in turning and less danger of tripping a horse up;
and the same applies to the shifting of the hind-quarters.
Moreover, without the latter, how can you place your
horse where you want him, as to open a gate, or to keep
your place ina group of.riders? The utility of the rest
goes without saying, and this is but a little of the practi-
cal side; while the pleasure of it all is hard to be ex-
plained to a man who has not been through it, or to a
horse which is not thus trained. For the horse, be it
said, is as keen in his enjoyment of it all as the man; I
sometimes think more keen than most men.

To whatever horse-owner there may be who cannot
hunt or play polo or breed, or who has not a long enough
purse to own racers, let me prescribe the study of pure
saddle- work; he will be rewarded a hundredfold for his
experiment. And this especially if he is getting on in
years, and wants a quiet rather than a boisterous pleasure.

To revert to the text, though we seem to have reached
a sort of Fourteenthly: it is not to be wondered at that
we Americans have sought our models in the Old Country.
It is the English who have taught us nearly all our sports.

AMERICANISM 195

Anglomania in its proper sense is as excellent as in its
forced sense it is absurd. If to learn from the Briton
how to race or hunt or play polo be Anglomania, let us
all be inoculated for the disease, and speedily. If to
swear by everything English, from togs to manners, just
because it is English, be Anglomania, the sooner we are
rid of it the better. The word must be advisedly used.
In its better sense, we are all Anglomaniacs who are not
sick with Anglophobia, a much worse type of the disease.
But give Americanism a chance, especially in horseman-
ship. We have no cause to be ashamed of what we have
in horses, nor of what we can do in the saddle. And a
judicious choice in the field and on the road of what is
best at home and abroad ought to put us in equestrianism,
if not where we stand in yachting, at least on a level high
enough to satisfy the most critical.

XXXII

Come with me across the ocean. If thou fearest the
sickness of the sea, friend, come with me but in spirit, for
old Neptune hath ordained that the particular part of his
domain which is the most frequently crossed, the North
Atlantic, shall be the most constantly stormy. It is thus
he punishes him who dares his authority by ploughing
through his purple waters. I wonder whether the an-
cients sacrificed to the fishes any the less for sacrificing
to Neptune before they went aboard. However this may
have been, libations poured out to the grizzly God of the
Trident were assuredly less foolish than many nostrums
against sea-sickness in our own day and generation.

Well, here we are in England. Mother-country, all
hail! Years have I tasted thy bounteous hospitality,
hearty thanks have I laid at thy feet! And as I am about
to speak of thy horsemen, I begin by a cordial bow of
admiration, for they are truly to be admired, in the good
old Latin sense.

I will but take the chair, as it were, and begin by in-
troducing better speakers. Says my ancient comrade,
Colonel Edward L. Anderson—of the fighting Andersons,
and once of General Sherman’s staff—in that most author-
itative of modern series, the Britannica of sports, the Bad-
minton Library, to wit: “In breeding horses, in rearing
and in caring for them, in racing them and in riding them
across country, the Englishman is easily first.” To which
Isay amen. In the same volume (Leding and Polo), one

THE INTOLERANT BRITON 197

of the best of horsemen, sportsmen, and critics, known to
us all as “ Rapier,” of the Sporting and Dramatic News,
Alfred E. T. Watson—may his shadow never grow less !—
remarks that “an Englishman’s highest ambition, apart
from success in sport between the flags, is to ride straight
to hounds in the manner which, causing no unnecessary
exertion to himself or horse, enables horse and man to
last the longest without fatigue.” ‘The Englishman has
no sort of desire to practise the ‘ high airs’ of the school.
To him it seems an utter waste of time to induce a horse
to piaffer, execute the Spanish trot, or perform other
feats of school training. If he can make his horse lead
off with either leg as he may indicate, and perhaps swing
his croup as well as his fore-hand, the animal is looked on
as possessing a superfluity of accomplishments.”

These two statements cover the entire case. It is true
that the Englishman is unapproachable in his own prov-
ince; it is also true that he despises the high-school, and
that he doesn’t know a saddle-horse as we know him in
the Southern States. I have interlarded so many observa-
tions on the English method in my chat about our own
ways, that there is scarce a word left to be said. I can-

not overstate my unswerving fealty to the Briton’s horse-

manship as above construed, any more than I could over-
state my affection for his frank and manly, if often
brusque and pushing, habit the wide world over. Why
should he not, if he chooses so to do, plume himself on
owning, if not, as we are said to do, on beating all creation?
It is a refreshing thing to see and hear him assert it. If we
fondly imagine we know better, and inwardly chuckle at
his unconscious intolerance along the highways and by-
ways of life, it does him no harm; and surely we, too, are
chips of the old block. British narrowness has wrought
creat things—as narrowness has everywhere. Antislavery

198 THE BRITISH CAVALRY SEAT

was narrowness, and yet the extremists were the men who

roused us to the efforts which culminated in freedom to
the slave. Too great breadth will not keep the world

a-moving. St. Paul makes a mistake in urging content-

ment at all seasons—at least, in the way his translators
have quoted him. Had he himself been one of your con-
tented men, he would scarcely have accomplished what
he did. And the Englishman’s self-contentment and self-
assertiveness are coupled with a fine habit of putting in
big licks, hitting straight from the shoulder, in every part
of the world. Just what right, for example, he has to be
here in Egypt (where I happen to be penning these lines),
I fail to see, and yet what a change he has wrought for
the better! The poor fellahin to-day know that their
land will be irrigated in its due turn, and for the first
tfme since the Sphinx was hewn from its native rock can
gauge the tax they will have to pay. So works the
Briton everywhere and in most mundane affairs—but this
thing militates against just what produces the niceties of
equitation.

The English army officer rides well, just because he
rides like an English gentleman. The british trooper rides
no worse, no better, than any other regular cavalryman.
Seat is largely an individual habit. J have seen men in
the English cavalry, just as I have seen men in our own
regiments, ride extreme forked-radish style, sitting bolt up-
right on the crotch, while other men in the same troop
would have in the saddle a regular cross-country seat,
barring the fact that their toes were in the stirrups instead
of riding “ home.”

The only difference I have ever been able to perceive
between our own and the British cavalry seat is, as be-
fore stated, that our men are wont to depress their heels
a trifle less, riding in a more natural, less drill- stiffened

THE HORSE GUARDS 199

way. The Horse Guards ride with particularly long stir-
rups, though part of the appearance of this is due to their
superabundance of leg.

But, good or bad, the Briton has enough to be proud
of ; let us leave him alone in his glory.

XXXIV

Wouvtp that the times still were when one might cross
the Channel dry-shod! Why did the sea ever encroach
on that invaluable neck of dry land? If there is an un-
certainty of travel in any part of the commonly trotted
universe, it 1s that nasty bit of water. Nasty is said not to
be a nice word, but it literally describes man and the ele-
ments on the Channel. Yet if we Americans, easily first in
travelling conveniences, should have that water between our
two biggest cities (not to mention the two capitals of the
world), we would put a ferry there which would make the
transit.a pleasure in lieu of a dread. The Club train runs
from London with its five millions of souls to Paris with
half the number once a day, costs about six cents a mile,
and is rather a petty affair for the fuss they make over it.
From little provincial Boston, with its scant half-million
population, you have some twenty trains a day, giving
you more speed, more comfort, and vastly more elegance
for two and a half cents a mile, and you are not limited
to a paltry sixty pounds of impedimenta, or atrociously
taxed if your wife happens to have brought along a few
extra Saratogas to swell the weight. Our baggage is
rarely subjected to delays or impost; English luggage is
not so lucky. It takes thirty-eight hours to run from
Paris to Rome, some eleven hundred miles, if my memory
serves me; and you practically have no comfort whatever
for the five cents a mile you pay. You run from New
York to Chicago, nearly the same distance, in twenty-two

- Ce ee

SAUMUR RIDING 201

hours or less, at half the cost, and in what luxury! How
distinctly we lead in travelling, despite the occasional su-
perciliousness of the Pullman nigger !

“Where’er I roam, whatever lands I see,
My heart, untravelled, fondly turns to thee,”

and I might add, my body does too, if travelling is to be
synonymous with comfort.

But let us come to the Frenchman. It used to be said
that there were many Church people who would not sub-
scribe to the Thirty-nine Articles, but who had an implicit
faith in the Forty Thieves; and it is a sort of fortieth
article to every dweller in the bright little, tight little
island that Johnny Crapaud cannot ride. But he can.
In some respects, such as fine training and school-riding,
he is vastly the Briton’s superior. And now that he has
taken a bad form of the international disease yclept Anglo-
mania, and has begun to do some rough-and-tumble riding,
he may prove still more of a rival to his neighbor across
La Manche. The French military man rides well. <At
Saumur the equestrian education is good. I have seen a
number of Saumur cadets riding over a decentish obstacle.
They all showed excellent skill, though no one can judge
from drill-ground or manége riding how a man might ride
to hounds—if the latter is to be made the ultimate test, as
it should not be. For the purpose for which the Saumur
training is intended there is a sufficiency of leaping.
There are other things in cavalry drill, or in the prepara-
tion of an officer for staff service, besides jumping obsta-
cles, though it is hard to convince a Briton of it.

They have recently been taking riding photographs at
Saumur, which are published in a series, @ 7a Muybridge,
but on a very limited scale. J was shown photographs of
a horse in the successive positions of the trot and canter

HOW TO DO iT

as an. unusual thing; and when [I said that the University
of Pennsylvania had taken all animals, from men to birds,
in motion, and had published a series of plates containing
thirty thousand phototypes, I was stared at politely but
reproachtfully and incredulously. We are given credit for
very little abroad. The simplest thing you tell a foreigner
runs the risk of being looked at as a gross exaggeration.
I have had intelligent people gaze at me as if [ had been
spinning a monumental yarn, to put it mildly, because, ¢.g.,
I told them that Pittsburg had for years been lighted and
heated and had its factories driven by natural gas, or that
petroleum was transported by pipe-lines, over hill and dale,
from the oil-fields, several hundred miles, to the ocean.
When I was a small boy, the elevator in the Continental
Hotel in Philadelphia was already running, and it was

oe

———

“WONDERFUL BRITONS!” 2038

soon followed by elevators all over the country. After a
generation or so the English caught on to the idea and
began to put in timid little things of the same genus, but
by no means of the same species, and called them Lifts.
By-and-by the people on the Continent saw the point and
put in a few still more timorous dcenseurs : “ Etonnants,
ces Anglais! Quelle invention! Voila qui vaut la peine!”
In 1854, if I remember right, George Francis Train put a
horse-railroad on the Bayswater Road from the Marble
Arch to Kensington Gate. I rode on the first car. The
scheme failed, because it was not legally protected, and
the cabbies were down on it and could not be prevented
from driving at a walk on the track ahead of the cars.
Horse-railroads were then as old as the hills in America.
Again, after the lapse of half a generation, the English
caught on and started what they improperly called trams;
and later the simple Continental folk followed suit with
their Zranvays. Not a suspicion that we Americans had
ever had elevators or horse-railroads; oh no, it was the
original, the wonderful, the veritable English lift and
tram —“ Donnerwetter, was fir Kerle, die Englander !—
and so forth, and so on.

The French civilian is not, as a rule, as good a horseman
as the “militaire.” There are many high-school riders
who are masters of the art. But there is no special sport
in which to shake the average Frenchman into the saddle,
unless it be those which by imitation he has taken from
Albion, just as we have done at home; and these can be,
or are, pursued but in a few places. Asa rule, the French
civilian impresses you as rather finicky in his style. When
he rides in the Bois de Boulogne there is a lack of freedom
in his equitation, which is well characterized by the con-
stant use of the bit rather than the bridoon. And what-
ever national method he may have had in the days of

204 THE JAM OF JAMNUGGER

Baucher, or ought since to have built up on the foundation
laid by this great man, seems to have been swallowed up
in his craze for matters English. In dress and horse rig
and seat he closely follows the Briton, and then forsooth
rides all day long on the curb, as the Briton never would
do. This incompleteness makes me think of the portrait
of the Jam of Jamnugger, which I possess, dressed in all
the magnificence of a Hindoo maharajah, except for his
feet, which are incased in a pair of three-dollar Douglas
shoes! Please note that this also is not a paid Ad.,
though it ought to be. In many matters equine the
French are as admirable as in their own specialty, the
Percheron; but not so in riding. And yet, as was ob-
served long ago, they are horsy enough to call their
mothers mares and dub their daughters fillies.

The French have done one thing which we must not
forget. The first man who showed the world that intelli-
gent kindness was the real secret of horse breaking and
training was the Frenchman Baucher. Up to his day
colts had been broken by cruel methods, and were never
more than half trained. The tempers of the majority
were irretrievably ruined. Baucher taught an entirely
new system, and the whole world has benefited by it.
Even English breakers, though they scorn his higher edu-
cation, unwittingly make use of the devices he intro-
duced.

It has, however, been reserved for Governor Leland Stan-
ford’s farm at Palo Alto to perfect the methods of kind-
ness. The men on the place are forbidden to speak in an
angry tone to a colt ; a man who should swear at or strike
one would be instantly discharged. From the time the
foal is born, he is habituated to the presence and the gen-
tling of man, and is taught that he receives nothing but
kindness and favors at his hands. One rule is enforced :

2. rD | j

PALO ALTO 205

when the foal or colt is near his groom or his master, he
must never indulge in play, but stand quiet and allow him-
self to be petted or handled in any fashion. In the pad-
dock he may fool to the top of his bent; but never in the
society of man. Asa result the colt does not have to be
broken, in our sense of the word ; he is ready to be hitched
up and driven when he is old enough to work. The sys-
tem is perfection.

XXXV

Wuar shall be said of the German rider? That, within
certain limits of his own, and these are practically con-
fined to cavalry methods, the German rides well, no one
can deny. A squadron, or a regiment, or a brigade of
cavalry moves in an irreproachable manner; the troops
drill like automata; their conduct in the field is worthy of
their history; but when you see the men by themselves
they do not always impress you as easy at their work. It
may safely be assumed that the Germans know what they
are about; and that they can organize and drill cavalry
has been sufficiently demonstrated. Our comment can
extend no further than the individual.

When, as a boy, I was in Prussia, there was nothing
more revolting to the sense of propriety of the average
citizen than matters English; now there is a strong pro-
clivity to the international disease. On a number of oc-
casions in my youth I visited school friends at their homes
in the country, and there found a deal of excellent riding.
In those days German was the home language, but French
was universally employed in social intercourse, and the
mother-tongue was interlarded with Gallic phrases. We
would be comfortably talking German, perhaps even in-
dulging in the old Berlin patois, which included in its
vocabulary the “Ne!” or the soft pronunciation of “g,”
which gave rise to the phrase “ Eene jute jebratene Jans
ist eene jute Jabe Jottes,’ when a runaway ring at the
bell would startle all of us out of, or rather into, our pro-

7. . a

GERMAN LEAPING 207

priety, and we would begin to chatter French as glibly as,
if not with the brogue of, denizens of Paris—for it might
be company. What in those Gallo-Teutonic days they
used to call the Parforce Jagd was stag or boar hunting
in the saddle, during which you were compelled to ride
over all kinds of country, sometimes stiff enough. This
was not done at racing pace, nor were the obstacles as
bad as the ox-fences in the Midland counties; but still it
was fairish sport, and the game was better worth having
than Reynard’s brush or pads, for the pack is wont to de-
vour Reynard, while we used to eat the stag or boar (when
we got him) at the hunt-dinner in the evening, or a day or
two later when he had got more tender. The run was
not infrequently through heavy timber, where there were
many fallen trees to clear, and a deal of thicket to get
through ; and I have seen excellent horsemanship in such
a hunt. Horsemanship is relative. Because Buffalo Bill
or Sotnik Dmitri Peshkof could not keep in the same field
with the hounds over a difficult country is no proof that
either falls short of being one of the best of horsemen.

I think the German military rider is a trifle stiff; and
I do not like the way the soldier is taught his leaping ex-
ercises. It is rather absurd to make so much account of
jumping; but the world is agog on the subject, and he
that leapeth a six-foot fence is greater than he that taketh
a city. No horse in cold blood leaps willingly with any-
thing but an easy bit; and yet the German soldier is
taught to use his curb exclusively. The obstacle the en-
listed man leaps at squad-drill is a small affair, over which
the horse could almost step if he tried hard, and of course
the commonest troop horse clears it easily. But I have
never seen a German soldier sit down on his horse at even
such a leap; he does not curl his sitting-bones under him,
as the phrase runs, but relies on the stirrups and goes out

=

208 THE NEGRO RIDER

of his saddle at a two-foot hurdle. Sometimes a German
soldier riding at a hurdle is the very type of how not to
do it.

There is no man who sits down on his horse more ad-
mirably than the negro. He seems to settle into his seat
in much the same limber way he dances a break-down.
While his muscles are all in readiness to grip his horse or
saddle, his joints are loose and he gets nearer to his mount
than almost any man I know. While he may not always
be discreet in his management of a horse, he is otherwise
a capital example for the ramrod soldier to imitate ; and
when a darky is a good horseman he is apt to be ahead of
his white competitor. He and the horse invariably under-
stand each other. I have had negro grooms who would
keep the paces of my saddle-horses pure and distinct, and
whom in my absence I would trust to ride them month in,
month out, when I would not let one of my white grooms
—certainly no English groom I ever knew—get astride
one, even to ride him to the blacksmith.

What I have said above is not all there is to German
leaping. The cavalry often goes at an obstacle by troops;
and horses, even on the curb, will leap vastly freer in
company than singly. So far as manoeuvres go one can
scarcely criticise the Germans, and their squadron-drill
includes riding over a wall and ditch. The men rarely
lose than seats, and this leaves little to be said. It is
the individual soldier who does not at all times impress
us so favorably. I am not speaking of the officers; as a
class they ride well, and I have known many splendid
horsemen among them.

The German civilian rides a la militaire ; every man
has served his time. There is a certain. set fashion
throughout the German Empire in every phase of life.
Things are conducted within lines which forbid their ex-

THE GERMAN TYPE 209

pansion into types. In America, in the Orient, you may
find numberless types, the pattern of each of which is its
own individuality ; but ever present organization, in civil
and military matters alike, all through the German struct-
ure, forbids novelty. All things are cast in one mould;
and there may be said to be but one type of horseman.

HOW NOT TO DO IT

XXXVI

I FEAR we may not be permitted to wander together
all over Europe. We must ride to orders, and seek
climes more full of oddities in horsemanship. There is not
much difference, after all, between any of the riders of the

great military powers, barring Russia. As in Germany,

they all pattern on the same model, and produce, with

some questions of degree, about the same horsemen. If

Austria could claim that her people were fit followers of
their gallant Empress, who is noted as one of the best
riders who ever led the field over Warwickshire, they
would be distinctly at the top of all the horsemen of Eu-
rope; but Her Majesty is a clear exception to every rule
of royalty. She is peerless in the side-saddle. The Austro-
Hungarians, in the recent Berlin-Vienna ride, were ready
victors, and received from the German Emperor the com-
pliment of being called the best cavalry in Europe—a tru-
ism partly due to their pattern being at hand in the admi-
rable light horse of their eastern dominions, which they
have cleverly imitated. The Russians have, in a similar
manner, patterned to a certain extent on the Cossack ;
but of him we shall treat when we come to the Oriental,
whose ways he possesses more than those of the European.

The Italians present nothing peculiar in their equitation.
They are cast in the same military mould as the rest of
nations, though their method is to-day somewhat marred
by the English saddle and an imperfect imitation of the
English seat ; and these are, I deem it, inapplicable to cav-

OURS VS. FOREIGN CAVALRY 211

alry riding of the best order—a point on which I have
elsewhere dilated.

With reference to army officers in Europe, I must say
that I have always found among them not only admirable
riders, but a strong spirit of appreciation of what is best in
horsemanship as well. It may be assumed as an axiom
that what they know and what they do is best fitted to
what their respective military duties may be. To say
that our own army officers could readily learn to do their
work, and that they would naturally have much more to
learn in order to succeed on our peculiar terrain and under
our difficult conditions, while it may be praise to the
adaptiveness of our men, is by no means a discredit to
those whose duties savor as much of the barracks and
drill-ground as the duties of our army do of what is tech-
nically known as partisan warfare.

’ )

XXXVII

Wuoso, when he reaches the home of the Moor or the
Bedouin, or stands where, scorning to live under a roof,
the Arab of the desert pitches his camel’s-hair tent and
lazes away a profitless existence, eating his bread in the
sweat, not of his own brow, but of that of his slaving
wives and daughters; where the date-palm and the olive-
tree—or at need the Barbary fig—stand between the list-
less son of the prophet and annual starvation; where man
is literally the dust of the field, and mixes with his native
sod as constantly during life as after death; where woman
has no soul, and is but a crude promise of the houri of the
hoped-for paradise; where every instinct points to indo-
lence, and where man has not bettered his condition one
jot for fifty generations; whoso, because he is among
Arabs, fondly imagines that he will find himself among
better horses than surround him at home, is doomed to
grievous disappointment. Good horse-flesh is as rare on
the Arabian desert as it is in England or America. There
are more high-grade horses in Kentucky to-day per thou-
sand of population than the first home of the ancestor
of all blooded stock has ever boasted. A faultless steed is
a pearl of great price; it is difficult to be found ; and like
the scriptural jewel, a man must often sell all that he hath
to buy it.

‘Where are the Arabian horses?” you ask, on reaching
Morocco or Algeria. ‘Those are Arabians, pure blood,”
comes the answer, with a gesture towards some diminutive ©

ORIGIN OF GOOD HORSES 213

equine specimens, for all the world like broncos. “ But
the proud, gentle, high-spirited, well-mannered, intelligent,
beautiful Arabians, of which we have from youth up
heard—which we have come, lo! these many thousand
weary miles to worship?’ “Ah, you must go to the
desert for those!” You accordingly journey to the edge
of the desert, perhaps Biskra way, or perchance over hill
and dale of never-ending golden sands to the first oasis
out beyond the limits where white men congregate; but,
alas! it is always a sheik or a caliph farther on, at the
next oasis, or the next, who has the perfect animal your
eye longs to feast upon. Or else, as ill-luck will have it,
he has just started with his pet, his choicest mare, the
apple of his eye, on a visit to the second cousin of his
grandmother, a hundred leagues away. I have, I believe,
just missed the most peerless steed of the Orient some
forty times save one.

The reason is not far to seek. Good horses come solely
from selection and breeding. But, you will object, there
was no breeding to produce the bronco, of whose wonder-
ful qualities you have heretofore told us. On the con-
trary, there was natural selection of the very best. Start-
ing with pure blood—~.e., the Moorish horses carried by the
Spaniards to America, and there, fugitive or abandoned,
the survival of those fittest to flee from wolves or to search
good pasture and water over immense stretches of prairie
land, bred the hardiest of stock. Man, with the utmost
care and skill, could in a certain sense scarcely have done
better by the race in all except beauty. On the other
hand, starting from the same stock, let man overwork and
underfeed the horse and neglect his breeding, and in a few
generations the noblest race will degenerate. It is just
this which has taken place in almost all the countries
which ought to possess the very highest grade of horse-

14*

214 KINDS OF ARABS

flesh. We are wont to associate an Arab with the idea of
love for and gentle treatment of his steed; on the con-
trary, it is less than one ina hundred Arabs who treats his
horse with intelligence or with kindness, and therefore it
is less than one in a hundred which becomes anything but
a commonplace beast of burden.

There are two kinds of Arab tribes: first, those dwelling
in the cities, subsisting by the lower trades and living from
hand to mouth in crowded filth, and those dwelling in
the lesser communities, such as small towns and villages,
earning a precarious livelihood by a crude sort of agricult-
ure or by raising dates or olives, and living in mud-walled
huts roofed with thatch, sod, or tile; second, the tent-
dwellers, who rove from place to place and are purely a
pastoral people, subsisting on the yield of their flocks and
herds and the breeding and sale of the camel, horse, and ass.
Among the first, when they have any, as is rare enough,
the horse has become a sumpter animal, a means of trans-
portation or an item in husbandry, and has, as a matter
of course, fallen from his high estate. Among the latter
he has kept some of his better qualities; among some of
the wealthy he has retained all his attributes. It goes
without saying that in the cities it is the rich who own
the finest stock; on the desert this is not always true.
Unless ground into the very dust by poverty, many a man
who owns no other earthly possessions may have as fine a
mare as the noblest sheik; and he will starve his own flesh
and blood to keep her sleek and hearty. In fact, it is she
whose foal will annually fill the empty exchequer.

An Arab, meaning a tent-dweller, for in an equine sense
the town-dweller is no Arab, loves first and above all his
mare. No need to recite the oft-sung affection he will
lavish upon her, the care he will take of his glossy favor-
ite, for whose preservation he will gladly pinch his own

LOVES OF THE ARABS 215

belly. Next to his steed he loves his fire-arm. This, po-
etically speaking, ought to be a six-foot, gold and jade in-
laid, muzzle-loading horror of a matchlock, which would
kick any man but an Arab flat on his back at every shot ;
but actually, in Algeria and Tunis, when he lives near a
city and is allowed by the French authorities to own one
at all, it is rather more apt to be a modern English breach-
loader of approved pattern, with plenty of ammunition
handy. You must fly from the busy haunts of men in
these days of ours to find the ancient matchlock. Next
to his fire-arm the Arab loves his oldest son, in whom he
really harbors a worthy pride. Last comes his wife—or
one of his wives. If he is a man by nature faithful, his
first wife may always remain his favorite; if inconstant, it
will be his last. Daughters do not even count; I mean
the Arab scarcely takes the trouble to count them, unless
in so far as they can minister to his comfort, dietetic or
otherwise. Until some neighbor comes along and proposes
to marry, in other words to make a still worse slave of
one of them, she is only a chattel, a soulless thing. And
vet she is said to be a pretty, amiable, helpful being; said
to be, for no one by any hap casts his eye on one worth
seeing. I have made every effort, within and without the
bounds of Arab propriety, [ might say safety, to investi-
gate the Arabian maiden—but to no avail. This disre-
gard of women, be it said to their honor, does not always
apply to the wilder, but more intelligent, independent, and
manly Bedouin of the Syrian and Arabian deserts. But
of this when we get so far upon our travels.

Let me premise, in this screed anent the horses on the
south and east of the Mediterranean basin, that it is not
my purpose to descant solely upon the choice steeds which
may be classed as Arabians. This is the burden of the
song of nearly all who tell us of the horse of the Orient.

216 HIGH-TYPE HORSES

The Anazeh mares are claimed by the best judges to be
the only royal stock of the eldest branch; but this infor-
mation does one no good; for by no chance whatsoever
does a Frank ever come within a distance of winning such
a prize. In America, a long purse will buy a “Sunol” or
an “Arion,” a “St. Julien” or a “ Nancy Hanks ;” but his
Imperial Majesty the Sultan himself has neither money nor
wit nor power to purchase or take one of the best or even
one of the second best Anazeh mares. They are, so far as
we are concerned, out of the race. I purpose to tell you of
the average Arabian, the horse that a Frank may buy;
one who is of as good lineage as the animal a well-to-do
citizen rides in our part of the world. Few of us throw our
legs across a pure descendant of “ Lexington,” or even of
‘Justin Morgan,” and it seems to me that there is more
interest in the steed of every day than in the mystery sur-
rounding the horse one sees as rarely as we see a Derby
winner; a horse we must pursue as one does the zgnis
Jatwus, and who is equally evanescent.

The true Arab’s undoubted love for his steed has kept
up, in some few places over the entire area where the Ara-
bian horse flourishes, a more or less pure strain of the
wonderful old stock. The wealthy or princely have no
doubt improved on the original, but not in any great
measure ; certainly not by any means as we Anglo-Saxons
have done. The heritage of the Arabian or the Barb—
there is only a difference in nomenclature and habitat be-
tween them; they are otherwise, barring some equine
points, very nearly the same animal—is the power of
transmitting his qualities in undiminished measure to his
offspring, and the power of extraordinary endurance at
speed. What the latter means I can only explain illustra-
tively. It is not distance that kills, but speed. Any de-
cent horse can go thirty miles a day with a reasonable

HERITAGE OF ARABIAN 217

load over good roads at a walk, and keep on doing it day
in day out for years, fat and hearty. No horse that was
ever foaled could run or trot, at the top of his speed (say
a 1.42 or a 2.15 gait), three one-mile dashes every day for
a season without breaking down. In other words, at
speed a horse cannot do one-tenth of the distance he can
at a slow gait. It is only the occasional coarse-bred horse
who has speed; and when one has it, still he cannot stay
at speed. but this is just what the old desert blood ena-
bles a horse to do; and it is this wonderful quality which,
through the English thorough-bred, we have got at home
in our runners and trotters and saddle-beasts, and by a
principle of natural selection in the bronco. And this same
quality we Occidentals, by more intelligent and careful
breeding and training and racing than the horse has ever
undergone elsewhere, may fairly claim to have improved.

XXX VIII

Wuere this wonderful creature, the Arabian horse,
originally came from will never be known. It seems to
have been shown by geologists that remains of the horse
are found in older strata, or associated with more ancient
races of men, in Europe than in any part of Asia. Whether
this .proves that the horse had his origin in Europe, or
merely that research has been pushed further on Euro-
pean soil than it has been in Asia, it is not within our
province to inquire. So far as concerns good equine stock
—z.é., the horses impregnated more or less by thorough
blood—we need go no further back than what we know of
them in the Syrian or Arabian desert; the horses of the
Libyan desert came from these; the Spanish horses came
from the Libyan desert, and our broncos came from the
Spanish; while the English thorough-bred has descended
from sires of either the one or the other, imported into
England under the Stuarts. Whatever the history of the
horse from a geological stand-point, it is not worth while
to search beyond what we can glean from the early history
of the steed of the Bedouin. In some manner the Ara-
bian came of a common native race of horses which man
had intelligence and patience enough to seek to improve
by breeding them in a congenial climate for many genera-
tions; or rather he came of a common strain which first
got improved because the man of the desert found his
profit and his safety in the superior speed and endurance
of his steeds, and naturally bred from these. This is the
summary of all we know.

ORIGIN OF BARBS 219

In what is modern Algeria, the Mauretania of the Ro-
mans, where Carthage was a great city long before dis-
dainful Remus hopped over Romulus’s wall, there is little
doubt that the nimble, intelligent runt of a steppes pony,
which furnished the mounts for the Numidian cavalry
that later all but destroyed Rome in the Second Punic
War, which had no bridle but was guided by a stick or by
the legs and voice, and whose endurance knew no bounds,
was the ancestor of the native horse of to-day. The same
thing applies to Morocco. There were other similar breeds
in other parts of the East, some of which had been earlier
perfected ; but the horse of the Algerian country no doubt
descended from the Numidian pony as he is known in his-
tory. The steppes horse, of whatever country, is generally
a stayer and a good progenitor. All others get weeded
out from the herds by wild animals or by scant forage.
Just as the modern thorough-bred comes of the native
British mares impregnated by Barb or Arabian sires, so
with the Numidian pony. Upon this animal an impress
must have been made from time to time by importations
of markedly good individuals from farther east, for the
horse, like civilization, has uniformly travelled westward,
until now, the Californian claims, it has reached its high-
est development on the Pacific slope; but when the French
conquered Algeria in 1830 they found the country horse
on a decidedly low level. That the Barb had theretofore
been a noble creature is sufficiently shown by the history
of the Moors in Spain ; but neglect had sapped his quality.

There was not much done by the French for some time
to improve the stock, but later the best grade of stallions
were bought by the Government for public use; a num-
ber of fine ones were purchased from the trans-Jordan
Bedouins of Syria; breeding for the army was carefully
attended to, and now the cavalry of the entire Nineteenth

220 ALGERIAN HORSE

Corps d’ Armée is mounted on what may be called Arabian
horses, while numbers go to France. The corps has about
fifteen thousand such animals. Only stallions are used.
Mares out on the desert are kept for breeding; within the
limits of civilization the few there are have been put to
work in the fields. One almost never sees a gelding.

The Algerian horse may in every sense be highly com-
mended. He is docile from inherited kind treatment, is
readily broken, and is, as a rule, without tricks. He has the
kind eye and gentle manner of the Barb, a small but not
very bony head, a short, light, but round barrel and perfect
legs and feet. He is often leggy, but has good lung-power.
He has not quite enough body to suit my ideas. That
roundness which we all like behind the girths, and which
we consider essential to good qualities of endurance, does
not often exist. An old-fashioned horseman would say
that, to all appearances, he did not carry his feed well.
Perhaps he is not fed as much hay as our stock has to have
for mere warmth. He is neat-turned and averages good-
looking, but he does not carry an extra-high head, and
rarely carries a decent tail. They hog his mane not in-
frequently, a habit which is generally bred of Anglomania
among the French, though it is not unknown even among
the Bedouins of the desert. The drawing-book or lady’s-
album Arabian one may go many a Sabbath-day’s journey
to find—and then fail to find him. There do exist Ara-
bians with the wonderful head, speaking eye, nervous
ear, teacup muzzle, delicate throttle, powerful shoulder,
wrought steel legs, high croup, and tail a poem; but they
are very much like black pearls; we know that there exist
such jewels, we occasionally see one in Tiffany’s or on the

“neck of some décolletée lady, but they are beyond our

reach. Two Arabians were sent over to General Grant as
a present. They were good specimens, but not the very

FRENCH ALGERIAN CAVALRYMAN ON BARB

SHOW HORSES 223

best of their kind, according to the Anazeh standard.
Some French officers in Algeria have picked up fine Ara-
bians from sheiks in the desert, for which they have paid,
I was told, from two thousand francs and upwards—a
cheap enough price in any event, for, like trotters in the
2.20 class, the number of good ones is extremely limited.
You or I would have to pay thrice the sum.

One thing you will be very sure to find in every part of
the world, and that is that work and show do not go to-
gether—your every-day utility-horse does not carry about
his patent of nobility with him, however high-bred he may
be. He proves his lineage by what he can do, not by his
simple looks. If you want to have a show horse you
must keep him for show. You will find him standing in
every part of the country, from Palo Alto to Bangor, in
all of our Eastern racing-stables, in every great breeding
establishment at home or abroad. He bears his pedigree
in his fervid eye, his grand arched crest, his perfect form,
his noble bearing, his high switching tail, and his bold,
free step. He points to the performances of his get to
prove what he himself might accomplish, and often to a
past record as fine as theirs. The show horse is not the
worker, nor is he to be easily found, even in Arabia. And
I doubt whether the entire area of the Libyan and Syrian
deserts boasts as splendid a specimen of horse-flesh as—
say old “ Longfellow ” or “ Electioneer.”

XXXIX

Tue Algerian cavalry horse is a very attractive fellow.
He stands from fourteen and a half to fifteen and a half
hands, not often higher; weighs, as I gauge him, eight to
nine hundred pounds—though they claim that he actually
weighs one-fifth less than this—and is able to carry his
man with sixty pounds of baggage, say two hundred and
ten to twenty pounds in all, a strong day’s journey and re-
peat. Ihave been unable to find good proof of many won-
‘derful performances, such as our cavalry on the plains with
American horses, or cowboys on broncos often enough
exhibit; but there is not the same call for exceptional
performances in Algeria; and if one were to believe the
Arab: when he is boasting of his pet’s ability to go, one
would set the average Arabian down as equal to a trifle
more than a Baldwin locomotive. Great tests of distance
and speed have to be called out by trying circumstances ;
they are rarely needed among a people to whom time is
absolutely nothing.

More can be told about camels. There is one desert
postal route that I heard of in Algeria, but that, though I
have no reason to doubt its accuracy, I cannot vouch for,
which a camel covers between sunup and sundown, one
hundred and seventy-five kilometres or one hundred and
eight miles, and back again next day, month in month out,
carrying not exceeding two hundred and fifty pounds, or
half its full load. I have found but one record of what I
call great work by horses. About eighty miles a day, act-

CAVALRY LEAPING DRILL IN ALGERIA

ually measured, is quoted as very great going—to pay no
heed to manifest exaggerations. This distance is in truth
excellent, but far from great; it has been more than dou-
bled up on at home. One cannot, as a rule, measure the
ground covered by the horse on the desert, for lack of
statistics or of any sort of reliable testimony.

It may be assumed, I suppose, that every one is permit-
ted to prevaricate (is that the proper word?) when nar-
rating successful tramps after fish; but it is a curious fact
that the larger the game the smaller the prevarication is
apt to be. Horse talk is wont to be interlarded with
occasional suspicious statements, or at least with state-
ments which will bear a bit of checking off. The Arab is
no exception to the rule; he is quite untrustworthy when
telling of his steed’s performances. There is only one
thing in which he is uniformly truthful, and that is pedi-
gree. This is because he cannot hide it; it is a matter of
public notoriety in his tribe, and though he may cheat a
stranger, it is futile for him to seek to impose on an Arab.

In this pedigree matter he is forced to be more reliable
15

226 DISTANCE RIDING

‘than our own horse-dealers. The manufacture of pedi-

grees, when they cannot be traced in the stud-book, is an
art much in vogue. In most American horse- markets
there is a steady manufacture of pedigrees going on; and
the practice thrives because a man who is cheated is
wont to hide the fact, of which he is heartily ashamed,
rather than seek legal redress and get laughed at for his
pains. This unwillingness to perform one’s duty to the
public is a distinct American failing.

A very well-vouched-for performance of which I have
heard in the Orient is the one already given, viz.: fifteen
hundred kilometres, say nine hundred and fifty miles, on
one horse in forty-five days, of which twenty-eight days’
actual travelling—or thirty-three miles a day. This is a
creditable ride, to be sure, but far from a noteworthy one.
And the feat was performed, not by an Arabian, but by
a Kurd horse, bred on a Persian dam by an Arabian sire.
This was a single rider with a small escort. Many of our
cavalry regiments have discounted this speed for long dis-
tances, and groups of from six to twenty have beaten it
out of sight.

A very excellent performance by Arabians has recently
been given me by Colonel Colvile of the British Army, who
has permitted me to quote him. “A party of Towasi
Arabs, mounted on Egyptian cavalry horses and accom-
panied by two hundred and fifty baggage camels carrying
water and supplies, left Assiut, on the Nile, at 6 p.m. on
June 28, 1884, under command of Lieut.-Col. Colvile,
Grenadier Guards, and Lieut. Stuart Wortby, Sixtieth
Rifles, and arrived at Khargeh, in the Great Oasis, at 4
p.M. on June 30th, a distance of one hundred and twenty
miles, in forty-six hours. One long halt was made from
11 am. to 4 p.m. on June 29th; and the horses being
allowed to go their own pace, frequent short halts were

ARABIAN IMPRESS 227

made to allow the camels to catch them up. No water
was obtainable on the way, and the horses were only
watered once—z.e., during the long halt on the 29th.
After fourteen hours’ rest at Khargeh, the party pro-
ceeded to Beris, distant sixty miles, which they reached
at 2 p.m. on the 2d of July. No horses were lost. Here
four hundred men and all the horses were left, and after-
wards made their way to the Nile at Esneh, distant about
one hundred and twenty miles. I am not in possession of
any details of the march, but as the party was unaccom-
panied by camels and no water is obtainable on the way,
it was probably more rapid than that from the Nile to
Khargeh.” |

This march, especially in view of the want of water, is
of great interest. It ranks well with some of our own
cavalry marches, but does not quite approach the best.

The Arabian’s gait is usually pure; you meet many
trappy goers who have what one is apt to call a peculiarly
Arabian style of picking up their feet, neat and rapid, but
not too high, and very attractive. I have come across
more shying Arabians than I expected, no more, perhaps,
than there are with us; but a horse which is so docile
ought not to shy at all. You see many stylish ones when
they go out fresh or are feeling particularly well; but I
have never met one who showed vice or stubborn temper.
There are some, but they are few; the Arabian seems
easy to manage and easy to sit when putting on airs.
Taken as a race, his manners are irreproachable.

One finds in Algiers quite a number of Percherons at
draught; occasionally a mixture between Percheron and
Arab. Now and then a cob, stranded by some swell from
London or Paris, disconsolately seeks his kind on the
streets of this delightful city. A few ponies, and from
time to time a fine English-hunter type of imported

228 LIKE A ‘‘ MORGAN”

horse for a heavy-weight officer or a winter resident, may
be observed. There are many heavy French officers.
The Frenchman has a habit of putting on fat which is
quite noticeable, and, though small, he needs a weight-
carrier. There are some imported carriage pairs. But as
a rule, whether under saddle, or in the cabs, or drawing
wagons, or harnessed to pleasure carriages, every city
horse bears some mark of the fine old blood. Either the
face or the throttle, or the clean leg and mule hoof, or the
flea-bitten gray—-a distinctive Arabian color—will tell the
story. The impress is as strong as it is beautiful, and will
always remain.

The Morocco and Algeria type of horse is rounder than
the type east of the Libyan desert; he impresses you as
having a bigger barrel. Except for a few points which
are more distinguished, more blood-like in appearance
than our own native strains, and for the fact that he
stands with a bit more daylight under him as a rule, the
Barb is not unlike what we call a “Morgan.” But he lacks
the enormous girth of the latter, and for his inches will
not weigh more than three-quarters as much. Nor do I
think he can boast any more grit and capacity to do a dis-
tance and repeat; while in speed, at any gait, I should
put him on a distinctly lower scale than the descendants
of old “ Justin.” He cannot run a heat race any better,
and he can rarely trot a four-minute gait. When it comes
to traction, for which the “ Morgans” were always re-
markable animals, the Arabian is simply nowhere.

XL

Taree of the regiments of light cavalry in the French
army in Algeria are recruited solely from the Arab popu-
lation. The men are called Spahis, and are said to be ex-
cellent in their place, amenable to discipline, and apt to
prove effective within their limits when called upon. The
Berbers, or aborigines, who were in the land prior to the
Arab conquest, do not appear as a distinct type in the
army. They have been ground down by many genera-
tions of poverty, and seem to have lost the notable old.
Punic trick of fighting. As a military material they are
inferior. Most Arabs—all the pastoral or nomad Arabs,
in fact—are stanch French haters. They are held down
with the strong hand alone. Only the exceptional Arab,
who has given in his submission and is deemed quite
trustworthy, is ever allowed to have powder and lead in
his possession. All others are deprived of fire-arms and
ammunition of every nature. But an Arab who has once
accepted the situation, as does the Spahi who enlists, may
be trusted, they say, implicitly.

The Spahi retains his national dress, furbished up to
make him feel proud. He rides in a saddle which is all
but as bad as the one the Indian used to make with
straight up and down pommel and cantle, and has by no
means the latter’s raison détre. The tree and bearings
are long. The pommel is coarsely finished, and rises with
scarcely a slope to about the waistband when the man
sits down in his seat. The cantle rises almost perpendicu-

230 THE SPAHI

larly, and is two inches higher than the pommel, really
above the small of the back. Saddle-cloths are used by
the Spahi ad lubitwm, and woven girths and leathern fit-
tings finish this singular saddle. The stirrup -leather
hangs from the middle of the tree, and the foot is thrust
way into a huge metal stirrup with a foot-piece square
and big as a platter. A breast-strap holds the saddle in
place for lack of ribs to keep it where it belongs, and the
horse is bitted with a gag hung in a peculiar bridle with
large square blinders. The Spahi’s sword rides under his
left leg, like the Mexican swell’s; his carbine he carries
in his hand or slings from the shoulder or saddle; he has
revolvers in his holsters, and all his weapons are of the
best make and pattern.

He is quite a stunning fellow this same Spahi, with his
turbaned head and flowing red, white-lined burnoose, his
light-blue baggy leg-gear, dark-blue jacket, and generally
dramatic manner. That he feels his own importance is
manifest. His face is bronzed, his eye flashing, and his
manner quick and decisive. He is deferential to his
superiors, haughty to all he considers beneath him. From
a glance at his saddle one may readily see how it is that
he can stand so high in his stirrups as he sometimes does
when he gallops past you. He mounts as we do, though
one would scarcely imagine that he could get his foot up
to his short-hung stirrup, or throw his leg across his ex-
traordinary peaked cantle; but he mounts indifferently
from either side. The fact that his tall-appearing horse
averages barely fourteen-two accounts for his mounting so
easily. The Arabian is very deceptive in looks. One feels
tempted when you know him to refer to him as a pony—
a term, indeed, commonly employed in Egypt—though at
a distance he looks tall.

The Spahi’s seat is peculiar. It is, from the side view,

A SPAHI AND HIS BARB, ALGERIA

ARAB SADDLES 233

much like the type of the aboriginal Indian of our plains.
When he sits in the saddle he is apt to lean forward ; from
hip down to knee the leg is almost perpendicular; and
from knee down it is thrust back at what we civilized folk
deem a most unhorsemanlike angle. He hates spurs be-
cause they prevent his drubbing his horse’s flanks with his
heels, as well as clutching on by them. Still, after a cer-
tain period of association with the French, fashion will
sometimes claim him for her own; he will put on spurs
and try to keep his heels where they belong. But he is
then no longer Spahi @ la nature. He is very expert in
the saddle, both in the way of tricks and drill. His Ara-
bian may look sleepy while he stands, but he will wake
up to astonishing activity so soon as mounted. He quickly
catches his rider’s mood, and can be either steady or gay
as you may ask.

Most Arab saddles have such an abnormal breadth be-
tween the knees that they oblige you most uncomfortably
to spread your legs. This does not peculiarly apply to the
Spahi’s saddle, which has been cut, on a sort of a military
plan, to the Arab pattern. But if you want to try the
way Orientals usually sit in the saddle, get an extra wide
cane-seat chair, sit astride it facing the back, and then put
your heels up on the side rounds. Don’t lean on the chair-
back; imagine a cantle behind you about two inches above
the buttons on the back of your coat, and you have it ex-
actly. If you propose to ride this way, make up your mind
to the acme of discomfort until you are used to it. Your
feet will go to sleep, and your hips will get tired enough
to make you howl before you have covered ten miles.
Even an old horseman who is used to an English or to our
military saddle must undergo the same trial. We should
call it an impossible seat for all-day riding; but the Ori-
ental habit of sitting cross-legged, or on a squat, gets the

234 ARAB BITS

muscles of the legs and hips used to the confined position, '
and the Arab will stay in the saddle all but as long as the
cowboy or one of Uncle Sam’s soldiers.

All Arabs ride with a severe gag-bit, just as all bronco
riders are wont to do. The bit of the country is like one
style of Mexican bit—to wit, a ring in the horse’s mouth
held in place by the cheek-straps, and with a single branch
projecting down from the back of it; and it is to this that
the reins are attached. Ofcourse the horse guides by the
neck, as all but hyper-English horses do, and as all horses
should. The rein is held slack, but the least tightening of it
on the severe gag-bit compels the horse to jerk up his head.
The nice use of the curb as taught by the school is quite
unknown. Each nation has its own peculiar style. The
Englishman and his imitators like to ride a gentle, easy-
mouthed horse on a snaffle-bit, and to let him carry his
head in a natural way, without seeking by suppling to im-
prove on what nature has done for him. This method
acts well enough with the average good-mannered horse.
With any other he must resort to a harsh bit, and the
horse will take hold of it and worry himself while annoy-
ing his rider, because he has been taught no better. The
school-taught horse is an abomination to the Briton; but
not so to him who knows his ways. He has a well-trained
mouth, and a neck whose muscles bend without effort ; he
brings his head in to either curb or snaffle with that de-
hghtful give and take of the rein which is the height of
comfort to man and beast, and which is indicative of an
ability in each to understand the other that exists in no
other method. The cowboy et 7d genus omne, and the
Arab, use a severe bit that hurts the horse’s mouth when-
ever the rein is in any degree tightened ; it throws up his
head with an uneasy motion which appears to interrupt
communication between hand and mouth. And yet the

RIAN CAVALRY

GH

REMOUNT BARB FOR AL

|
|

ARABIAN NECKS 237

proof of the pudding is in the eating; these natural riders
care little for the refinements of horsemanship, despite
which both cowboy and Spahi are, each in his way,
inimitable.

But this nervous dread of the bit distresses me. I have
a photograph of a line of Spahis coming to a sharp
“ Halt!” and every single horse in the line has his nose in
the air. A line of school-taught horses would, on the con-
trary, probably show not one whose head had not been
brought in quietly to the bit; still they would have
stopped just as short, and vastly more comfortably to
man and beast. In the one case the horse has no dread
of the bit, and the neck is supple; in the other he fears it,
and his neck is generally stiff. Artists have a trick of
painting Arabians with the neck finely arched, but this is
just what the gag-bit prevents. It is the rarest thing to
see an Arabian carry what schoolmen call a good head.
His nose is uniformly in the air when his head is up; only
when fretting on the bit does he arch his neck, and then
he gets his head way down. That nature has given him
a peculiarly fine neck is true; the lines of the crest and
throttle are exquisite; that he almost never arches it is
equally so. The three-year-old illustrated brings his head
in because he is being broken with a bit and bridoon. It
is not uncommon to see the Arabian, properly bitted by
a European owner, carry a perfect head. He could not
be made on a better model; but the Arab’s method does
not utilize what nature has given him.

It does not seem to me that the method of the cowboy
or that of the Arab makes a good mouth. Neither bronco
nor Arabian, except under abnormal conditions, ever
pulls; he never even tightens the rein. This is no doubt
better than the common run of English-broken horses on
a snaffle, who will take hold of you, and bore and bore

238 ONE-REIN DRIVING

until your arms ache; but, on the other hand, it is far from
being the delightful feel of the school method, where there
is a fine and delicate but constant appreciation by the
man of the horse’s mouth, and by the horse of his mas-
ter’s mood and wishes. It is certain that no school airs
could be taught with a bit of which the horse is -as shy as
he is of the cowboy’s and the Arab’s; and I have noticed
that in the fantastyas—of which anon—the Arab is wont
to make his bit less severe, if it is of the kind he can alter,
or else to use an easier one. Nor could school airs be
taught to a horse capable of boring on your hand.

While speaking of guiding by the neck, I will mention
a very queer way the Arabs have of driving with a single
rope, one almost as peculiar as our own way of driving an
army mule-team. The horse or mule so driven wears only
a rope-halter, from which the rein-rope passes back to the
cart on the nigh side of the neck. He has a very high,
round saddle to bear the cart-shafts. If the driver desires
to turn to the left, he simply pulls the rope. If to the
right, he tosses the rope over to the off side of the saddle
and then pulls. This pull bears the rope against the nigh
side of the horse’s neck, and thus turns him to the right.
In other words, the horse is taught to guide one way by
the neck and the other by the rein. This is common
enough under saddle, but the method of driving seems
original.

In our old Civil War times the method of teaching mules
to turn to right or left was wont to be more speedily effi-
cacious than reasonable. The nigh mule of the pair of
leaders had a single rein buckled in the nigh ring of the
bit. The off mule had a bar from the front of the nigh
mule’s collar to his own bit, so that he must turn, nilly
willy, with his mate. To turn the pair to the left the rein

was steadily pulled; the near mule had his head brought .

SPAHI RACKING ALONG THE ROAD

TRAINING MULES | 241

round to the left by the pull; he was apt to follow his
nose ; the off mule was pulled over in the same direction
by the bar, and presto! the trick was done. The mule
soon caught on to this thing. But to turn to the right
was quite a different matter. The only other thing the
driver could do with the rein was to jerk it; but this con-
veyed no special idea to the mule—he must be taught the
jerk as an arbitrary symbol. So, when drilling the mule
to go over to the right, the driver had with him an assist-
ant with a stick, who walked along close to the nigh
mule’s head. When the driver pulled the rein, he did
nothing; when he jerked it, the assistant gave the mule a
lusty whack on the near side of the head. The mule very
naturally sought refuge away from the blow, turned his
mate with him,and presto! that trick, too, was done. The
mule lacks not intelligence, and he very speedily learned
that a jerked rein was very apt to be followed by a blow
on the near side of the head, and made haste to get away
from it. The plan was crude but effective.

The same method zn petto has for generations been a
favorite with the school-master, who has thumped the al-
phabet into his pupils’ heads with his knuckles. How
much happier is the child of to-day with his Reading
Without Tears, than the child of sixty years ago, when the
vowels were not recited a-e-i-o-u, but a by itself a, e by it-
self e, i by itself 1, ete. Fancy spelling “puzzle” p-u by
itself u-izzard-puz; izzard-l-e by itself e-izzle-puzzle. Yet
I have known a man who, in New England, was taught
to spell that way early in this century.

One of the Spahis in the illustrations is racking along
in a very horsemanlike manner, except that one cannot
become reconciled to the nose in the air—it constantly
suggests a bit which the horse fears. The other, at first

blush, is riding a brute. But a look at him shows that the
16

SPAHI, EQUIPPED FOR ‘‘FANTASIYA,” MAKING HIS HORSE REAR

rise 1s not horse-play or ugliness; the rider is forcing the
animal to rear as an exhibition of horsemanship. This is

by no means the fine performance which the school re-_
quires, but rather a crude and shallow trick, common at
the fantasiyas or horse-parties, where all the riders of the
neighborhood meet to show off their steeds and to let off
superfluous steam. The shawl hanging over the croup is
the drapery usual at this ceremony. All ceremonials, an-

HORSE TRICKS 243

cieut and modern, appear to have demanded draping, more
or less extensive, of the horses. Pictures of the ancient
tournament always show the horses draped to the ground.

As in the case of every people, one may pick flaws in
the Spahi’s horsemanship; but despite his want of delicate
handling, he is clearly one of the best of horsemen, as he
understands the art, and is as devoted to his beast as is
the most traditional of Arabs. —

XLI

Tue French cavalryman rides well, as all mounted men

serving a long enlistment do. In Algeria he interests us
because of his horse. His saddle is much like our old-fash-
ioned artillery pattern; his equipments vary little from
the usual. But he has some objectionable ways. In or-
der to make his horse walk fast, which he accomplishes
well enough, he is, like his congener in France, continually
drubbing his flanks with his heels. This habit tends to
make him grip too much with the calf of the leg, and to
turn out his toes in an ungainly fashion. A man ought to
ride close and be ready to grip with all the legs he has
got; but one does not like to see the heels constantly held
too close. The leg, from the knee down, should be nearly
or quite perpendicular—in fact, naturally pendent—a habit
which will keep the feet where they properly belong. One
finds lamentably unmilitary riding among soldiers in this
generation: the habit is marked, even in Berlin or Paris,
where a cuirassier or a Uhlan is often seen trotting along,
trying to rise and leaning forward for the purpose, when
his stirrups are too long to enable him to do so otherwise
than with an awkward bump. You never see one of our
cavalrymen do this. After observing modern army-riding
in most of the countries of the accessible world, I am in-
clined to prefer a thoroughly good West Point seat to any;
not the tongs-on-the-wall seat which sometimes obtains,
but that which most nearly approaches the natural in our
usual army-saddle. And be it noted that even the Briton

RIDING ENGLISH FASHION 245

of to-day is coming back from the very short stirrups he
used to consider essential to fox-hunting, to a seat much
more like the bareback.

Talking of sticking out the toes, since the abolition of
the old style, every rider is subject to the habit. I can
remember when the rule was to keep the feet parallel
with the horse—a thing never now done, and, be it ac-
knowledged, rarely kept to then. We Americans have the
only cavalry which rides with hooded wooden stirrups.
Perhaps these are not handsome per se; but any soldier
who has ridden day after day with the thermometer ever
so far below zero will bless the man who first invented
this protection against frozen feet. And, moreover, if a
man is going to turn out his toes, our hooded stirrup
quite hides the trick which a brass stirrup makes unduly
prominent. 3

The French officers have, of late years, all taken to the
English saddle, and ride ostentatiously @ 1’ Anglaise, a
regular “to cover” gait. There is, all the travelled world
over nowadays, nothing more marked than the influence
of all things British. In my early European tours in the
fifties, the Englishman, and especially the English maiden,
were outrageously caricatured. The Briton was the butt
of all comic stories; he was the stock-in-trade of the ra-
conteur ; proverbial philosophy was fairly shot at him;
nothing about him was acceptable but that universal
panacea, the £ sterling. But now the tide has set in his
favor; everything everywhere is so English, you know;
not only his beefsteaks and his tweed suits, but his man-
ners and his horsemanship are in every section of the
habitable globe; you are even invited in France to jive
o’cloquer with your lady friends. The countries the Briton
has overrun have found that he possesses other sterling qual-
ities besides the £ s.d. And wellit is. An infusion of good

+ ee

246 TO COVER STYLE

Anglo-Saxon common-sense has been a distinct benefit all
over the Continent; and the sublimity of British egoism
in accepting the change is truly delightful. Were I nota
Yankee of the Yankees, might I be a Briton! He feels
that he may seize the best of everything as a right, and
takes umbrage if some one has got ahead of him. As a
cowboy divides all mankind into ranchmen (the sheep)
and tenderfoots (the goats), so the Briton knows but two
classes: subjects of her Majesty or—what is the modern
equivalent of the BapBapo. of the ancient world? Philis-
tines? He is monumental, your Briton. I love him for
his magnificence of self-assertion, his unlimited “side ;” I
am disposed to hate him when he treads on my traveller’s
toes, as now and then he happens to do.

Among his imitators are the army men. No doubt
Continental officers have profited by the bit of English
rough-riding they have learned of late years, but their
self-assumed British style looks like overdoing the prac-
tical. When smokeless powder shall have brought all uni-
forms down to butternut or some other humdrum color,
this style will be eminently proper; but so long as the
gay and gaudy is de rigueur in the uniform, the method of
riding ought to correspond. Not that there is the least
objection to English horsemanship or English tweed suits.
On the contrary, both are practical, admirable. But to
see an officer with red peg-top trousers, gold-laced red cap,
a light-blue jacket trimmed “ with ribbons and bibbons
and loops and lace,’ and a dangling sabre, on a flat Eng-
lish saddle, and rising to a swinging trot as if he were
astride a cover-hack, is too much like serving you Vewve
Oliquot in a pewter mug to suit my ideas of the appropri-
ate. Veuve Cliquot is good; so is a pewter mug; but the
twain do not match. Moreover, if a soldier uses his two
hands to guide his horse, as these French Anglomaniacs

- a

NO ANGLOPHOBIST 247

do, how, forsooth, shall he use his sabre or his carbine? [|
must not be construed as objecting to the trot. It is an
essential gait, and the one our own army men most con-
stantly use as an alternate with the walk. But a soldier
should ride a soldier’s trot, not a cross-country rider’s—at
least, when in uniform. Else why the uniform? This
being but an outward and visible sign of the inward and
spiritual discipline, why not preserve the other elements
which go to show the soldier? Pipe-clay is disappearing.
It was only a manifestation of discipline at any time; and
as a uniform is exactly this and no more, the soldier’s
ways should be in keeping with the dress.

I am solicitous to avoid the imputation that may be
cast upon me of being an Anglophobist. Like Artemas
Ward, I scorn the allegation and defy the allegator. What
I have heretofore said ought to suffice to prove that no
one has a more sincere regard and. admiration for most
things English than I. Her Gracious Majesty the Queen-
Empress has scarce a more loyal subject. Why, I can re-
member her way back in 1851, in the Great Exhibition
year, when she was still a young queen, and used still not
infrequently to be seen in the saddle in the Park. My
loyalty to her has never swerved, and my six or seven
years in England have made me almost a Briton, in fact, as
my old Salem ancestry truly was up to 1776, of glorious
memory. But may I not criticise withal? Is my loyalty
the less because, when I get wrathy, I “write to the
Times?” In horse sports, as a nation, the English are
easily first. I grant it with pleasure, and whenever I
take down Whyte Melville or some other charming chron-
icler of the hunting-field, I fall in love anew with this
splendid people and their ever-green land. But—well, the
buts have already been put in. Let us change the subject
as radically as we can. God save the Queen!

XLII

Or all horse-flesh, so to speak, the patient little com-
monplace every-day ass takes the lead. There is no de-
nying him the palm. Were I a Homer or a Dante, or eke
a Holmes, I would indite an epic, or at least pen an heroic
rhyme to the character, strength, and courage of this
noblest of the equine race. In every country where se-
vere economics are thrust upon the people, the ass comes
to the rescue and does the work which no other creature
alive can do. He lives on nothing; he is rarely fed—in
times of drought or extra hard work a pittance of barley
—but is turned loose to find what he may. He is never
vicious or obstinate, but works on hard and faithfully
till his poor old ears flop downward from age, his head
droops from weariness, and he literally falls under his load
and dies in his tracks, after serving his often cruel master
some score or more of years. When he is put to work as
a yearling—for he often is—he does not last so long. I
have ridden one at eighteen months which had been
trained but two weeks, and yet was gentle, bridle-wise,
and well-gaited. Where is there such a horse?

The habit of cruelty to the ass, though universal, is
sometimes only thoughtlessness. It is bred in the bone.
You will see a child cuffing and beating a donkey which
is standing under its load at the door, “ just to learn how.”
The utility of the ass is always recognized. Aisop, who
tells us that to the ass’s prayer for a less cruel master Jove
replied that it was beyond even his power to change the

ae

THE PATIENT ASS 249

human heart, but that he would do the next best thing
and give his supplicant a tough hide, unquestionably knew
both men and donkeys. In Mexico, when two Indian
farmers meet, they pass the time of day, inquire for each
other’s wives and children, and then always comes the
— question, ‘ How is the burro?’ Indeed, as the burro earns
the daily bread for the family, this is natural enough. No
doubt the h’mar of the East is equally considered; but he
is the victim of man’s heedlessness and capacity for cruelty
and experimenting. |

There is one queer asinine trick the Arabs have. With
the notion that the Lord did not know how to make the
donkey’s nostril, they slit it upward two or three inches
“to give him more room to breathe.” They say, too, that
it improves the tone of his bray, though this may be ques-
tioned by all who have listened to his delectable song.
Still, the Arab is fairly generous to the little toiler; there
are comparatively few sore-backed donkeys in Algeria,
Tunis, and Egypt, which speaks more for the people than
can be said of Italy or Spain or Mexico.

There is no question that, feeding quite apart, the ass
will kill any horse or mule; and it is clear that, weight
for weight and load for load, he daily outdoes the camel.
The latter, weighing fifteen hundred pounds, carries five
hundred; the ass weighs two hundred and fifty to four
hundred pounds, and carrying one hundred and fifty to
three hundred, outwalks the camel by a mile an hour. In
the Mexican mines, a donkey which weighs not over five
hundred pounds at the outside, will carry a load of ore
equal to his own weight out of the mine, go back empty,
and work all day. He is fed high to enable him to do
this, and does not live long; but what other mammal can
equal this feat for even a week ?

The donkey is guided by the voice, a stick, or a rope-

250 SIZE OF ASSES

halter. The halter-rope les on the left side, and is pulled
to turn him to the left, or borne across the neck to turn
him to the right. The stick is used to touch his neck on
either side if you desire him to turn to the other. Or the
least raising of the stick suffices; while, if you are walk-
ing behind him, a mere touch on either flank will turn him
quickly and surely. It is most commonly the stick which
is used, and this serves the double purpose of guiding and
striking. But, Lord save the mark! it is wont to be the
man who needs the stick, not the beast. No more patient
creature exists; it is not he who is obstinate or treach-
erous, it is his master. Dear, patient ass! did we but rec-
ognize the half of thy virtues, we should glory in being
called by thy name, not resent the appellation!

The donkey in the Orient is often very small. I have
measured them, full-grown, only thirty-two inches high—
no bigger than a St. Bernard; not so big as some of the
prize-winners. I rode one last winter to Abraham’s Oak
from Hebron, on which my toes touched the ground though
[ was on a pad; and I measure but five feet seven. The
little fellow seemed to make nothing of my one hundred
and fifty pounds, but racked away at a good four anda
half miles an hour. On a creature like this a load equal to
half his own weight will habitually be put; his owner will
ride atop of the load, and the little hero will go off at a
sharpish running-walk and do his twenty-five miles a day.
This sounds incredible, but it is literally true. The ass in
Algeria often carries three-fourths of his own weight all
day long. One sees two men on a donkey which weighs
a bare four hundred pounds—a load and a man on a
donkey they claim to weigh only two hundred and fifty
pounds. The little creature can be bought for’ seven or
eight francs, does during his life the work of a dozen men,
and exhibits the virtues of a score of saints. I was tempted

-” AATEC TERS ere ——

COUNTRYMAN ON AN ASS

“ARTIFICIAL” GAITS 253

to buy a hundred to send to the Columbian Fair, and a
contractor offered to deliver them on board the Marseilles
packet at Tunis for seven hundred francs. This is barely
half a cent a pound, not counting the virtues. One sees
Arabs coming into Constantine with a donkey-load of
wood, which they sell for three francs. They have come
twenty-five miles with it; they sell it, and next day ride
the donkey back. As a meal costs them but two cents,
the wood nothing, and the donkey does all the work, what
seems a small profit for a two or three days’ trip is really
a good one. And who is it that earns it ?

As I have previously observed, all saddle-beasts in the
East go what those who would limit the horse to the Eng-
lish standard are pleased to call “ artificial” gaits. In fact,
three-quarters of all the animals in the world which are
used for riding do so. Mules broken to saddle always
what they call “sidle” or amble; all donkeys running-
walk, rack, or amble. They scarcely have to be taught.
Little ass-colts often rack alongside of their dams as if
there were no other method of progression. I have seen
bullocks amble or rack. Why, then, are these paces arti-
ficial? They are in reality natural to every member of
the equine race—I might say to all four-footed animals.
But it is chiefly in our Southern States that these gaits
have been studied as an art, and have been improved upon
and bred from.

The donkey in Algeria is not used for riding by all
classes, rich and poor, as he is in Egypt and Syria. In fact,
he is rarely seen with a saddle. He has a pad, very simi-
lar to the pad on which the bespangled queens of the saw-
dust ring dance their short hour to delighted boys and
rustics, only more crude and better suited to his diminutive
proportions. This pad has no stirrups, and is so wide as
to make a seat on it extremely tiring to the uninitiated.

———

254 ARAB PADS

The Arab sits astride or sidewise, and as the pad is rarely
oirthed at all, or at best by a slender cord, it is much like
walking on a tight-rope or managing a birch-bark canoe
to sit on it, until you “catch on.” It is the reverse of our
trick of girthing a horse well and then sticking to the sad-
dle. The horse, when in the service of a native, is not un-
commonly equipped in the same way. Between this pad,
which serves equally for riding and loading, and the sad-
dle of the Spahi, there is a vast category of sizes and
styles; all, however, much too wide. I have often seen a
pair of stirrups improvised by tying two bags together,
slinging them across the pad, turning in one corner of each,
and thrusting the foot into the pocket thus made. This
sounds ingenious, and is really so, but such a flimsy pre-
text for a saddle, or, in fact, all the gear used for saddle or
harness all over the Orient, would be cast on the dump-
heap by the poorest American farmer. He would not risk
his bones with it.

The life of a saddle or a harness is much like that of a
fine city vehicle. A swell, for instance, buys a five-hun-

_ dred-dollar buggy, and uses it three or four years. It

then goes to auction, and is bought by some one who runs
it in the suburbs for six or eight more. Thence it goes,
by another auction sale, to a countryman, who will run it
twenty years, unless it sooner meets with the fate of the
one-hoss shay. In the Orient you never see saddle or har-
ness in any but the latter state. They always look as if
they had never been new.

XT

Tue Arab is a tall, straight-featured, well-shaped man,
varying in color from a dark bronze to a tone quite as
white as some Europeans. He is decidedly handsome.
Women are apt to be struck by the manly beauty of the
Tunisian, and he is indeed a fine specimen. Men have less
chance to be struck by the good looks of the Tunisian
women, for only the veriest apologies for women are ever
allowed outside the harem walls unless closely veiled. I
must, however, except the pretty young Jewess—bless her
heart !—who goes freely about in a sack-coat and tight
trousers, and showing her face—bar powder—yjust as the
Lord made it.

The Arab is, in his way, cleanly. He is supposed to
wash his feet before praying, and his hands and face be-
tore and after eating—many, in fact, do so; and he is apt
to bathe in streams at not infrequent intervals, unless the
weather be too cold. But—and there is in the Orient
always a but on this subject—he can scarcely be gauged as
up to our standard of what is next akin to godliness. One
sees at the hut doors all too many instances of cerebral
insecticide to be reconciled to the Arab as a clean mortal.
No odor of nationality is, however, apt to exist in a dry
climate, so that he is, guoad the nostril, unobjectionable.

I am not so sure, by-the-way, that cleanliness is next
akin to godliness; I should be tempted to reverse the
terms. If you want to convert a heathen, it is, despite
the precedent, clearly a blunder to begin by telling him

256 THE ARAB AS A MAN

that all his ancestors are in sheol, whether you yourself be-
lieve the statement or not. The more natural process, it
seems to me, would be first to dump him into a bath-tub,
or the equivalent most handy ; then to fill his stomach ;
last, to bring up the religious question. The word bath-

_ tub is generic; it denotes every physical means of cleanli-

ness. Unquestionably, a well-scrubbed, well-fed savage
would be more apt to take to the truths of theology than
a hungry one grovelling in his native filth. But let us
taboo religious discussion as well as political. I may be
treading on some good horse friend’s toes, theugh I have
found most horsemen liberal in their dogmas, even if old-
fashioned in their faith. |

Despite his good looks and well-knit frame, the value of
the Arab as a laborer is not great. He works by fits and
starts, and the intervals between fits are long. He can
and does at times work hard and fast, but it is only to
indulge the longer in laziness by-and-by. Many of the
pastoral Arabs who own flocks gauge his value closely ;
they hire herdsmen for their food, three dollars, and two
sheep a year. Lodging is al fresco most of the time. The
shepherd is expected to get along in any weather which
will not kill off his herd; and as to clothing, an Arab
herdsman can get on with a minimum. So long as the
warp and weft of a bit of cotton cloth will hold together,
he can, with the use of thorns for pins, fashion a garment
which meets all his requirements. In cold weather he and
his sheep or goats herd together in any convenient shelter
—under the brow of a hill or behind a clump of rocks, or
in one of the natural caverns which abound in a slaty
country—and he gets a great part of his warmth from
them. Most of the year he can bask in more sunshine
than we should like.

One can have a deal too much of a good thing, even of

ce ee ee a

THE RICH ARAB 257

old Sol’s company. A story is told of a British tar of the
ancient order of things who had been cruising on the
coast of Africa for several years and was finally ordered
home. As his ship sailed up the English Channel, in a
fine hearty yellow fog, out of which one could cut chunks
with a hatchet, the hard-baked old tar, coming up from
below, drew big inspirations of the home air into his
lungs, and “ Ah, shipmate,” said he, ‘‘’ere’s weather for
you. None of your blasted sunshine!” He had had too
much of a good thing.

In what I say of the people I am, of course, not referring
to the educated, intelligent Arab. He is what well-to-do
folk are everywhere. I passed some days with the Caliph
of K’sar H’lal, and can truthfully say that I have never
met a man with finer instincts, nobler presence, or more
abundant courtesy, no part of which came from any source
but his own deep character and native training. There are
also sheiks in the same vicinity who would murder you
for your money until you had broken bread with them ;
but so there are in America, and breaking bread with these
will by no means serve you.

There are rich and well-bred city Arabs who have
learned many ways from the Franks with whom they
come in contact ; but I prefer their own native customs.
The unspoiled, well-mannered, educated Arab can scarcely
be improved on—save in what we are vain enough to call
intelligence. But who shall measure intelligence? Theirs
suffices for them, and ours appears to them heathenish.
To learn a few thousand texts from the Koran affords
them an altogether better culture than all our science and
art and letters—so they claim.

They all dress alike-—Arabs, Berbers, Moors, and the rest.
Item: one “ b’iled rag,” not the b’iled rag of the wild and

woolly West, but a yard or two of cotton cloth, cut off a
17

.
|

——————

258 THE ARAB’S CLOTHES

piece and sewed up bag-fashion, with holes made in it
for the head and arms, now and then affording the luxury
of short sleeves ; and which under no circumstances what-
soever is b’iled until age has withered and custom staled it
into actual rags. Item: if well off, a sleeveless buttoned
vest. Item: real “bags,” to adopt. our young hunting
swell’s term, for trousers. Sartorially speaking, these are
made of cotton, and are literally like a bag whose depth
is equal to a little more than the distance from waist
to knee, and whose width equals thrice or more times the
distance a man can stretch apart his legs. Cut out the
two corners of the bottom of the bag, step through the
holes, and tie the stuff—hemmed or not according to fancy
—around the knees; then gather up the mouth around
the waist, and you have the Plymouth Rock pants du
pays. There is thus left pendent between the Arab’s legs
a bag big enough to hide himself in. Less stuff will suffice
if there be not enough on hand. The origin and utility of
this leg-gear it were vain to inquire. Item: one scarf to go
a number of times round the waist. Item: if cold, an ad-
ditional shirt-like garment of woollen goods coming down
below the knees. Item: one burnoose, or peculiarly-cut
cloak of white or, in Tunis, blue woollen stuff, with a
very roomy hood, exceeding loose, so as to wrap about
one and throw over the shoulder. Item: one fez, with
some cotton cloth twisted up rope-fashion to wrap around
it in the guise of a turban. Item: one pair of shoes (or
not, as the case may be), made of anything from woven
rushes to Morocco leather.

There are some variations to all this, but they are slight.
The Arab is everywhere clothed in bags, right or wrong
side up. In this dress, or so much of it as he can afford,
the native lives day and night, from early manhood to
old age, and when he dies he is buried in it, or the gar-

TROUSERS 259

ments go to his son and heir. A very few working city
Arabs wear ready-made clothing from France, England,
or perchance even America. More’s the pity! It sounds
the death-knell to national costume.

Where shall we go next to find an unspoiled nation, ex-
cept away to the interior of Asia or Africa? The very
remotest corners of the earth are invaded by ready-made
clothes. If the Bible could be introduced with half the
ease of these abominations, this generation would see the
millennium with its own eyes. When I say Bible, by-the-
way, I mean the Sermon on the Mount, and not Jonah
and the Whale, as an article of faith. Far beyond the
reach of the railroad you see graceful national costumes
supplanted by cheap European clothing. Now, I maintain
that national character resides largely in legs. Years ago
you needed only to look as high as a man’s knees to tell his
_ nationality. Think of the delicious legs of the old-time
Italian peasant-—real stage-brigand legs, pure and unde-
filed—now chased into inaccessible mountain recesses !
Think of the legs of the Russian peasant of to-day, all
boots and padding, no more to be unwrapped than an
Egyptian mummy! But all jin de szécle legs look alike.
It is only when you get way beyond the path of Cook’s
Tours that you find either a type of clothing or the grace-
ful looseness of garment which ignorance of civilization
breeds. |

I believe that no trouser-wearing human being, unless
he be a much-travelled man, can have any idea of the
horrible perversity of the cut of the Oriental home-made
pants ; it is atrocious, heart-rending. The variety of bad-
ness in style must. be imagined ; it cannot be described,
but—well, it reminds me of an incident, the real origin of
the story as since sometimes narrated. It was very many
years ago, when the now godlike Poole was struggling

/

260 BAGGY KNEES

into celebrity. A friend of mine, Mr. Hand, a city solic-
itor, had all through life hated his legs, principally because
his trousers bagged at the knees with that pertinacity
which, among inanimate objects, only trousers can exhibit.
“Why don’t you go to Poole’s?” said a peripatetic, jla-
neur club friend; “his trousers never bag; look at mine!”
So off goes Hand to Poole’s, states his case, and, under the
assurance that the forthcoming garments shall not bag at
the knees, orders several pairs at three times the custom-
ary price. They by-and-by came home, and were de-
lightful to look upon, to incase one’s legs in; but alas, in
a se’nnight or so, the telltale bagginess began to be seen.
In a rage, off marched Hand to his Sartorial Highness, de-
termined to have the law of him. “ It is not necessary to
look at them, Mr. Hand,” calmly replied the self-satisfied
ninth to Hand’s aggressive salutation ; “our trousers never
bag at the knees.” ‘“ But there they are—as bad as any
eight-and-sixpenny pair made in the city!” screamed irate
Hand. Adjusting his eye-glass, the apparently surprised
but none the less confident tailor condescendingly stooped,
smoothed his hand down the front of the garment in dis-
pute, gazed at the knees a moment, and then, taking from
a distance a side view of the same, and dropping his glass
with a half-supercilious, half-pitying smile: “ Why, Mr.
Hand,” quoth he, ‘ you have been sitting down in those
trousers!’ They were park trousers, to be promenaded
in, no more.

The Arab in Algeria and Tunis may be dressed in rags
and tatters, but he is no beggar. Only the blind beg. This
is really a point in his favor, and it is a great relief from
the mendicancy of many other countries to find a poor
population which does not hang on your skirts for alins.
So much can, however, not be said of his brother beyond
the desert, nor can it be said of any country where, owing

FINE FEATHERS 261

to the folly of tourists, the word backsheesh is current
coin.

The rich man among the Arabs dresses richly. His
shirt is of fine linen. His inside vest is buttoned, the out-
side one is worn loose. <A long paletot often takes the
place of the latter. It is cut part way down from the
throat, and the loose armholes allow the arms to be held
in or outside. The wide trousers are bound about the
waist by a costly scarf. Over all is frequently worn the
long, loose tunic, cut V shape at the neck, and with short
sleeves set on low down. The hands are as frequently
kept inside as out—in winter for warmth, in summer from
habit ; and an Arab reaches out from the V at the neck
for anything he wants handed him with a peculiarly lim-
ited motion, which at first you fail to comprehend. The
burnoose is an. out-of-doors garment, and the fez may or
may not have the turban-cloth. The swell wears what
look like European socks, and his slippers, usually trodden
down at heel by the common or careless, are handsomely
embroidered, or else of fine morocco, red or yellow. The
calf of the leg is naked. Parts of this dress are dropped at
intervals according to the season. There are few persons
more really magnificent than a well-dressed Arab sheik,
or aman of wealth. In our days of business suits which
clothe all kinds and conditions of men, the dress is uncom-
monly attractive—on an Arab. That it would work in
with our habits one would hardly allege. But the trou-
sers, of whatever cut, have one manifest advantage—they
do not, cannot, bag at the knee, whether you sit or stand.

|
;
;
:
é

sn e® ee- ——

XLIV

To come back to our quadrupeds. This dress is, of all
clothing, the one you and I would select as being most
illy adapted to horseback work; and yet the Arab is
equally at home in the saddle or ‘sitting with his legs
crossed under him. Like all every-day and all-day horse-
men, he is perfect within his lines. Some people yield him
the palm among all riders, an opinion which J do not
share. He might perhaps be said to occupy the highest
position among horsemen, in that he has bred and edu-
cated the most docile race of horses known to man, and
the one which has given the civilized world the impress
of thorough blood. But as a rider I am inclined to think
that our own skilful equestrian could beat him in riding
over a country, in rounding-up a big bunch of ugly, stam-
peded cattle, in the twists and brushes of polo, in school-
riding, or in almost any duty or pleasure requiring in its .
kind horsemanship of the highest order. This has really
been demonstrated in some things; but, ex wno, we must
not fall into the error of discere omnes. The Arab, when
he is a horseman, is a superb one, even though he does not
come within our canons of the art. When the horse is
only a beast of burden or a means of transportation, the
Arab is no better than his ilk elsewhere. When, as in the
desert, the horse is his pet, his companion by day, his
dream by night, the Arab is, in a sense, incomparable. No
master can be more kind. Nodog is more intelligent than
the dark, liquid-eyed mare he has bred and trained, whose

ARABIAN MARES 263

ancestresses a hundred generations back his ancestors
have loved and trusted. This mare—would that we hu-
man beings had not been civilized out of so many of
our animal qualities !—will follow him day and night. She
would fret her soul out at being hitched to a post, and her
master would scorn to tie her. She will stand immov-
able in the midst of danger and fright which would make
any of our horses frantic. She will carry her master
through fire and water. She will unflinchingly face
wounds and death so long as the hand which has fed her
is laid upon her neck. She will stand over her disabled
lord till help arrives, or she will go alone to seek it and
return with it to find him. She will kneel for him to
mount, and she will bear him bravely home, if she falls a
sacrifice to her devotion at the door of her master’s tent.
These are not always fables. The horse, treated as he
should be, generation after generation, develops a rare in-
telligence, and shows as noble an affection as the dog.
But, as above said, even in Arabia, this horse is the pearl
of great price. Thrice happy the sheik or caliph who
truly claims to own one!

In the desert proper the horse is not always shod; in
the stony localities he must be. The Frank shoe in Al-
gerian cities, owing to the European influence, is driving
out the old Arabian plate. The foot of the unshod horse
is everywhere and always strong and healthy. The Ara-
bian foot is, in fact, uniformly good. I have scarcely
seen a horse point, even on the pavement. There are few
interferers ; some overreach in harness, but not of course
in the saddle, as no unspoiled Arab can be persuaded to
ride a trot, and this is the only gait in which the habit
can prevail.

XLV

One of the great events of the year in Algerian mat-
ters equine are the races at Biskra, on the edge of the des-
ert, or in what one might more properly call the first
oasis. In Tunis the fantasiya is the fad. One can scarce-
ly compare the Biskra races to our own, but they bring
out some rather fine specimens of horse-flesh, and have
some curious features. Among these are camel- races,
at which some of the best running camels compete, not
at long distance, which is their great power, but at short
distances for speed—a thing they are not remarkable for,
according to the creed of these modern days.

The running camel is to the porter camel as the thor-
ough-bred to the mongrel cart-horse—the one has speed in
a certain sense and vast endurance at speed; the latter
has no speed, but simply great endurance under weight
or at traction. I saw a couple of laboring camels, worth
about a hundred and twenty-five dollars apiece, each do-
ing quite the work of a pair of horses, which were run-
ning an olive-crushing mill belonging to my friend, the
caliph, on three-hour shifts, day and night, and had been
doing it for a number of months. Such a camel will car-
ry five hundred pounds a great many consecutive hours.
They eat little and drink less—actually considerably less
—than a horse; and their excretions are correspondingly
small.

The Biskra races are got up mainly by the Europeans,
but the great delight of the Arab horseman is the fanta-

=F

SOFAS r yy. *

Are et

BICHARI CAMEL-RIDERS, UPPER EGYPT

siya, and they always have one or more such events. The
entries to these number all manner of horsemen, armed
and unarmed, who ride more or less wild figures to more
or less monotonous drumming music, and who end by a
most excited and exciting pot-pourrz of feat riding. They
stand in their stirrups and throw their guns in the air,
whirl them about in the most approved warlike style, and
fire them at intervals in what seems an uncalled for and
dangerous fashion until you know that they are loaded
only with blank-cartridge. The horses for the moment par-
take the enthusiastic bedevilment of their masters, and
rear, Wheel, kick, buck, rush, stop, turn, and twist for all
the world like a bunch of broncos after a winter’s rest,

266 THE “FANTASIYA ”

the men shouting meanwhile, yelling, screaming like so
many demons. No picture can do justice to the kaleido-
scopic fervor and wildness of the scene, if many riders are
engaged in it. It isa seething whirlpool of wild, unmean-
ing, half-merry, half-fanatical excitement, in which no end
of excellent horsemanship comes to the fore. From time
to time the riders stop and rank themselves for a rest on
one side; then out come individuals to show what their
steeds can do. They pirouette and dance a while, and
then make a rush at full gallop to one or other side, stop
suddenly, and wheel about. There is no specific art in
what they do; each man has trained his horse on his own
untrained ideas. They have a close seat, clinging with
their heels, and exhibit a great deal of skill, in their gy-
ratory exercises ; but once seen, the fantasiya, like a
circus, loses its interest. All semi-wild nations do about
the same tricks on horseback. I think our Indian, or a
Cossack, will easily excel them all, while nothing I have
ever seen in fantasiyas in the faintest degree approaches
the fine work of the school-trained horse in the hands of
a master of the art. The one depends on speed and
violent motion; the other on slow and rhythmic move-
ments, vastly more difficult to execute, and requiring a
system of education which the :fantasiya work quite lacks.
The one is a sailors’ hornpipe rapidly played on a fiddle ;
the other is an adagio of Schumann on an Amati.

Here is one of the Arabian horsemen, ready to take part
in the fantasiya. His seat and steed show the type well;
man and horse are what you are wont to see. In action

this horse will show to decidedly better advantage. The

docile nature of the Arabian robs him of much of his
beauty in a picture at rest. Yet if you examine him stand-
ing, you will find many points to commend, few to con-
demn.

bi, Rey
*
3 s *
Pes ‘

READY FOR THE ‘‘FANTASIYA ”

satrew fee

es

oval

“RIDING HOME” 269

As you perceive, from this man’s seat, a spur would be
of no use to him, and a decided irritation to his well-man-
nered mount; for an Arab of the people can no more
forego the luxury of beating time on his horse’s ribs than
an Indian. Even when riding with counterless slippers
and without stirrups, he manages to keep up the swinging
of his legs, and yet he never loses a slipper. An occa-
sional stirrup is made with a sharp point on the inside to
use in lieu of a spur on the heel. This wide, fiat stirrup
is not uncomfortable. It is curved upward, and affords a
means of resting the foot by constant change of position.
The Arab usually thrusts his foot home in it. In fact,
nearly all horsemen do “ride home.” The cowboy, unless
he has them hooded, wears the big wooden stirrups against
his ankle. Our trooper, with the hooded stirrup, cannot
thrust his foot beyond the point where his toe touches the
hood; but if perchance he has a pair of hoodless wooden
stirrups he is apt to get his foot well in. It is a natural
thing to do, and all natural riders do it. The military man
who uses a brass stirrup, and the riding-school man or
those who take him as a model, are the only ones who
hold the stirrup under the toe or the ball of the foot.

XLVI

THE enormous hat sometimes worn by the village Arab
is an outgrowth of a heat and sunshine which even the
natives cannot endure without protecting their heads.
The turban has come from the same cause. In all trop-
ical countries some means of avoiding the danger of sun-
stroke is universal, though the natives can stand a sun
which would be fatal to a Frank. In India, Europeans
who have to be much in the sun often wear a cork or
quilted cushion inside the coat down the spine from neck
to waist ; for any part of the vertebral column is sensi-
tive to excessive heat. The top or front of the head is
much less so than the base of the brain; whence the wear-
ing of the turban on the back of the head or the helmet,
or the pugree or its equivalent. Animals, from inherited
ability to resist its dangers, do not often suffer from the
intense heat, which, in summer, registers, they say, 110°
Fahrenheit and upwards in the shade, while in the sun one
may almost do the family cooking. Still,in many places,
horses, especially if imported from a temperate climate (as
the Australian waler in India), are better for a hood over
the head.

This big hat is quite common in Tunis, is made of
plaited straw, and is heavier even than a Mexican som-
brero. The heavier the head-gear the safer the man from
sunstroke and really the more comfortable.

The Tunisian countryman rides not a saddle but a pad,
and this is more generally useful, as it can be employed

craggy marae om OR

=

‘SWANTASLYA” RIDERS, ALGERIA

z
re te

FRENCH IN TUNIS 27

oa)

for a pack better than for riding, but it will serve a turn
at that. An Arab saddle is uncomfortable enough ; to
ride a pad is the height of misery. As a rule, it has no
stirrups, but they are occasionally present, and then not
fastened but thrown loosely across the pad, which is very
thick, extremely wide, and frequently has no girth what-
ever. It runs up over the withers and back beyond the
coupling. A habit of balancing keeps the rider and pad
both in place. With a horse of any spirit girths are in-
dispensable ; still, a horse will give a good deal of a shy
without throwing either man or pad, if the man has caught
the balance-trick.

Since the French assumed what they call “ financial
control” of Tunis, the roads have been improved pari
passu With the rest of matters. Most of the roads before
they came were only worn saddle or camel paths ; in the
interior there is still nothing else. On the coast were a
few mud roads, able to accommodate the rough vehicles
occasionally owned by the natives. Along the road there
is uniformly a mud-bank thrown up from the ditch dug
on either side to drain it; a similar bank, for irrigating
purposes, is put around every enclosed field, and each one
is crowned by the Barbary fig or prickly-pear cactus. This
plant grows everywhere, is killed only by frost which al- .
most never comes, and bears in abundance a watery fruit
almost as big as an apple. This is the one means of stav-
ing off starvation which the Arab possesses when his crops
fail, as they sometimes do in seasons of drought. No care
need be given to the plant, which often grows to be ten
feet high. |

The Arab’s cultivation is the barest apology. All he
does is to sow his seed in December or January on the
untouched soil, in among the stubble of last crop, then

scratch it in with what he calls a plough, but what is only
18 |

274 SCANT RATIONS

a curved iron-pointed forked stick, and leave the rest to
Allah. His crops are not unapt to fail unless there be
goodly rains. If there is enough, the soil yields plentifully
by April or May. In the summer there is no rain; the
earth is like a furnace seven times heated, and nothing
can grow. The Barbary fig is then the saving clause in

TUNISIAN HAT

the Arab’s existence. It is lucky for him that generations
of scant rations have got him used to eating sparsely. It
is amazing how little the people of hot climates—unless
they are of European stock—can get along with. A hand-
ful of rice three times a day enables the Japanese coolie
to drag you in his jinrikisha a good forty miles; or the
same food will carry the Calcutta coal-heaver through a

EATING FOR WARMTH 275

long day’s toil. He needs little ; but when he can get it
he will eat heavily, they say.

Northern people have the trick of eating for two pur-
poses—warmth and aliment. The Eskimo consumes enor-
mous quantities of blubber, but the bulk of it goes to keep
alive the fire in the human stove, without which he would
freeze to death. The good half or more of what we North-
ern Europeans eat is from an inherited tendency to “ shovel
in coal;” only a small part is assimilated for nourishment ;
and we carry the trick of eating wherever we go—liver or
no liver. But so much is not essential in a hot climate,
and the native population learns to live on a quantity (to
say nothing of quality) which to us would be the shortest
of commons. I have never been able to reduce the ay-
erage food consumed by the Oriental to ounces; but com-
pared, say with our army ration, I fancy it would be less
than half the weight, perhaps less than a third. At the
same time, when food can be had, the Oriental will vie
with his Occidental brother in eating; and the rich are
often notorious gluttons. The poor make a virtue of ne-
cessity.

There is a curious fact bearing on this stoking theory
which is well known among the lumbermen in our Eastern
States. The capacity of the horses they use out in camp
to keep warm is gauged by the amount they can eat and di-
gest. They are mostly small horses, but tough and rugged
creatures, of “ Morgan” pattern. Unless a horse will eat
up clean a full bucket of oats three times a day, he is con-
sidered useless for this work. He will “starve with cold,”
and they send him back to the settlements where he can
be blanketed. More than half he consumes goes through
his system merely to supply carbon to warm him; his di-
gestive apparatus assimilates such part as is needed for
alimentation. The Indian pony worries through the winter

276 LUMBERMAN’S HORSE

because he is not worked, so that the httle he gets goes
for fuel, and not to replace tissue lost by labor ; and also
because his ancestry has worried through the same trials,
and he is their fittest survivor. But the lumberman’s
horse comes of stabled stock—a very different creature—
and must be kept warm by artificial means, or extra food.

The Oriental horse partakes of this hot-climate quality
to a certain extent, and is fed much less than ours; but, as
with men, I have been unable to gauge his relative pounds
of consumption to my satisfaction. In the country you
can get no reliable information, nor do they feed by meas-
ure or by rule; in the cities and in the army they fall par-
tially into Frank ways, and feed more according to our
measure.

XLVII

Wuen you get far enough away from the every-day trav-
eller and come in contact with the “sure-enough,” simon-
pure Arab caliph or sheik, you often find a character
above reproach, a personal bearing graceful, high-toned,
and nobly simple, and a courtesy, truth, and kindness which
are a revelation to us prosaic Anglo-Saxons. I am proud
to possess the friendship of such a man. He was my host
—Si Nassour ben El Hadj Salem, Caliph of K’sar Hlal.
With this gentleman—and a gentle man he was in every
sense—I spent some days not far from the ruins of ancient
Thapsus. I had a neat and artistic-lookmg Arabic letter
from the French authorities, who, by reason of their finan-
cial control, will soon transform Tunis, ike Algeria, into a
French province. And it is, no doubt, better for the land,
save only for the loss of its picturesqueness, and this is a
loss indeed. The Bey of Tunis has but little real authority
left, and can devote his abundant leisure to the society
of his four hundred wives, to whom (or should I say to
which ?) a new one, usually a Circassian girl, is added by
each incoming by-monthly steamer from the East. He
holds court once a week in the old city palace, amuses
himself by chopping off a few criminals’ heads, and again
retires to his country palace near La Marsa.

I could not read the letter which was my safe-conduct,
but some time after a scribe translated it to me in French.
Here it is in English :

278 MY CALIPH

‘*PRAISE TO GOD, THE ONLY.

‘“To the honorable, the bous and sheiks of the township of M’Kalta,
whom may God replenish with happiness! After the salutation and the
mercy of God, the respectable the Colonel, bearer of these presents,
comes among you, into your township, to make a trip for his gratifica-
tion. We recommend him to you most particularly. He will be your
welcome guest.

‘“ Written by the humble after-named, under God, Tauchon, Civil
Controller at Sousa, the 22d Djoumada 2d, 1309.

‘*(Sig.) C. Tauchon,” and an official seal.

The date is that of the Hegira.

Armed with this screed and accompanied by an escort
of Spahis and an interpreter, I started for the interior.
As luck would have it, there are two M’Kaltas, one being
within the jurisdiction of K’sar H’lal. I reached this
M’Kalta, and presented my letter to the wrong man, as I
had intended to go to the other M’Kalta; but the wrong
man proved to be distinctly the right one, for he was the
most noted chief in that part of the country, and my safe-
conduct was of a nature to be respected by every one.

The caliph received me with literally open arms. He
was sitting in receipt of custom—the Arabs coming in to
pay their annual tax on olive-trees, which, though but a
part of a cent per tree, amounted as a total to a very large
sum—and gave himself up to me at once, adjourning all
other business, and bidding several supplicants come on
the morrow. ‘This struck me as an interruption to busi-
ness; but as time is by far the least valuable of the pos-
sessions of an Arab, and every one was doubly compen-
sated for any delay by the sight of a Frank—about one
of whom turned up there every two or three years—the
act was by no means strained. Coffee was at once served—
such an aroma of pure Mocha I had never tasted before
—and we sat down, he and I and some of the sheiks who

IN THE INTERIOR 279

remained, cross-legged or upright, as far as to each was
comfortable. Through the medium of my interpreter’s
Frenche of Stratteforde atte, Bowe, and still worse Ara-
bic — which, curiously, he could speak, but neither read
nor write — we talked hour after hour, as other guests,
lured by the stranger, dropped in to swell the circle. I
soon saw that I must not expect to regain Sousa and
catch the steamer I aimed for, and I was correct. But it
was better so. The whole experience was a rare treat.
In all my travels I have never met a man more fit for the
society of princes than Si Nassour ben El Hadj Salem.
Of tall, full growth, he had a face of great dignity and
beauty, a smile any woman might envy or fall a victim
to, manners gracious and courteous and anticipating as
we Teutonic rustics—more’s the pity—so rarely see in
our sov-disant civilized intercourse, and a bearing every
inch a—caliph. He had inherited his caliphate from an
uncle, and was highly considered by the French.

I spent some days under his care, eating out of the
same dish—and with my fingers at that, for though my
interpreter and I had provided ourselves with forks and
spoons I preferred to imitate my host—sleeping in his own
soft, hand-made blankets, and journeying to and fro with
_ him in the neighborhood to all the places I wished to visit
in the footsteps of Cesar. He would not let me out of
his sight, and yet his presence was not for a moment de
trop, nor his courtesy overmuch. He furnished me with
his best steed, and a fine fellow he was, and rode with me
wherever I went or came.

I had all too numerous opportunities of judging how
little heed Orientals pay to their own or any one else’s
time. Whenever we would pass through a village, or
near by some friendly sheik, we were constrained by po-
lite insistence to come in and break bread. This was not

280 ARAB FOOD

a ceremony to be lightly thrust aside, nor indeed easy so
frequently to go through. These simple folk saw a Frank
so rarely that I was like an odd specimen of feree nature.
So little did they know of what lay beyond their horizon
that even my host had once only been in the City of
Tunis; scarce another in the country round had even
been to Sousa. The word Frank had no definite mean-
ing, except that the Franks dwelt beyond the only sea of
which they knew—the Mediterranean; and they recog-
nized no difference in the French, Germans, Italians, Span-
iards, English. They had never heard of the Atlantic,
nor of America. I identified myself by telling them that
I lived in the land where the cotton-plant grew; and as
they all wore cotton goods of English manufacture, this
was to them a pleasure to know. When I told them, in
days’ journeys of a horse, how far off my country was,
they “ Allahed!” in a marvellous fashion. My watch and
chain were a great charm to them, and they never tired
of examining a pair of gossamer rubber shoes I wore, and
every one wanted to see me stand in a pan of water, and
then show my dry feet within. The elasticity of a few
rubber bands I had in my pocket was again a wonder.
A gross of such would have bought out half M’Kalta.
They were very children, and yet delightful in their grace,
dignity, and politeness. The usual repast was seethed
kid’s flesh (not bad eating by-the-way), or lamb, and the
national dish, koosh-koosh, a sort of wheaten preparation
which resembles cooked rice, and is eaten with a pepper-
sauce, was a truly delicious species of curry. The dexter-
ity in tearing the meat apart with the fingers of one hand
was marvellous. Once I was offered some native wine
(vile is no word for it), and when I asked how it came
that, among sons of the Prophet, there was wine made,
they laughingly said that, of course, no one drank it; and

MY FRIEND THE CALIPH

A GENTLEMAN 283

vet there was a good deal made and sold. When they
learned that their guest had lost his leg in battle, and
could not sit cross-legged, they absolved me with great
unction from the position usually demanded by polite
rules, and made me very comfortable, though I thought I
was narrowly watched to ascertain that I was not prevar-
icating, as the fact seemed inexplicable to them.

I could write a book anent my Arab friends, but must
refrain. Suffice it that I was entertained like a prince,
and that I grew fond of my courtly host as I sincerely
believe he grew of me. On parting he kissed me on both
cheeks, called me brother, bent his forehead to the
ground, and told me that his head was at my lifelong
service; conjured Allah to see me back to my own roof-
tree (ridge-pole he called it in Arabic), and placing his
right hand first on his heart and then to his lips, bade me
what I think was an honestly regretted farewell. We had
become good friends, and I hope to welcome him some
day at home—for Si Nassour ben El Hadj Salem, little
travelled as he is, thinks of coming to America in this
year of grace, on an errand too long to detail, but which
proves both his enterprise and intelligence, and his care
for his people’s welfare.

I would have given much to get a picture of this caliph
as he sat his fine Arabian. I can but give a distant
approach to it, in the photograph of another man of
that ilk.

As it happened, my friend had several good horses; but
it does not follow because a man is an Arab and a caliph,
and rich besides, that he has any at all—except for ordi-
nary transportation or the use of his servants. He may
prefer camels or asses. Some sheiks never leave the place
where they hold sway, never move about, and need horses
as little as a knowledge of Greek. My caliph, to tell the

284 GENTLE JUSTICE

truth, rarely rode; but he could ride and did know a good
horse.

One day the caliph asked me to sit beside him while
he held court. I did so, and was witness to a number of
Oriental scenes of strongly dramatic interest. The usual
litigants were at odds about land or money matters, but
the decision of the caliph, after a hearing, generally
about a half-hour long, seemed to be readily accepted—as
of course it had to be. The quiet, earnest attention and
final summing up of the caliph were in -striking con-
trast to the voluble fervor of the applicants; I could
see whence came his very great influence.

One case was that of a father, whom his son, some
seventeen or eighteen years old, obstinately refused to
obey. The father besought the caliph to compel his son
to do his bidding, the son complained of his father’s treat-
ment. The father opened his case with apparent violence
(Oriental fury, however, often goes for naught), and the son
was equally angry, but sullen withal. The caliph had the
right to punish the son in any way, by imprisonment in
chains or stripes; but after listening attentively to all each
had to say, he held up his hand to end the evidence, and
everything in the room at once was still. His face was a
beautiful picture. He began in a low, sweet, but rapid
voice—all Orientals speak rapidly—dwelling on some of
the long vowels in a musical tone as delicious as Salvini’s
Italian, and with an utterance which ran from a deep,
rich base to the high soprano, yet perfectly natural withal.
The son, I was told, had been extremely guilty, according
to Tunisian notions; but the caliph sought other means
than severity to accomplish his end. His words were
addressed alternately to father and son, and the effect
on each as he proceeded was marked. He spoke with
evident authority, and yet with a persuasive tone, which

|

A TPENTITENE SON 285

at times was pleading, at times convincing. As he went
on I could see the lad’s face soften—a quiver flew at
times across his mouth; as he had come in I thought him
ill-looking—I found he was really a handsome lad.

The caliph went on, plainly telling the youth how he
had failed in duty and common-sense alike, and explaining
to him that where lay his filial piety there lay also his
present and future happiness. I turned from one to the
other, for each was a study of character of extreme in-
terest. Not a word of all the judge said could I under-
stand; but the tone was such as to yield the hearer its
closest import. In a moment more came the climax. The
lad had been swallowing his emotion in great gulps, and
now, with an outburst of sobs, he broke into a flood of
tears, threw his arms around his expectant father’s neck,
and wept audibly. Recovering himself he turned to the
ealiph, said a few low-spoken words, and waited for what
more he had to say. Bidding him continue on his good
resolution, the caliph waved an end to the matter, and
father and son left the court-room with arms around each
other’s shoulders. I have rarely been witness to a more
impressive scene, and the dignity, graceful diction, and
beautiful voice of the caliph have lingered with me ever
since.

But [am afraid that the title to this volume has been
given amiss. It should have been “Yarns of a Globe-
trotter, and, Incidentally, Horseflesh.” I must strive to
keep to my subject.

XLVIII

Horses must be averaged. It will not do to select the
exceptional horse for description lest the reader fall into
the assumption that all other horses resemble him, or, at
least, that the majority do so. This is, indeed, not entirely
anerror. In the Orient all horses have some of the marks
of Arabian blood. There is a singular beauty to some of
the points of the Arabian which, even in the commonest
stock, never gets quite lost. You rarely see a horse with-
out one or more of these, and an odd specimen will now
and then crop out among the lowly bred country horses
which has all the points of some noble ancestor. Heredity
is an obstreperous thing to deal with. In families which,
ever so far back, have had some trace of negro blood,
perhaps quite forgotten, it is said that a Guinea-black
baby will occasionally turn up, to the great distress of all
concerned and the suspicion of many.

Among the Arabs, barring the desert tribes, it is, as
elsewhere, the rule that only swells have fine beasts. So
it is with us; and after seeing many horses in many lands,
I must give it as my opinion that the “ Kentucky farmer ”
rides, on the average, a far finer, better trained, and abler
horse than the Arab sheik. Moreover, there are—as I
have before observed—more splendid specimens of horse-
flesh on the breeding-farms of America than there are in
any Oriental studs, quite apart from the greater size of |
our thorough-bred.

By-the-way, this same Kentucky farmer is an odd type

GC _————————

KENTUCKY FARMERS | 287

of soil toiler. He owns a fine old homestead (a country
gentleman’s “place” or “estate” in reality, but he calls it
a “farm”), perhaps inherited for generations, and boasts
acres aS broad and beautiful as an English park. He
gets into the saddle after a decidedly late breakfast for
a farmer, rides around to visit his crops and the stock,
gives a few directions to his headmen, and then canters
off into—let us say Lexington, for a drink and a chat and
billiards, or some other amusement with similar farmers,
and God gives the increase. On work of the easiest the
Kentucky Blue Grass farmer grows rich. Just think of
the toil and moil of our poor New England farmers, your
ancestors and mine, good friend, and for what? Well, for

TUNISIAN WITH TWO-YEAR-OLD BARB

288 POINTS OF ARABIAN

the strength of loin, the unclouded brain, and the iron will
which has begotten and bred the sturdiest, most intel-
ligent, and most enterprising race the sun has ever shone
upon! The New England farmer has raised men and
women ; as for crops—why, they are crop enough. —

Some well-qualified judges maintain that the English
thorough-bred, by generations of breeding exclusively for
speed has lost bone and structural strength, and it is sug-
gested that a cross with the old Arabian desert blood
would be a benefit. It is true that the one-mile speed
has grown relatively beyond the five, ten, or twenty mile
speed; but this does not necessarily mean that the endur-
ance of the thorough-bred has decreased. It takes—feste
“Ten Broeck”’—as much endurance, in a certain fashion,
for a horse to run a mile in 1.393, as it does for him to run
four miles in 7.152, the average of the latter per mile be-
ing 1.49; but to breed for short bursts of very high speed
has perhaps a tendency to overdevelop the greyhound
type. And no doubt there is a certain weediness in some
families of racers. Be this as it may, it cannot be claimed
that the Southern saddle-horse lacks bone. Many fine-
bred ones are up to great weight, and most have large
round barrels, and by no means too slender a skeleton.
They are as nearly perfect as may be for saddle (not rac-
ing) speed, for carrying ability, and for gaits and endur-
ance. The racer is quite another horse, but he, too, has
more framework than his English cousin.

There are a number of points which must be granted
to the Arabian. Eliminating the wretched little. country
horse, of small value because overworked and underfed,
the average horse of good stock has excellent bone and an
exceptionally well-built structure. The shoulder has a pe-
culiarly fine slope; the back is very short above, and the
line is very long below; the reach from top of rump to

PROUD SHEIKS 289

hough is extra long ; the neck rises just as it should from the
withers; the head is put on just right; the legs and feet
cannot be criticised. The superlatives are purposely em-
ployed. Moreover, there is a certain ease and grace of
movement that is essentially Arabian, which comes of a
skeleton put together on good principles, and then well
clad with muscle and sinew. On the other hand, while
our long, lanky, bony, often somewhat ungainly performer
lacks the Arabian’s symmetry of looks and movement, he ©
impresses you with the ability to run and repeat, to carry
you through tothe death, which even the best horse in the
Orient does not convey. The fine Arabian is singularly
handsome; there is no form of words which will explain
the effect he has on the horse-lover who is attracted by
the artistic as well as the “ horsy” points. He unques-
tionably possesses grit and endurance, but I believe that
in losing some of his grace we have gained in stamina in
stock of equal grades, while our every-day teamster, coach-
er, and business horse can readily discount him by his supe-
rior weight ; and this weight, while it may, coupled to our
hard roads, be more trying to legs and feet, does not ap-
pear to have deteriorated the useful qualities of our animal.

The illustration shows the size of no end of colts in
daily use in the East. This was a two-year old—we should
call it a yearling from its looks, and weedy at that. Still
the colt was able to do a good day’s work; and though
such a little creature may be much abused, his legs and
feet will stand up under it in a marvellous manner, ex-
plicable only by the fact that his ancestors, for a thousand
generations, have stood on the ground out-of-doors in-
stead of in ammonia-soaked stalls. The rider appears tall;
in truth, he was but about five feet eight. The colt was
little above thirteen hands.

The term sheik in the Orient is about as universal as
19

A TUNISIAN SHEIK

cap’n or jedge in most country districts in our part of
the world, though military distinction is not colloquially
conferred on account of the number of chimneys a man’s
house may have, as it is said to be south of Mason and
Dixon’s line; there are few chimneys. The sheik before
us boasts no such architectural luxuries. But though he
may live in a hut of rushes and his women may do the
cooking al fresco, rain or shine, he is wont to own a good
horse. And he is a proud fellow, this penniless sheik;
proud of his religion, proud of his nationality, proud of his
lineage—almost as proud as he is of the lineage of his high-

LAZY SHEIKS 291

bred mare, on the feats of whose forebears he will descant
by the hour and multiply by three the miles they may have
done between sunandsun. He is rarely separated from
his old flintlock, perhaps the most harmless fire-arm which
exists—to the enemy. He does nothing for a living ex-
cept to loaf; his inherited dignity—for was not his great-
uncle a sheik before him?—forbids him to work. He
owns a few olive-trees, some little flocks and herds, an
ass, and a horse or two, his women cultivate a small gar-
den-patch and an acre or so of wheat; the prickly - pear
and date-palm are there at need; and if he can worry
through the distress of the few rainy weeks without soak-
ing into pulp, God’s sunshine and fresh air are his for the
rest of the year. He is content with little to eat; gener-
ations of sparse food have robbed the poor Arab of any
semblance of gluttony; strong drink is prohibited by
the Koran, and, curiously, the injunction is wont to be
obeyed ; but give him the long daylight for loafing, and
anything on four legs to carry him, and he is happy. He
little reeks what his wives and daughters are. They, poor
souls—stay! they have no souls according to his belief,
and may not even go into the mosque to pray. ‘“ Why
should they pray, forsooth, having no souls to pray for ?”
he will ask you; they, poor creatures! live in the reflect-
ed happiness of their lord.

XLIX

Wuen we cross the Libyan desert—which from its west-
erly limits is usually done by a prosaic Mediterranean trip
back to Malta or Italy, and thence to Alexandria, rather
than aboard a “ship of the desert,” for it is easy to go
around and all but impossible to go across this merciless
waste—we come to a more marked type of the so-called
Arabian than we find in either Morocco, Algeria, Tunis,
or Tripoh. The first thing which strikes the horseman
on reaching Egypt is the high-carried tail. The close-
hugged tail which to such a degree disfigures the other-
wise admirable mount on the west of the Libyan desert is
here replaced by the fine upright haunch and high-set
tail which we have so long admired in art. The whole
bearing of the animal is altered by this single feature.
One would scarcely credit the change. It is not the arti-
ficial tail of commerce, produced among civilized (?) na-
tions at such a cost in pain and sacrifice in looks for the
delectation of ultra-fashionables ; it is the same fine tail
you see bred for in Kentucky, set on a haunch which none
but the Arabian can boast. The reason why the tail of
the Spanish horse is carried so close is that he is of Moor-
ish origin. It is, perhaps, impossible to determine the ex-
act line of demarcation in race or breeding which sep-
arates the close-carried from the high-set tail, or to give
the rationale of either; at the Libyan desert is the geo-
eraphical line of separation. It suffices to call the horses
on the west of the desert Barbs; those on the east Ara-

Re Oe

ARABIAN POLO-PONIES, CAIRO

bians. The so-called Godolphin Arabian, one of the

progenitors of the English thorough-bred, was really a

Barb, and his pictures show this low round croup and
tail. He could not have come from the Syrian desert.
The tail dates back many hundred equine generations.
In his day an “ Arabian” or a “ Turk” meant any Ori-
ental horse.

A low-carried tail is sometimes climatic. I have been
told by horse-breeders on our Western plains that if for
two or three generations the horses have been compelled
to turn their backs to the winter blizzards and hug their
tails from cold the best of natural tails will droop. As
a rule, a severe climate produces a low tail, a hot climate

-a high one. But this does not quite meet the case of the
Barb. Perhaps the Avabian sires which went originally
from the Syrian desert to the Barbary States were too few
to eradicate in the native race they impregnated the low
tail it had, and which most “horses of the country” have ;
they were unable radically to change horses for which as
a race nothing had been done in the way of breeding,

294 GOOD AND BAD POINTS

and which during some months each year had been obliged
for centuries in the uplands or in the foot-hills of the Atlas
range to turn their tails to the chill blasts of the rainy
season.

The horse came into Egypt with the Hyksos, or Shep-
herd Kings, less than seventeen hundred years before our
era. Previous to that time asses were the only specimens
of the genus equus. No horse figures on the earlier mon-
uments of Egypt. The modern horse of Egypt is a dif-
ferent animal, of more recent importation, but also from
the Shepherd Kings of to-day, the pastoral princes of the
desert. This modern breed has a curiously uniform type.
You see them of all sizes, from the polo-pony to the heavy
wheeler, but the type remains. If mixed, the strong Ara-
bian blood predominates in the look of the offspring. In
other countries horses vary both in size and type. You
have everything, from a Sheltie to a Percheron, each dis-
tinct in kind as well as size; there are several distinct
races. In Kgypt the type is constant; there is but one
race. The head is small, the face intelligent and mild,
but not generally as fine and bony as one anticipates.
The perfect head is as rare as the perfect horse. The
neck is rather short and full in front, with good crest and
distinctly fine throttle ; by no means as clean as the thor-
ough-bred’s, but much more neatly turned. The crest is
full, the withers low, but the shoulders sloping; the barrel
not quite as round as one would like, but well coupled to
a nearly perfect haunch. Looked at from front or rear,-
the horse has not as much breadth as fills the eye, but one
sees far fewer weedy-looking horses than west of the
desert. The legs and feet are as good as can be. Even
the old broken-down hacks have no windgalls. Nor does
one often see a lame horse. Infinite stress is, among the
Arabs, laid on good legs. As the Arabian legs are uni-

ENGLISH OFFICER ON ARABIAN, CAIRO

A BIG JUMP 297

formly good, whenever a horse shows blemishes or strains
in them he is considered unsafe to buy. With us a horse
with a few wind-puffs or a splint or two is by no means
to be condemned. The Arabians rarely interfere, but
often overreach when taught to trot, as they now are by
the English, or for the English by the Arabs. The foot is
neither too much like the mule’s nor too flat. It is round,
rather high, and with naturally a good wide frog. That
horror of our climate, scratches, are not often seen in the
dry air of Egypt, but the practice of hobbling often scores
the fetlocks permanently. The shoe of the Arab horse in
Egypt is the plate with a small hole in the middle—a
bungling apology for a shoe. In Cairo the European shoe
is gaining in use; among the Arabs the old plate still pre-
vails, but it is less bad than among the Syrian Bedouins.
The cut shows a very fair type of the average Arabian
bought by the English officers or residents in Cairo. For
his inches he is hard to beat. The officer’s seat is just a
trifle long, but excellent. It is a hunting rather than a
military seat, bar toes.

The Arabian is unquestionably good as a goer; but in
a country where there is neither fence, hedge, ditch, nor
other division of the fields, we can scarcely expect a horse
to jump. There is, however, a leap recorded to have been
taken by one Ragh-Ap (alzas Amin Bey) at the time of
the massacre of the Mamelukes, which in these days of
prize-jumping is certainly worth a notice, whether credited
or not. In order to escape from the massacre, this man
headed his Arabian for the edge of the cliff where now
stands the Citadel of Cairo. The noble animal never
paused, but conscious of his master’s peril took the leap, a
most prodigious one, and landed—the fact is well authen-
ticated by the footprints in the stone shown by the pious
and horse-loving Moslem of to-day—eighty feet below,

298 NOT ‘“STUNNERS”

and something over a quarter of a mile distant. What,
after that, becomes of our paltry seven feet three of horse-
show timbre? |

By-the-way, speaking of the fenceless condition of
the country, did it ever occur to you what a queerly
shaped land Egypt is? Fancy a country one thousand
miles long by scarcely ten miles wide. And yet this is
the shape of agricultural Egypt from Cairo to the first
cataract. The rest of the land is mere desert. The whole
country is likened to an open lotus (the Delta) with a long
stem and one single bud, the Fayum.

The Egyptian Arabian is fed on barley, beans, and
clover-hay—which is sweet and abundant in the Nile
region-—or the green clover for the early two or three
months of the year. The first growth is cut down and fed
green; it is a sort of “spring medicine,” our Hood’s Sarsa-
parilla; the second is allowed to grow up for hay.

The average of the Arabian saddle-beasts here as else-
where is undeniably high. The variety of type which
we see in the well-bred saddle-horse at home cannot be
found; but that the Arabian is serviceable and _satis-
factory as a mount is not to be questioned. His good-
nature is uniform, his gaits are fair, and he can stay. I
have heard it said by English people that you cannot run
him as far and fast as a good hack at home; but this is, I
take it, a matter of feed rather than endurance. The saddle-
beast held by a sais, or outrunner, is the type of a lighter
kind of horse, not up to quite so much weight. And yet
he will surprise you by his activity under two hundred
pounds. But while, in the streets of Cairo, or on the
Gezireh drive, one sees plenty of neat-turned saddle-
beasts whose lines and action are very taking, it is rare
that one is attracted by a “stunner ”’—by a horse all life,
all action, all ambition. I have seen vastly more splendid

* MSE BE ner ley
2 a ADS GE a PE AR oO

Sap A NL Ah a

SAIS

=~ .

: +
el MLS ROLL SEE ST

HOLDING ARABIAN, CATRO

FEW MARES SEEN 301

saddle-beasts in Lexington than in Cairo, though the latter
is a capital with a splendid court and a large garrison, and
many times the size of the little Kentucky city. I have
owned more than one horse who could, in gait, style, and
all saddle qualities, outshine anything I have seen in the
Orient. This sounds like boasting; but I do not intend
to exaggerate. My “ Jewell,’ when he was at his best,
was not only as handsome as anything I have seen in the
Orient, but he looked as if he. had the pluck and ability to
go over a house—an appearance which most Arabians
lack. Relative endurance is hard to determine. Kach
class of horse has enough. One never sees the long, fine
thorough-bred in Egypt. It is more of a chunk, with per.
fect legs and feet and all-round good points. The type of
“Longfellow,” “Ten Broeck,” “Saunterer,” “Fisherman ”
is never seen among the Arabians. The latter has stout-
er bone and more flesh, but less size, less accentuated
points, less “do and die” look.

Stallions alone are in use—though the Bedouins prize
their mares. One wonders what becomes of the mares.
In Algeria and Tunis one sees them working in the fields;
in Egypt one does not see them at all. As the habit of
gelding is unknown—or has been until the English occu-
pation, and is rare to-day—it is not convenient to work
both sexes together; and though I have been told that
the Libyan Arab prefers the horse, it is much more prob-
able that the mares are kept for breeding and the stallions
mostly sent to the cities for sale, as is the case in Syria.
I found it so—at least, wherever I went. If a man wants
to raise horses he must not sell his mares. And all nomad
Arabs breed. No doubt if one went out among the
breeders in Egypt he would find nothing but mares and
an occasional stud.

The saddle is much less marked in its make-up than

302 SADDLES

west of the Libyan desert. It has but a slight pommel
and cantle, and it is by no means uncouth. Many of
them are less individual than the saddles on our plains. It
is evident that the Great Desert is a distinct boundary in
many matters equine.

L

Aw Arab for his own use trains his horse to rack or
amble, canter or gallop. He abhors the trot—which to
him is the mark of the slavery of wheels. If a colt shows
an inclination to trot, he hobbles him with a rope from
his fore to his hind fetlock on either side, to force him to
pace. But the Arab does not know the fast rack, or
single-foot. The only people I am acquainted with who
have developed the so-called artificial paces of the horse
in a scientific way are our Southerners, though the Cretans
have the gait beyond any other Orientals. In Kentucky
a horse will often running-walk, rack, and trot perfectly,
and of course canter and gallop, with a crisp performance
of each gait. The Arabian has but an amble or a slow
rack—never more than one of these gaits. When taught
to trot, in which he never excels, his other gaits appear to
be lost. I once examined a number of horses for sale in
Cairo, averaging thirty to fifty pounds sterling each in
value, which price would be the equivalent of four to six
hundred dollars here. I was looked on as a bona fide
purchaser, and the traders were very eager to sell me an
animal. The horses were all led out, mounted, and, to my

surprise, Shown me on the trot. When I asked for a
canter, or a rack, they stared at me asa vara avis. Here
was a white man—a Frank—who did not want a trotter

for the saddle! Allah be praised! But I also found that

the training of each beast to trot had utterly ruined his.
other gaits. He was all mixed up. Even his trot was not.

|
=

Sa me

304 SOUTHERN GAITS

true, and he was uncertain in his rack or amble, and hard
to start into acanter. It would be a ticklish thing to bring
him back to his fine saddle paces. All those that I saw
and tried were what you might call a very likely-looking
but poor lot of a good type. For the saddle each was
spoiled—except to sell to an Englishman, or to some
imitator of the English style. And of these Cairo to-day is
full. The Arab or Turkish swells who are thrown in with
the English have taken to their ways. The native official
will ride his horse on an overreaching trot which makes
one’s teeth grit, when if left to his natural gaits the horse
would move as smoothly as a meadow brook.

It is common to use the term “artificial gaits” in re-
ferring to the running-walk or rack. I have employed
it because it is generally understood. A new word ought
to be coined. Suppose we say Southern gaits. It is
absurd to talk of artificial gaits when, as I have before
pointed out, nine-tenths of all animals belonging to the
horse tribe in the world thus travel, and that without
training. The rack was understood generations ago in
England. One of the earliest writers on the horse, old
Blundeville to wit, speaks of the Spanish jennet, of which
there were many brought to England especially for ladies’
use, as going “neither trot nor amble, but a comelie kind
of going like the Turke” (Arab)—z.¢., as going some-
thing midway between trot and amble, either a rack or
a running-walk. It is more natural for a horse to rack
than to trot. Don’t smile. This dictum is sound. J am
referring, of course, solely to saddle-beasts. When one
puts a load after a horse the trot is no doubt a better
gait, but it has to come by training or inheritance.
The wild horse everywhere gallops, or slows down into
what we call a canter, which is, however, not the real
canter, but a short, broken gallop. The park canter is

THE TROT FOR TRACTION 305

quite another thing. A wild horse may now and then
jog—~.e., go a short trot; but he will be quite as apt to
pace, and if he is slowing down from a gallop to a walk
he is much more apt to rack, because the rack is more
nearly intermediate, in the sequence of feet, between
gallop and walk than is the trot. This fact is not gen-
erally known, because most people do not recognize a rack
when they see it.

I refrain for the moment from going into the tech-
nicalities of the sequence of the horse’s feet in the
various gaits; but if any one will study this thing from
practice and from instantaneous photography, he will
see that the true trot is less allied to the one gait every
one acknowledges to be natural—the gallop—than the
rack.

As I said, for drawing loads the trot is the thing, be-
cause a horse is using two feet at a time, and is by so
much stronger; but if you want the neat, quick, crisp ac-
tion which alone makes the highest saddle qualities, you
call for a style of going to which the rack is naturally
adapted, while the trot is not. <A single illustration will
serve to show my point. If you are cantering at a good
rate along the highway and want to slacken speed—as to
allow a carriage to pass across your path, or for any other
purpose—you cannot pull down to a trot and start into a
canter again without a distinct interruption of gaits—a
bumping, to be plain about it. But you can pull down to
a rack, and bound out again into a canter, without the
slightest perceptible change of the horse’s rhythmic move-
ment. Or,again, if from a lively canter you pull down to
a walk through a trot, you have a certain amount of bump-
ing while the horse is jogging; but if you teach your nag
to come back to a walk through a rack—z.e., from canter

to rack, and from rack to walk, you have not the remotest
20

1)

306 THE RACK NATURAL

semblance of irregularity. No argument is needed to show
why; the gaits themselves prove the case.

I maintain that the rack—or, to employ our new coin-
age—all Southern gaits are natural. You will pardon my
recurrence to this subject, but it is a part of my text, you
see, and I like to ring the changes on it. When one is in
the pulpit, he has the right, I believe, to go back to his
text, even at the risk of occasional repetitions. You will
find that I only partially repeat myself, and I propose
that no equine sinner shall remain immersed in his iniqui-
ty for lack of proper instruction. I say the rack is natu-
ral. Every donkey in the East, and in all European coun-
tries where he is used, racks as a matter of course ; so does
every horse that is ridden in the Orient—a fact I have al-
ready pointed out. You may say that this does not prove
the case. Strike, but listen !

No one will deny that the walk is the first of the natu-
ral gaits. Now, if you take a young horse, who does not
come of strict trotting ancestry, and has not been broken
to harness, and after training him to a light, elastic, fast
walk, will push him on to a sharper gait, he will not fall
into a jog-trot; he will amble or rack. If you let him go
a careless, humdrum, snaffle-bridle gait, unworthy of a
saddle-beast, he may perhaps fall into a jog; but that is
not my point; I am talking of a well- poised horse, not a
wheeler. Again, even if your horse is on a jog-trot, if
you will use whip or spur to unsettle him, and at the
same time not allow him head enough to gallop, he will
fall into an amble or rack. Even a horse trotting in har-
ness, if frightened, or struck with the whip, or jerked up
with the reins, will fall into a rack. Why, then, is the
rack artificial? It will not do to call it so. If the Eng-
lish made as good saddle-beasts as they make hunters or
racers, we might subscribe to their opinion, and allow the

THE TROT ARTIFICIAL 307

rack to be called artificial. But the truth is that, all over
the world, riders who excel in. pure saddle-work not spe-
cially diverted to some one object—as hunting is to gallop-
ing and jumping obstacles, or racing to pure speed—but
with whom the mere riding for business or pleasure is the
object, and who aim at the greatest ease, handiness, and
ability in their horses, employ the amble or rack as the prin-
cipal gait, the canter next. Unquestionably, guoad the
saddle-horse, the rack must be called natural, the trot the
artificial gait. If I die before I have converted the world
to this my opinion, let it be written on my tombstone—
but that is another story.

LI

To prose for a paragraph on the technical part of the
case. You may skip this if you like; it is technical, not
chatty. But if you will study it out it will repay you.
The gaits of the horse are:

1. The simple walk, in which to the eye one hind-foot
moves out first, followed by the alternate fore-foot; then
the other hind-foot followed by its alternate, not at exact-
ly equal intervals. If you listen to a walking-horse’s hoof-
beats, you will find the four beats to be rather in sets of
twos. This gait varies from two and a half to four and a
half miles an hour, and gives a very slight forward and
back swaying to the saddle.

2. The running-walk. The sequence of the steps in this
is the same as in the simple walk, but the horse has a
brisker, more elastic motion, and appears to put more life
into his gait ; each foot is put down and taken up quicker;
he will go up to five and a half or six miles an hour on it,
and the saddle has a slight up and down, but very easy,
feel to it.

3. The amble, which is a slow pace, in which the feet
on the near side come down exactly together, followed
by those on the off side at equal intervals. The saddle
feels very easy, with a slight swaying motion from side to
side.

4. The trot, in which the diagonal feet come down ex-
actly together-—z.e., the near fore and off hind, and the off
fore and near hind at equal intervals. When slow, this is

VARIOUS GAITS 309

a jog; when fast, a flying trot. They only differ in degree ;
but on the flying trot the horse is propelled so vigorously
that between steps he is sometimes in the air, while in the
jog and slow trot one set of feet is always on the ground.
The feel of the saddle is a bump up and down, to avoid
which on a five-mile trot and upwards one rises to each
alternate step. On a jog you cannot rise; to a very rapid
trot one need not always do so. Owing to a difference in
conformation or strength of the hind-legs, some horses are
easier when you rise to one rather than the other leg.

5. The pace, which is a fast amble. When at speed
at a pace, as in the flying trot, the horse is often in the
air between steps. The feel of the saddle is sometimes a
bump, sometimes a sway from side to side, differing in
individuals.

6. The rack, which is a gait half-way between the trot
and pace. Here the feet follow each other at half in-
tervals, each one coming down separately. In the trot
and pace the hoof-beats sound “one, two! one, two!” In
. the rack they sound “one, two, three, four! one, two,
three, four!” in the same length of time—four beats in-
stead of two for the same speed, each hind-foot following
its fore-foot at a half interval, instead of coming down
with it. The saddle is perfectly quiet under you; the gait
is the very poetry of comfort. Speed, six to fifteen miles
an hour; or, as a rarity, a three-minute gait.

7. The canter is an irregular gait, by most people de-
scribed as a slow gallop; but it has, mechanically speak-
ing, not much in common with the latter gait. An Eng-
lishman will describe his thorough-bred as cantering twelve
miles an hour, but he is really going a three-beat, or hand-
gallop. If you call a five or six mile gait a canter you
cannot call a twelve-mile gait a canter, for the progression
of the animal is mechanically different. I am not seeking

ah
~S
*

310 A CANTERBURY TALE

a quarrel with the nomenclature, for in many places a
canter is called a “lope,” and a running-walk a “run,” or
a fast rack a “single-foot.” Localized epithets always ex-
ist. What I mean is that the slow and fast gaits are not
alike, and should have different names; and “canter” has
for ages been applied to the slower gait. I am inclined to
wander a bit here, but—

Well, the “canter” (which is of Canterbury origin, and
perchance the “ Wel nyne-and-twenty in a companye” fell

into a canter at the end of each tale) is a gait much more

“artificial” than the rack. The gallop is natural. The
canter proper must be produced by training in every in-
dividual. A horse will naturally fall to racking ; he never
will fall into a canter untaught—fresh proof that the slur
on Southern gaits is incorrect. The “ Kentucky wriggle”
is a pure gait.

The canter is produced by reining a horse back from a
three-beat gallop. Individuals differ much, and the same
horse differs often in the performance of the canter. But
every one who has ridden it remembers the feel as of a sort
of pause at one period of the stride. Well, at that mo-
ment three feet are on the ground, say, if leading with the
right shoulder, the off hind, and the near and off fore-feet,
while the near hind one has just left it. The off fore-foot
is the last to come down, and is thrown forward where
you can see it over the horse’s shoulder; and because its
action is more pronounced than that of the other feet, the
horse is said to be leading with that foot. This hoof-beat
is the very pronounced three of the “one, two, three!”
sound of the canter. Just before the time this leading-off
fore-foot comes down, the near hind-foot goes up; then
the off hind and near fore, quite or nearly together; and
then from the leading-off fore-foot the horse goes into
the air, and you feel the rise in the gait. This is followed

THE GALLOP 311

by the near hind-foot coming down, again to be followed
by the off hind and near fore feet, which completes the
stride to our beginning. Many photographs of cantering
horses do not look like a canter at all. The most common
one shows all but the leading foot on the ground at the
same moment.

8. The three-beat, or hand-gallop, in which the hoof-
beats sound “one, two, three, pause; one, two, three,
pause.” Assuming the horse to lead with the off shoulder,
the one is from the near hind-foot, the to from the off
hind and near fore, which come down together, and the
three from the off fore-foot. But the gait is too rapid for
the horse ever to be at any one time on three legs ; hence
the difference from the canter.

9. The run, or four-beat gallop. This sounds like
‘one, two, three, four, pause ; one, two, three, four, pause.”
When the pause occurs the horse is in the air at the end
of his stride and is gathering all his legs under him for
the next one. His four legs come down exactly like four
spokes of a wheel; but as there is not, after the four
spokes have done their work, a continuous succession of
spokes to sustain the weight of the body and propel it, the
horse pauses from leg action and gathers them under him
for four new propulsions, or rather has been gradually
doing so with each leg after it has completed its qguasz
spoke-work. The hoof-beats, after the pause, come (if the
right shoulder be leading) near hind, off hind, near fore,
off fore, at exactly equal intervals; then, during the next
pause, the horse, which has risen into the air from his off
fore-foot, reaches out his near hind-foot and puts it to the
ground for a new stride. Nothing so well describes his ac-
tion as four spokes of a wheel. If you think a moment, you
will see that the horse must first plant the hind-foot, or rear-
most spoke, and must end with the fore, or foremost spoke.

|

312 NOMENCLATURE

By-the-way, talking of nomenclature, did you ever reflect,
after you and your best friend had been at loggerheads for
an hour or two over some political or social or theological
or personal problem, and had been about ready to order
pistols for two and coffee for one, that, after all, you
were of the same opinion, but that you had been misun-
derstanding each other’s terms and thus misinterpreting
each other’s ideas ; in other words, that. when he said A
and you said X, you really meant the same thing, but had
a different term to describe it? Unless you have both
been taught in the same school, you must first sit down
and find out what you mean by the phrases or words you
use, before you know whether you have anything to dis-
cuss or not.

LI

Ler us again, for a moment, leave the proud horse of the
desert, the favorite of the sheik, the pampered but noble
companion of the Arab, and turn to his patient, pathetic
cousin, the ass. Oh for the pen of a ready writer to draw
up an eulogium on this humble martyr! What panegyric
shall do him justice? There is nothing of his breed—
there is no animal in the service of man—that so nearly
personifies the cardinal virtues. He has positively but
one weakness, and that is a failure to understand music
as we do. He cannot sing to the contentment of our
classical ear. But, despite even this, the more I see of
the ass the more sincere is my respect for him. I would
fain erect an altar to him and burn incense at his shrine.
He may not bear his master company to an equal sky,
but surely he deserves a heaven of his own. Why, when
he does such uncomplaining, never-ending work, impious
man should not hold him at his true value it is hard to
conceive. His toil is remunerated with the meanest food ;
his truly heroic efforts are rewarded by a constant shower
of blows, by a constant call for greater effort. In Egypt
a camel-load of green clover—a quarter-ton—sells for
almost a dollar of our money; a donkey-load for forty
cents; and the camel weighs five or six times as much as
the donkey. In other words, the “marvellous” camel
bears but one-third his own weight, the donkey four-fifths
of his. If you overload the camel he will growl his pro-
test; he will refuse to rise. Whoever heard of the ass re-

314 THE ASS IN ANTIQUITY

fusing the heaviest of burdens, even twice in proportion
that of the camel? To whom shall we award the palm?
Unreasoning master, it is thine own turgid soul that is
burdened with the vices thou imputest to thy humble, dili-
gent, uncomplaining servant! Talk not of thy Ten Com-
mandments, miserable man! Thy ass heedeth thy law as
thou never obeyest the Decalogue !

Every one remembers the curious, protesting cry of the
ass-driver in Italy. Its tone— Aah !”—is a constant re-
proach : “ Do, for Heaven’s sake, go faster, you poky, lazy
beast !” when the brave little fellow is struggling on with
a load under which no other animal God ever made could
possibly stagger. That for ages untold the ass has been
thus under the ban is oddly shown in the tomb of Ti, in
ancient Memphis. In one of the queer but curiously nat-
ural processions of the servants of Ti, which are cut on
the walls of the funeral chamber, is a man with uplifted
stick driving a donkey. The hieroglyphs make him say,
no doubt with the same protesting tone: “ Men love those
who go swiftly, but they beat the lazy; 7f thou couldst
but see thine own conduct!’ The tone of the modern
Egyptian is, however, not so protesting as that of the
Italian, though he has the same cry, “Aah!” to hurry on
his beast. One now and then hears our cluck in lieu of
the “ A-ah !”

It is truly a marvel how this tiny creature can perform
such labor. I have studied him carefully. It is well
known that a man can outlast, outwork, and outcarry a
horse. But the ass can do more than man, the most en-
during of living creatures. He is able to carry his own
weight and work all day. What man can stagger an
hour under from one hundred and fifty to two hundred
- pounds ?

They have some queer habits with the donkeys in Egypt.

Se

STYLE

s

’

EGYPTIAN WOMAN

See

A QUEER RIDER 317

One who trespasses on a neighbor’s land—in innocent
search of his natural food, poor fellow!—is dubbed a
thief, and has a piece of his ear snipped off for each of-
fence. Being hobbled when “at liberty ’—by tying the
fore-legs together—the donkey cannot go far, and luckily
for him is not often proven guilty. The so-called thief
would else soon have no ears to clip. To quote a pretty
custom as a foil to this cruel one: the ass-colts have ribbons
tied around their legs above the knees and hocks, and I
have seen them with ears bored at the tips and tied to-
gether—as if to cultivate a habit of carrying them erect.
An ass-colt is one of the prettiest of creatures.

Place aux dames! While on the subject of the patient
ass, we may glance at one of his constant patrons, per-
haps the most peculiar rider that exists—the Arab woman.
No such curious seat can be found elsewhere. The don-
key-saddle of the East has no cantle whatsoever, but in
Egypt a pommel—high, round, and full. The seat is so
short that unless you use very long stirrups only a part
of your riding surface rests on the saddle; the balance
hangs over the rear of the tree where the cantle should
properly be. It is a most uncomfortable seat for a big
man, who must overhang a good deal. For a small man
it will do. The Egyptian female uses the man’s rig and
sits astraddle ; but she does not ride with her legs hang-
ing down; this would not suit her ideas of propriety,
though her Syrian cousin does not agree with her in
this, but rides exactly like a man. Our Egyptian rider
shortens her stirrups until the leathers are but a couple of
inches long, mounts from a block, sits on the saddle as far
forward as she can, throws her feet to the rear so that
they are right under her thighs, and rides solely by bal-
ance. Her knees are on either side of the padded pom-
mel, and she might well get some kind of a hold on it; but

318 TRY HER STYLE!

she attempts nothing but a balance seat, and her knees
wobble in and out as she progresses along the street in
charge of her black attendant. She is a sight to behold,
and unquestionably the oddest Amazon there is. She can-
not properly be said to have any seat at all; but as the
ass never shies or acts otherwise than as should a well-
behaved little fellow to whose care is confided so precious
a burden, and as his gait—a rack or amble—is ease itself,
the lady’s seat on her saddle is secure enough. Under the
saddle is an indefinite array of blankets, which raise her
far above his back.

I desire to suggest to those of our lady friends who
wish to startle the community, and to grasp such addi-
tional public attention as their natural charms do not en-
tice, that in lieu of riding @ la militaire, they adopt the
Egyptian lady’s seat. That such a rider would be the
cynosure of neighboring eyes cannot for a moment be
doubted. But I should not like to insure her a long
promenade.

Her Egyptian ladyship’s little mount is often clipped in
fancy patterns all over his body. Around the hind-legs,
just above the hocks, are bands of zigzags alternating with
straight lines; on the buttocks are various neat devices
produced by the scissors. Around the neck hang some
chains of brass or gilt coins, or blue and yellow beads,
and the bit has a row of jangling rings—all of which
make merry music to the fair one’s progress. This seems
appropriate enough. But when you see a selfish Moslem
comfortably bestriding his ass, while his pretty, young,
only half-veiled wife trudges in the mud behind him, with
much ado keeping up with the donkey’s rapid gait, one
wonders which is the brute of the twain who go in front.
The four-footed one would never be so selfish.

LHI

Tue Arab donkey-boys are not often cruel to their lit-
tle charges, or, at least, cruelty has been much checked.
There has been a considerable change for the better in
Egypt since the English have been in the land. The
soldiers of the English garrisons have been forbidden to
ride any donkey which shows signs of ill-treatment or
saddle-galls, and the effect has been astonishing. Even the
Arab can catch the true commercial idea up to a certain
point. They are wonderful barterers, these Arabs, but
they have not, as a rule, a very clear conception of what
commerce means. So with all semi-civilized peoples. In
Mexico, once, at Guadalajara, I think, where we could
buy a dozen oranges for about five cents, the caterer of
our dining-car was unable to buy two hundred dozen at
any reduction whatever; the people did not understand
wholesale dealings, though oranges were rotting by the
cart-load. Nor would they sell him more than a certain
amount of mutton at a time, though they had flocks in
abundance, nor at any discount from the price demanded
by the pound. They failed to see the difference between
wholesale and retail. The Arab is much like this. He
will haggle over the price of a carpet for days, and beat
you out and out; but he is a poor business-man, after all.
Still, he soon saw his profit in treating his donkey well,
when he could not let him if he looked neglected. The
city asses are in good condition (in Cairo there are many
fine ones), and it seems to me that the instinct of cruelty

320 ILL-USING DONKEYS

is less marked in Africa than in Southern Europe. The
Oriental is indolent even in his neglect or abuse, and he is
better-natured. On the Bulak bridge, one day, I saw an
Arab brushed off his donkey by the load of a passing
camel. He fell into deep mud, and with an aggravating
thump. An Italian or a Spaniard would have got up and
instantly taken to beating the donkey, though it was in
nowise the little fellow’s fault. But the Arab merely
pulled himself together, expended a voluble Arabic ob-
jurgation on the owner of the camel, mounted his ass, and
went on with a laugh. I longed for a phonograph ; the
rattle of the words was so catching.

The donkey-boys have one habit, however, which is
thoroughly bad. Whenever the donkey is not at work his
head is tied back to the saddle, and is kept there hours at a
time. The result is that the poor little fellow bores upon
the tight rein, and suffers acutely from the unchanging
pressure on the mouth. If he can get near a wall or a
tree, he will lean his poor nose hard against it as a relief
to the cruel pain. It is said that the practice is necessary
to keep him and the others about him from going on a
stampede, especially near water; but the thing is over-
done. Hobbling would be equally easy and more effect-
ive. All donkeys have hard mouths as a consequence of
this habit. You can ride them on a loose rein, but if he
were determined to go you could not pull one up with a
windlass. :

I once had a really narrow escape with a hard-mouthed —
ass. I was riding on the side of the hill which, opposite
Jerusalem, makes one slope of the valley of Kedron, near
the village of Siloah. The hill is as steep as the roof of
a house, and is formed of huge masses of protruding
rock and gigantic bowlders, on and agaiust which the vil-
lage is built. So marked is the rocky nature of the hill-

BOY

TIRED DONKEY

iio <8 ee

‘
he
©
uy

i

A ROUGH RIDE 323

side that from the other side of the valley, half a mile
away, you can scarcely see that there is a village nestling
in the rocks. Well, my son on foot, and I on an ass,
followed by the usual ass-driver, were winding our way
among and around the rocks and bowlders, along tortuous
foot-paths so narrow that my knees were being constantly
excoriated though the ass kept the middle of the path,
when, to my disgust, Mr. Jack lifted his nose and his
voice in a “he-haw ” of delight, and began to gambol for-
ward ; and, to my horror, I perceived ahead of us, on a
lower path, to which a sane goat would hardly have vent-
ured to seek its way, so rugged was the ground, the
Jenny who had moved my mount to such unusual excite-
ment. Before I could gather the reins—for I had been
letting the imperturbable and surefooted little Jack take
his own course—the villain was on a gallop towards his

Delilah. I tried to pull him up; I sawed his mouth, I.

jerked, I strove; as well pull on a hitching-post. I re-
alized my situation at once. There was no danger of
Jack’s going down—an ass will clamber up or jump down
unheard-of obstacles—but the question was whether I
should not get brushed off, or the ill-girthed saddle turn in
this novel race. On we went, and on started Jenny, as if
it were royal sport. My stupid ass-driver, with a pious
but unhelpful “ Allah !” sat him down to watch the event.
His only stake was a little backsheesh which he would
forfeit if I was shot down the precipice to the Kedron,
three hundred feet below. My son unluckily was behind,
and could not get past us on the narrow pathway so as to
seize Jack by the head. With a clear road he could safely
have outstripped the ass, for the pace was not fast; but I
never rode so determined a creature. I have repeatedly
been run away with by horses, but I never felt such an
absolutely cast-iron mouth. Finally, Jack reached Jenny,

“

324 ‘*BACKSHEESH !”

and I flattered myself that I could pull him up. Not so;
on went Jenny, on followed Jack, “ he-hawing ” with hor-
rible persistence. Up went Jenny’s heels, smartly cuffing
Jack’s nose and chest; but this was mere play. Jack
kept biting at her rump, and she let fly her heels at every
alternate stride. All my efforts were now pointed at
avoiding these kicks, which several times struck my stir-
rup and my stirrup-leather, luckily a broad one, and Jenny
was unshod. I have since childhood felt an ambition to
visit the brook Kedron; but it now looked as if my am-
bition were to be all too summarily gratified. My son
was posting on behind; he could at any time have seized
Jack by the tail, but his tail was presumably almost as
tough as his mouth. Finally, the ass-driver’s appeal to
Allah prevailed. By a bold scramble up a rock and a
ten-foot jump on the other side, my son headed off Master
Jack, whom Miss Jenny’s dalliance had for an instant
delayed, and, by a smart blow across his face and a grab
at the reins, helped me stop the brute and drive off his
temptress. Why Jack’s jaw did not break with my jerks
or the severe curb he had I cannot explain, all I know
is that I was powerless. Give me a frightened horse
every time rather than an amorous Jack. On a broad
highway it would have been fun; but any one who has
ever clambered up to Siloah will understand the uncer-
tainties of the case during this far from interesting race.
Finally, as a wind-up, the ass-driver reached us and—amaz-
ing to relate, but comprehensible to all who have seen
him in his native haunts—actually extended his hand for
backsheesh ; no doubt fervently believing that his cry
to Allah had saved me rather than my son’s breakneck
jump. 3

The loads the little ass bears are often as peculiar as
they are heavy. I have seen him carrying a bulky lcad

A QUEER ANIMAL 395

of cane which trailed along the ground on either side and
behind him. The butts protruded beyond his head, so
that only from the front could you perceive the motive
power of the curious mass. From the side naught was to
be seen but an occasional ear thrust out from the
moving bulk; the rest of the donkey was lost. About
dark, one day near the Damascus gate at Jerusalem, I saw
a still more curious one. While musing on the mutability
of human, the degradation of Semitic affairs, and seek-
ing to decide the pros and cons of Gordon’s New Calvary,
a donkey suddenly appeared to me, coming from the
slaughtering ground opposite the Mount of Olives, laden
with fresh sheep-hides, wool side out. The little beast had
but his head protruding from the quivering, bloody mass ;
you could just catch sight of his pattering feet. In the
gloaming he was actually a startling creature, and all but
gave me a tumble from the wall on which I sat. Even
Cuvier, father of naturalists, could scarce have classified
and might properly have fled from him as a truly supernat-
ural entity— though, indeed, Cuvier is credited with once
readily classifying the devil. It was thus: His pupils, in-
credulous as to their master’s alleged contempt of his
Satanic Majesty, had dressed up one of their number as
like him as they could, had phosphorus-streaked and armed
him with the proper sheol pitchfork and other properties,
and had sent him into the philosopher’s garden one night to
scare him. ‘ Who are you ?” quoth Cuvier, as the appari-
tion leaped out from behind a bush. “I’m the devil and
ve come to eat you!” howled the fiend, with a dreadful
stage-caper. Startled for an instant, Cuvier quickly re-
covered himself, and contemptuously looking the soz disant
devil over from head to foot: “ Horns, tail, hoofs—grami-
nivorous; you can't do it!” said he, and turned upon his
heel. Unlike Cuvier, with me it became a perceptible case

i
“Sa

326 AN ARAB PROVERB

of demoralization before I classified my strange intruder.
My musing had prevented my noticing the untn Sta
sound of his gait.

Why the above should suggest it, I wot not; but here
is a terse and characteristic Arab proverb, which I pray
you to read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest.

“ Mankind is of four classes : |

‘He who knows not,and knows not that he knows not,
is a fool. Shun him.

“He who knows not, and knows that Ke knows not, is
simple. Teach him.

“He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep.
Wake him. |

“He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise.
Follow him.”

LIV

“ Sprak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judg-
ment and walk by the way,”’.sang Deborah of old; and
to-day the white ass bred by the sheiks of the desert is a
noble animal and highly prized. Such a one is shown in
the illustration. The rider of such an animal might well
sit in judgment, though to walk by the way is not often
the habit of the dignified Arab of our times. He will let
his wife wall, he himself prefers the comfort of a horse
or ass; and the latter is not infrequently chosen as the
better mount. The white ass of high quality commands,
as asses go, a long price; and for comfort on a journey
is almost unequalled—for speed unexcelled. On rough
ground he is more surefooted than any horse, and a very
goat for climbing. The specimen illustrated shows signs
of knees roughened by kneeling down in stony places,
and the marks of hobbling on his fore fetlocks. Many
are better cared for and have no such blemishes. But, as
a rule, all asses show scored knees, not from falling, but
from lying down where the ground is rough. There are
asses which are not surefooted— generally from age or
overwork—but the ass is wont to be so.

Perhaps as wonderful as the donkey, almost, is the
donkey-boy. He always accompanies his fare—you have
to give him unusual backsheesh to induce him to remain
behind; and however fast the donkey goes, the boy is al-
ways up. In fact, he tries to hurry the donkey all he can,
the sooner to finger his backsheesh. He trots along, carries

328 ARAB RUNNERS

a bundle of clover for the donkey, the bundles of his rider,
and sundry other things, and seems to care naught for dis-
tance or speed. He has no particular style of going, but
he gets there. He often breathes hard, but seems to mind
it not a whit. The farthest on a stretch I ever rode a
donkey at a sharp gait was to the Pyramids from Cairo,
eight good miles. This distance in an hour and a quarter
was child’s play to the lad, who had wind enough to keep
after his donkey in both senses; and on the way home
was yet more lively. I have often wondered whether
they live long or not; you see them unnumbered years
old; but were these old men ever real donkey-boys? It is
no sin to prevaricate to a dog of a Christian; so that the
old man’s assurance that he has worked at the trade for
anywhere from fifty to eighty years goes for nothing.
Another great footman is the sais, or outrunner. This
man is often the finest type of a running animal. He is
clad in purple and fine linen. His nether garments are of
light thin white goods, loose and gathered at the knee,
and so made as not to hamper his movements. He wears
a shirt often trimmed with the finest laces; a sleeveless
zouave jacket of velvet, fairly glistening with gold em-
broidery, covers his body, and a gorgeous sash binds his
waist. He wears a snug fancy fez-like embroidered cap,
or sometimes a light turban. In this gay and costly dress
he precedes his master’s carriage, ostensibly to make room
through the crowd, really for show; and on the road will
run at a seven or eight mile an hour gait as long as the
horses. Two sais running together is the proper thing
for a swell; but the carriage to our eye is not always as

- neatly turned.as the sais.

The Arabs are a light, lithe, strong, and Shri: race, as
well as handsome beyond cavil. They have many fine
physical qualities. The Arab’s feet are wont to be large,

ie ¢
Ma secre an AE te

WELL-BRED SADDLE-ASS, CATRO

rie

SLIGHT BUT ACTIVE 331

but that is because he walks barefoot ; his hands are often
made coarse by labor and neglect ; but his joints are neatly
turned, and his bone is small and dense; his muscular struct-
ure, while lacking the fulness of fatter nations, gives him
considerable strength, and he has rather exceptional en-
durance. The same climate which produced the Arabian
horse has produced the Arabian runner. He lives under
skies where simple food and little of it will keep the hu-
man animal in good health and strong. He has to eat
purely for alimentation; he does not raise enough to en-
able him to overeat; his stomach remains in better con-
dition, and if reduced to slender rations he does not so
soon become a starveling.

LV

Tue saddles in Egypt have no special type, though all
partake of the general Oriental features. You see every-
thing from a donkey’s to an English saddle on the horses.
One common type has the sitting-place round like the out-
side of a huge water-pipe. From the front projects an up-
right two-inch square perpendicular piece to serve as pom-
mel; the high and slanting cantle is scooped out much
after the fashion of a giant oyster-shell. The flaps are
long and square, and the stirrups hang inside them. In
the country well up the Nile the saddle-tree is simple,
the bearings made much like those of the old-type Ind.
ian, but with a pommel and cantle less prominent than
even a McClellan. The two bearing-pieces are whittled out
crudely, and shrunk in place by covering the whole with
rawhide, leaving the saddle open down thé back, like a
very illy-made, unfinished Whitman tree. Under it goes
a folded blanket; over it no end of rugs, all in pictu-
resquedisarray. The stirrup-leathers are hung well for-
ward, and the girth is kept so loose that it is often
fastened only by a packthread. I have not seen a single
well-cirthed horse in Egypt ridden by a native. To us,
who believe in keeping a saddle in place and then sticking
to it, this seems odd; but the natives do not appear to
heed the matter, and their saddles do not slip, even in
violent turns and twists. The bit is, of course, a gag,
and the trappings are as gaudy as they are apt to be
dirty and rotten.

BALANCE IN RIDING 333

I have often wondered at this insecure girthing, but the
secret seems to lie in the man’s holding on bodily with his
heels just below the semicircle of the horse’s barrel. As
you could not pull off from a cylinder a steel rod bent
around it, and open less than a semicircle, so, if his mus-
cles are rigid enough to keep his heels well pinned into
the steed’s flanks, will the Arab remain firmly fixed in
place, girths or no girths. He does no more than half of
the rest of us, who often wear dulled spurs so as more
conveniently to hold on, or who else bring our horse in
with bloody flanks when we have not consciously used
our persuaders at all.

There is a good deal in the nice balance of horseman-
ship, and a strong grip will often hold the saddle in place.
One day, many years ago, I was being shown the paces of
a famous stallion at Mount Sterling, Kentucky. Just as
the rider started out his one girth broke; but far from
stopping, he only bent down, seized the dangling girth,
threw it across the horse’s withers and went on quite un-
concernedly, showing the fine gait of his mount to per-
fect advantage, and keeping his saddle in place merely
by grip and balance.

The lack of the graceful burnoose makes the Egyptian
Arab a less attractive horseman than his kin of Algeria
and Tunis. But I have seen some very neat-turned horses
in Upper Egypt. I remember in particular a fine four-
year-old I saw ridden by an Arab at Belianeh. I was
prosaically plodding along on my donkey towards the
temple, at Abydos, of old Seti of blessed artistic memory,
when I ran across this man. A friendly nod, an approv-
ing glance at his handsome iron-gray, and a couple of
cigarettes, quickly induced him to exhibit his horse at
his best. He was almost the only Arabian I have seen
whose head was properly in hand, who was well-gathered,

—— oe

————

304 A FINE COLT

and who did not constantly throw up his nose. The colt
could piaffer, gallop in place, traverse and pirouette very
handily, and possessed the highest grace. His owner had
a light hand and a fine seat, and seemed very fond and
proud of his mount. I talked with him in signs suf-
ficiently for him to see that I understood what he was
doing, and he seemed equally surprised and glad to find a
Frank who did so. After a few moments I managed to
make him understand by signs what I wanted him to
have his horse do; and for a mile or two my companions —
and I enjoyed a real treat. iI think, however, that I had ©
the best of it, as they were admiring the rhythmic move-
ments of the steed, and I was appreciative of both these
and his own and his master’s intelligence. But the per-
formance was only individual cleverness; there was ap-
parently no teachable method in it. Some things were
manifestly done the wrong way, and at times it was the
good spirits and light feet of his Arabian which were in-
ducing the performance rather than the indication given
by the rider.

We must not leave Egypt without a glance at one of
the camel-riders. The stories about the performances of
camels are conflicting. I can vouch for some of the crack
performances of horses; I can only quote what I hear
about camels. There is, both in looks and action, as much
difference between a running and a porter camel as be-
tween a cart-horse and a thorough-bred. The porter-
camel is a thorough lowrdeau. His body is a misshapen,
bulky mass; his hair is coarse; his limbs are big-boned
and awkwardly turned; his neck is more ungainly than
need be; his head unintelligent or vicious, though often
patient or pathetic. If aged, his under-lip hangs down
and flops in a most distressing manner. He is strong and
able, and it is from this that proceeds his endurance, for

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SPEEDY CAMELS 337

he lacks grit, and if overloaded will sullenly refuse to rise.
The running-camel, on the other hand, shows blood in
every point. Though the outlines of the camel cannot
be said to be attractive, this creature, if you examine him,
has precisely the same points as a greyhound or a racer.
A fine, bony head, full nostril and throttle, no extra meat,
enormous thorax, which girths even bigger than the por-
ter’s, slender abdomen, almost suggesting a lack of mus-
cle in the loins, fine shapely limbs, with shin-bones and
sinews as clean cut as a two-year-old in training; higher-
standing feet, but with greater power to spread, so as to
get a proper footing on the sand; and, above all, a look of
gentleness and yet courage, which is unmistakable in all
high-bred mammals. His saddle qualities correspond to
his physical. To ride a porter-camel is a task requiring
as much stomach as to fish for cod in a ground-swell
To ride a runner is, when you learn the trick, not dis-
agreeable, but, like riding a horse, the trick must be learn-
ed. The camelriders have a way of putting on a sort of
overhead check, and attaching it to the runner's nose-ring,
which shortens his gait down into a comparatively easy
amble. As to speed and endurance I can testify solely
from hearsay. The specimens illustrated are from Upper
Egypt. You can plainly see the running animal

I have sought no special opportunities of testing camels
on long journeys. My taste does not lie that way. My
riding of camels has been Philistinic, not professional.
But in lands where all your food comes in to market
a-camel-back ; where, whenever you go out riding or driv-
ing, you must make way for, or at least give half the road
to, a string of a dozen or twenty camels every half mile:
where these beasts are the railroad, the steamboat. and
almost the electric cars— hold, it is our little friend, the
ass, who is this, and better than the electric car he is:
22

308 ENDURANCE OF CAMELS

where the camel is all things to all men, except only as an
article of food, one has to take a species of interest in even
him. I have been able, I think, to gauge the horse fairly
well; I cannot say that I know more about camels than
the superficial and apt-to-be unreliable hearsay of his fel-
low-man, so to speak, has given me. But I have been
told by English army officers in Egypt, who have become
familiar with what camels can do, that the performance
heretofore quoted, of over one hundred miles a day, kept
up for a long period, is not beyond belief.

LVI

THoucH in my journeys through the Orient I have
had the good-fortune to see somewhat of fancy stock, I
have not purposed to pay much heed to the studs of the
great princes; the horse of the people interests me more.
One could scarcely expect a man to gain much of a knowl-
edge of the horse of North America by taking him
through the stables of Leland Stanford or over the Alex-
ander farm; by driving him out to Milton to see “ Arion”
and “ Nancy Hanks;” or by personally conducting him
through the great training stables of the men who carry
off the big racing events of the year. Nor does a man
who describes the choicest specimens of the Arabian
world convey to you any idea of the Arabian as most of
us would see him. To pass in review the inmates of the
imperial stables, or the stud of the Khedive, or even to
tell about an exceptional specimen found in the tents of a
Bedouin sheik out in the Arabian desert, is to portray a
faultless creature—a sort of equine Thaddeus of Warsaw.
A man may fall down and worship some of the beautiful
Arabians, like the one in the illustration, for instance, who
belongs to the Sultan, and whose lines, standing, are as
perfect as his grace in motion. He is fleet and able; he
is gentle and intelligent, and he possesses the rare artistic
beauty all must delight in except those who reduce the
horse down to the level of a sumpter-animal or a gambling-
tool. He is deservedly an object of our admiration. But
so we may go into ecstasies over many of our own noble
sires or great prize-winners.

i =

340 THE BEST ARABIAN

This exceptional creature is not, however, the horse we
want to know; it is the average horse and rider all over
the world which most appeals to us—the horse we our-
selves might own. At all events, the latter is the horse
I have proposed to chat with you about. You can find
out the merits of the famous Arabians from other writers,
for there are many such.

It has been habitual to give us accounts of only the
splendid horse of the sheiks and emirs; and many, in-
deed, of those who have painted them have not been stu-
dents of the race. While there is a color of truth in all
that we have heard about the Arabian, while the excep-
tion is as marvellous in his way as a “ Flora Temple” or
a “ Black Maria,” the average Arabian is by no means supe-
rior to our own average horse—scarcely his equal. He is,
moreover, so small as to be useless for any but light per-
formance—an ordinary carriage to go a distance must
have three or even four horses ; he would not do our work
at all.

The exceptional Arabian is unquestionably a fine fel-
low; but—and I think I may claim some experience, as
I have seen and used horses in a great many parts of the
world—apart from a certain attractiveness we readily
grant him, I do not think that the best Arabian is nearly
as good as the best hunter, the best trotter, the best racer,
or the best saddle-horse of England or America; and Iam
quite sure that I would stake my money on a hundred
broncos of the Western plains, ridden in their own way by
cowboys, against a hundred Arabians of the Syrian desert,
ridden by Bedouins—for a pull of one to five hundred
miles under conditions fair to each. This may be a strong
statement, but I believe it to be a just one. 3

I by no means underrate the Arabian. In addition to
his beauty he possesses many sterling qualities, and has

AN ARABIAN SIRE

+.

<

COMPARATIVE VALUE 343

retained in full measure that wonderful power of trans-
mitting his virtues which has made his impress so strong
on all the stock we most prize at home. But he has never
been intelligently bred by the Arab world at large. We
may not, perhaps, deny that a few of the Arabs of the
Syrian desert have kept his qualities unsoiled ; but there
is no proof that he is any better to-day than he ever was.
We know that our thorough-bred stock is better than it
used to be, better than its desert ancestry. We know that
whenever our second-raters have met the best Arabians
they have conquered them even on their own soil, in their
own climate, and at their own distances. So far as such
things can be measured, we know that our performances
in England and America are quite unequalled by the Ara-
bian; and we have good cause to believe that, for our
purposes, our common run of horses as much excel in
usefulness the common run of Arabians as they do in
size. Moreover, I do not believe that there was ever an
Arabian foaled which could perform the feat of the little
El Paso-Chihuahua express pony. I am quite ready to
be corrected—by a proper record.

Right here let me disclaim any value which may be
placed on the recent so-called Cowboy Race from Ne-
braska to Chicago. It was not a cowboy race, but a S. P.
C. A. race. Fancy sixty miles a day being the winning
gait! Why,a decent cavalry brigade can march sixty
miles a day for a month. I speak on behalf of those men
who know the real value of broncos and plains horses, and
the real capacity of the cowboy to ride. For a man to
ride a distance race with an agent of the 8. P. OC. A. at
his elbow to keep him from committing Berghlary savors
keenly of the ridiculous.

eet ema

LVII

WueEn we reach Syria we approach as near the home
of the best type of the Arabian horse as the traveller is
apt to get. The nomad Bedouins or Kabyle tribes beyond
the Jordan, who winter in the Arabian desert and wander
northward to escape its summer heat and droughts, prob-
ably own the best blood that exists. It is here that the
French have found the fine stallions they are using to re-
trieve the failing stock of Algeria. These Bedouins are
not numerous ; twenty-five thousand souls will cover all
the tribes.

I believe that these Bedouins have kept nearer than
any other people to the purest strain of Arabian blood.
You must ride for many days, and put up with a good
deal of privation, heat, and dirt to reach the habitat of
this truly noble beast, but it is worth your while. The
Arabs beyond the Jordan are practically not subject to
the Turkish rule. They are strictly nomads, and for sub-
sistence raise camels, asses, and horses, beeves, sheep, and
goats. They come and go at will; they bulldoze the
agricultural peasantry into giving them a large modicum
of their crops as tribute, and the poor soil-tillers find it a
far safer means of securing quiet than to rely on the Sul-
tan’s shallow pretence of protection; they demand _ back-
sheesh even from those who only go down from Jerusa-
lem to Jericho, lest they, too, should fall among thieves ;
they make war on each other at will; they are as free as
the Sioux of 1840, The simple trip to the Dead Sea has

a
;
i
‘

SYRIAN BEDOUINS 345

to be made under escort of a Bedouin, as a species of
backsheesh to these wild tribes, while to go beyond the
Jordan necessitates as complicated a previous diplomatic
negotiation with the sheiks through whose territory you
desire to pass as the transfer of a European province.
You cannot deal with one; all the tribes are at war, or,
at least, in a state of armed neutrality ; but you may deal
through one with the rest. After you get into their
midst you are handed from one tribal limit to another
with as much ceremony as if you were a distinguished
State prisoner-—which, indeed, you are. There is no risk
to your life, unless you should fall in with warring tribes,
and then little; but you do well to carry no valuables.
Having made your trade and agreed as to backsheesh,
the payment of the half of which you are generally ad-
vised to reserve to the end, you may commit yourself con-
fidently to your swarthy-skinned guides. Particularly if
you are fond of horses will you excite their sympathy.
Many is the suspicious-looking Arab who has hailed me
as a brother, because out of two horses I instinctively
picked one with the better points. Many is the fraternal
embrace I have been fain to submit to. But all this apart.
Iam not writing a book of travels.

The Syrian Bedouin is in some respects a better type
of man than the Arab of Africa. To begin with, he has
more respect for his women. No traveller sees anything
of an Arab’s household ; it is discourteous, and not always
safe to refer to his wives. When I was visiting my friend
the caliph—not of Bagdad, but of M’Kalta—I was much
tempted to ask some questions as to his family. The Ko-
ran allows him four wives—how many he has I know not.
His two sons, one fourteen and one eight years old, I
saw a number of times; he was proud to introduce them
tome. On several occasions a couple of little girls, who

346 THE BEDOUIN’S FAMILY

had escaped from the women’s end of the khan, came run-
ning out into the enclosure. I beckoned to them, and they
came to me; but my conversation with them was as lim-
ited as it would have been with a French dog or cat.
By-the-way, do you know the French, or German, or Ital-
ian, or Spanish equivalent of “ Pussy, pussy, pussy?” I
have frequently been stumped in my attempted conversa-
tions with foreign animals by lack of knowledge of their
patois. And they resent the foreign tone or words more
than children. Well, as I said, the little girls came to me
and were soon reconciled by a bit of chocolate. I always
carry chocolate in my pocket on a tramp. Half a cubic
inch of good chocolate —I like Menier the best, though
this is not a paid advertisement—will stay the stomach
better than anything I know. The little girls, despite
their odd garments, were just like children anywhere ; but
soon a serving-man came and lugged them away. There
were, | have no doubt, a number of women in the khan,
but while I was there not a sight of them could I get.
All the service was by men. I dare say I was wise not
to make inquiries. I might have offended the sense of
propriety of my delightful host.

To return to the Bedouin, I am told that he pays con-
siderable heed to his wives and daughters; his first wife
is held in special honor, and really rules his house—or, as
he lives in tents, one might say, his outfit. With the Syri-
an Bedouin the woman has the same soul that Allah gave
the man. She works, but is not degraded to a state of
slavery. Her toil is mostly within the tent, but it may be
with the herds. In any event, the man does the heavy
work, the woman merely helps.

LVIII

Tuere is, as I have been told and have already stated,
a curious equine distinction between the African and
Asiatic Arabs, in that the latter ride mares, while the for-
mer use stallions for saddle-work. I have reason to be-
lieve that far out on the Libyan Desert proper the same
rule as to the preference for mares prevails; but on the
edge of the desert the stallion is apparently the most
used. Among the Syrian Bedouins the stallion is an alto-
gether secondary animal. The mare is the darling of the
sheik, the pet of the family. She is treated as a child, far
better really than the children. One or two of the most
promising of the stallions are kept, the rest are sent into
the cities for sale. A mare is never sold. This accounts
for the fact that the tourist, who never gets far beyond
the cities, sees only stallions. The price paid for a good
average four-year-old horse delivered in Damascus or Jeru-
salem runs from thirty to fifty dollars; a fine horse costs
seventy to one hundred dollars; there is no price put on a
“stunner; you must negotiate for him as for a homestead
—perhaps as you would for a wife.

The high-bred Arabian Desert mares seem always to
be kept in condition. They are spare, and their naturally
small frame makes them appear more so. “ You raise
buffaloes, not horses!” an Arab of the desert will sneer-
ingly say to the owner of a fine, well-rounded, picture-book
stallion. The splendid beauty of the Arabian, as we un-
derstand it,is to him an utter delusion. He has but one

348 MARES NEVER SOLD

test — race, and the speed, gentleness, and courage which
ought to come of race. The Arabians which the ordinary
traveller picks out as the finest are those which fill the
eye; the best mare in the desert may be far from a beau-
ty; she is “a rum ’un to look at, but a devil to go.”

The Bedouin cannot be induced to sell a mare. It is in
her that he takes chief pride; through her he keeps the
pedigree. If forced by debt or distress to part with her,
he has the right to stipulate that she shall be bred to such
and such a horse, and that he shall have the first mare-
foal. He will never ride a horse when he can ride a mare.
Most of the Bedouins who are put on escort duty ride
horses, but this is because all the travellers do the same,
and it is not convenient to mix the sexes; but let him get
beyond the reach of the current of tourists and it is his
mare he bestrides; it is to her that he trusts his life.
Geldings exist, but they are rare. I remember to have
seen but two or three in Syria. |

It will, I fear, be a disappointment to the reader for me
to say that the common Arabian of Syria is so nearly like
the bronco that the Bedouin might be set down as a cow-

_ boy—bar clothes and seat and intelligence. So far as the

horse goes you might mix a hundred of each in a big cor-
ral, leave them alone a month, and it would be hard for
any but an expert to pick out either kind. By common
Arabian I mean the saddle-horse that is used in every-day
life, the equine vim du pays. Take a hundred of the ay-
erage of these horses, and seventy of them will be bron-
cos; the rest will show some marks of what we Occident-
als call better blood. There are two or three points of
difference: the Arabian croup is higher, the barrel back
of the girths less swollen, the withers less prominent, the
ewe neck by a shade less pronounced. But the work-a-
day Arabian of Syria plainly shows his cousinship with

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BI

HN

BEDOUIN ESCORT FROM JERUSALEM TO JERICHO

rae ve

KIND TREATMENT 351

the cow-pony of our plains. He shows, too, the old steppes
type to which all horses tend to revert, as the dog does to
the jackal type, unless bred by man. The fact is by no
means so prominent in Africa. There you are less wont
to travel on horseback; in Syria you must do it, and the
country is so full of saddle-beasts--among them mul-
titudes of poor ones—that you cannot fail to observe the
fact.

For the common Syrian hack it must, however, be said
that he is tractable. His long acquaintance with an easy-
going and kindly race of men has vastly improved him.
His manners are just what the bronco’s are not. He will
not buck, or bite, or strike, or “fool.” In all this he is
vastly the superior of the wild horse, whose natural want
of manners has been increased manifold by the naturally
cruel Indian and by the cowboy, who is too busy to devote
time to gentling him. Like Artemus Ward with the tiger,
he is apt to fondle him with a‘club. To the Arab, how-
ever, time is nothing; his climatic indolence leads to in-
nate kindness. So far as capacity to go is concerned, I have
already pronounced in favor of the bronco. But for a
pleasant mount commend me to the placid - eyed, sweet-
willed Arabian, whose ample courage is tempered with
moderation, and whose desire to do your will is shown in
his every act. If there is anything which [| as heartily de-
spise as I honestly admire, it is a bronco.

And I find that I am not alone in this. Out on the
ranches, old settlers “hate a bronk,’ and you cannot hire
one to ride an “outlaw,” as they call a bronco who is so
tricky as to be really dangerous. On the old-fashioned
ranges a cowboy is expected to take one or two question-
able ponies among the six or eight he rides; but he won’t
take any more than his quota. A man who doesn’t ob-
ject to an over-allowance of ‘‘bronk” can get a job any day

352 THE ARABIAN’S GAITS

anywhere. But there are few of them, except on the
newer ranges.

Unless for the saddle, the Arabian is not worth his salt.
He is too light for draught. For the saddle, the Ken-
tucky type is better; as to gaits, infinitely to be preferred.
When I say Kentucky, I mean the best class of Southern-
bred saddle-horses everywhere. I am naturally led to
speak of Kentucky as I am more familiar with that State
than the others. The gaits of the Arabian horse are not
as pure as those of the Southern. He has but two which
may be called perfect—the walk and gallop. His flat-
footed walk is undeniably good ; on the whole, better than
the average in the South, and that is saying a great deal.
His amble or rack is good, but neither rapid nor even
and reliable in individuals. He has rarely a canter proper ;
he always gallops. To “canter all day in the shade of an
apple-tree” is an unknown art to him; he must go a given
speed. JI have not seen a single slow, easy, rhythmical
canter in Asia or Africa, though I have seen a Bedouin at
a fantasiya plant his spear, and canter around it without
quitting his hold. This was, however, at great exertion to
man and beast, not performed as my “ Patroclus” used to
do it—quietly, well-collected, and without strain. The Ara-
bian’s gallop is rapid and neatly poised; he gathers hand-
ily and quickly; but he has not the true racing stride.
Still, for saddle -work, his gallop is good. Except these
two, the Arabian has no gait worth mention. His amble
or rack is slow; he cannot start out into a sharp, fast,
twelve-mile rack. The running-walk as a steady, trained,
uniform gait, is unknown, though some individual horses
happen to blunder into it. Nor has the Arabian saddle-
beast a trot, unless trained for a Frank.

Saddle-gaits are a matter of intelligent education. Un-
questionably, in his sharp and sudden manceuvres in the

SYRIAN SADDLES 858

Fantasiya, the Arabian is an expert. Buta good polo-rider
will beat him even at this game, and in any event it is not
pure saddle-work. It is like any other specialty, as hunting
or racing. For unadulterated saddle-work I have owned
Kentucky horses far and away ahead of anything I have
seen among Arabs, and I do not claim to have had prince-
ly horses, but only the best of the average run, well-
trained.

There is one exception to the rule I have given. The
Cretan horse often has a fast rack. He goes the gait in
perfect purity, and is said to be able to carry a man twelve
miles and over within the hour. When the ordinary good
horse brings ten or twelve pounds sterling, this little fel-
low, who differs only in ability to go from his cousins, and
is otherwise a mean-looking, low-headed runt, will always
find a purchaser at forty pounds and upwards. I could
learn nothing of his ancestry.

The Syrian saddle has many varieties, none very marked.
From what resembles a high-cantled, leather-covered Eng-
lish saddle to one of modified Oriental type, you find all
kinds and sizes. The saddle is rather apt to be covered
with a sheepskin, so as to conceal its peculiarities. The
man’s seat is the same as in Africa, with very short. stir-
rups, knees thrust way forward, and heels dug into the
horse’s flanks. There is no pretence to hold on by the
knees; the grip is solely with calf and heel. Most sad-
dles, if you will use long stirrups, can be made fairly com-
fortable to a small man; but no one, not used to it, can
ride @/’ Arabe. There is no chance to move in an Arab’s
saddle, and a sudden jerk, if it unseats you, does so effect-
ually ; in an English saddle there is much room for read-
justing your seat after a sudden jerk. In the one you are
fairly kicked out of the saddle; in the other you may re-
cover yourself. The saddle in Asia Minor has a leather-

23

354 SYRIAN BITS

covered, half-military seat, semicircular on side-view, with
a pommel very full and wide between the knees, and more
uncomfortable, if possible, than the Syrian.

The Syrian bit is the curious gag used in many places
in the Orient. It has two branches; the curb-chain is a
ring permanently jointed to the top of the tongue - arch.
In putting the bit in the horse’s mouth, you slip this ring
over his chin. One size does for all horses; but as the
Arab is not a three-legged rider, leaving his reins loose at
all times, the kind of bit is of not great importance; it
will not gall. But it is a bit a heavy jerk of which may
break the bone at the back of the horse’s jaw. The bridle
is always a fancy one, often trimmed with shell-work, and
the breast -strap and saddle -trappings are wonderful in
their tawdry picturesqueness. Many a Bedouin, however,
even if he owns a noble mare, is too poor to boast a bridle.
He rides with a rope-halter only. The intelligent creature
does not even need that, the voice is enough. Colts are
broken to saddle and taught their gaits with halter alone.
If, as rarely happens, a colt 1s fractious, the rope is passed
through his mouth. A Southerner, whose children ride
the colts at pasture with a mere stick, understands this
well. It is half docility, half daily familiarity of the horse
with his master. This habit of docile breaking is thou-
sands of years old in the Orient. Light native cavalry of
all ancient countries used to ride without bridles, guiding
solely by voice and legs. Such was Hannibal’s famous
Numidian horse, and we know how wonderfully they
could gallop around the enemy. Their favorite tactics
was to make a sudden attack, fly at the first bold resist-
ance, and attack and fly again, until they had wearied
their opponents and laid them open to real assault. This
argues immense tractability in their steppes ponies. It is
a similar tactics to that in which the Cossack is an adept.

TRIMMING TAILS 355

The rich coloring of the Bedouin’s clothes and trappings
is a never-ending source of delight to the eye. Under our
own less sunny skies the showy rags would wear upon the
artistic fancy. Not so in the Orient ; and when a man is
rich and well-mounted, and clothes himself and his horse
with purple and fine linen, he is gude for sair e’en. One
never tires of looking at him.

We are apt to imagine that the Arab leaves his horse
as Allah made him; that he would scorn to cut his mane
or tail. This is far from the truth. The Arab hogs his
horse’s mane quite often; he bangs his tail; he squares it
short with a small switch hanging down from the centre
—and a ridiculous looking tail it is, confined mostly to
Jerusalem and vicinity ; and, worse than all, he sometimes
trims the tail short like a foal’s tail not yet grown, to give
his horse a youthful appearance, and under the mistaken
impression as well that the hair by this trimming will
grow longer and fuller. Fashion is as marked a tyrant
among the Bedouins as in Rotten Row or in Central Park.

LIX

Tue Bedouin is full of horse superstitions. His horse-
lore is much like that of our old-fashioned liveryman of a
past generation. I don’t refer to the intelligent Yankee
breeder; I mean the humdrun, half-vet, half-trader, who
knew of but one cure for the staggers, and that was to sell
the horse. The Bedouin, like this happily extinct horse-
man, knows a horse’s habits and diseases by observation
solely ; he has no idea of anatomy, Every species of wind
trouble to which the horse is subject he merely describes
as “having something wrong inside him.” He treats a
horse on a system of old saws. For lameness he has but
one remedy, the hot iron. His horse will work to twenty
or even twenty-five years old, but he thinks that he
‘“orows weaker” after twelve. In buying he looks more
at marks than points. I have never yet seen an Arab
critically examine a horse from head to heel as we do,
each point in proper succession. Probably they satisfy
themselves as to a horse’s race and general soundness, and
then only give heed to marks. But they talk marks more
than points. Soundness is assumed, and as a rule exists in
this exceptionally hardy race.

One very intelligent Arab sheik with whom I sat down
at the old, old Jordan ford east of Jericho, where all the
pilgrims bathe, and with whom I conversed for hours
during the mid-day heat, when I asked him what he
looked for first in a horse he was going to buy, told me
with the utmost gravity the “color of his feet.” He

ARAB SUPERSTITIONS 357

probably meant providing the horse was otherwise all
right, but I could not get him to say so. I stood beside
his horse, and laid my hand on his several points one by
one; but the old man would not even nod an assent as if
he understood me; he kept to his text. “Four white
feet,” said he, “are good; with a star, very good.” What,
thought I, becomes of our old proverb anent the crows?
“Tf he has the two fore-feet and the near hind-foot white,
it is good,” he went on, rolling a fresh cigarette between
every two sentences; “ but if it is the off hind-foot which
is white, he is a bad horse—never buy him. He will cost
you your life; your enemy will overtake and slay you, your
son will be an orphan.” Here came in a pause awful in
its length and intensity, as if I were to be myself visited
by this dire calamity. ‘“ Two hind-feet white and a star
are good; so is the near hind-foot white; but beware
of the off hind-foot alone white!” Again an awful pause.
“To have the two near feet white is excellent, because
then you must mount and dismount ‘over the white.’
And a dark horse with dark legs is good.” Not a word
could I get out of this old sheik about points; on marks
he was strong. I was told that he was highly respected
by the Arabs for his knowledge of horses. I could not see
why. No judge on the woolsack was ever more reverend
or more positive; but his dignity seemed to me to be in
inverse ratio to his horse wisdom.

It is, by-the-way, curious that this white foot business
was well known in England, and, to a certain extent, was
an article of faith, some three hundred years ago. It most
probably came over with the early Turkish importations
—“ Turkish” being a broad term, and covering a vast
territory. :

I asked the old sheik what his horse weighed. “A
Botte weighs one hundred rot’l,” said he, after a prolonged

i

308 DELIBERATENESS

pause ; not his horse particularly, but any horse, he meant.
A rot’l is about five pounds. “ But why?’ I asked. ‘Oh,
because a horse weighs as much as two men,” was his long
cogitated reply. “ But,” I quickly objected, “ this horse
weighs as much as four or five or six men!” “Yes,” he
gravely agreed, after waiting an exceptional time to make
up for my hasty interpellation, “but I mean a very big
man.” His ideas on all points relating to a horse were
about as definite as this. In treating a horse for sickness,
the Arabs are very children. But their horses, out of
doors, and standing on the earth at all times, are as hardy
as the bronco, and need scant medical treatment.

The Arab keenly enjoys conversation, but it must be
deliberate and long drawn out. Our Occidental haste, in
talk and trade alike, they deem objectionable in a high
degree — almost insulting. You may go into a carpet-
store and haggle and haggle by the half-day, drink the
coffee invariably offered you, and even if you do not buy,
providing always you are very slow and familiar and
chatty, your visit will be deemed a courtesy, and all the
trouble the store-keeper and his men have taken to spread
out a hundred rugs for your inspection will be quite com-
pensated for by your kind words and pleasant smiles.
But if you just go in, look at a few, and hastily purchase,
or bid on one or more, he deems you almost an intruder
on his privacy. He wants the fun of haggling and talk-
ing. The profit is a mere incident —though it be his
daily bread. In those bazaars which are kept by Greeks
or by other non -Orientals, this rule does not apply; but
it does with all self-respecting Eastern merchants. This
is of a part with their extreme slowness in coming to a
point in conversation.

Color, in the Bedouin’s estimation, ranks: bay, chestnut
or sorrel, blue (comprising iron-gray, blue-roan, gray, and

ee ee ee

ee be

AN ARAB SAW | 359

white), brown, black, dun. The last is considered soft.
An old weazened sheik, on escort duty with me, once re-
cited to me the following verse, which, not knowing
Arabic, I must assume the Gallic privilege of misspelling
in English letters. I wrote it down according to the
sound, and got a dragoman who knew a little Arabic, and
spoke French with a most un-Parisian brogue, to translate
it for me. The sheik said it was the production of Antar,
a celebrated Bedouin emir—a prince and poet—of many
ages ago:
‘El zourk merkoub ilamabhrah

Blue horses are steeds for the Emirs,

Ouar kabham koul ameer ouakoul ofli

And princes and governors ride them;

Amma elshougre lantarou besedig

® The sorrel, if they fly, I believe it;

Bennat elreth maahn hum zalaly

The daughters of the wind fly less fast.

Amma eldouhm zidouhoum aliga

To the black horses you must give more food;

Kalouhoum la itmat elliali

Use them for ambuscades on dark nights.

Koul elkhail lilhamra t’baha

All horses trail behind the bay,

Mit’l el sit tik dimha el gouari

Like the Lady the servants serve her.”

Of such equine notions the Arab mind is full. Before
giving me the rhyme the sheik solemnly informed me that
the horse wisdom of ages lay concealed therein. The con-
cealment I believe. I told this sheik one of our own time-
worn driving rhymes; but with the dragoman’s small
Latin and less Greek, he did not seem to catch its mean-
ing: .
“Uphill hurry me not,

Downhill flurry me not,

On the level spare me not,
In the stable forget me not.”

360 QUEER BACKSHEESH

He may or may not have got the translation correctly ;
at all events he faintly smiled as if the exchange of verse
for verse had been an unfair one; but he was generously
inclined for the moment and did not claim the balance in
backsheesh. Next day, however, he did so. That verse
of his cost me many shekels. And it was apparently with
a clear conscience that the old sheik took his “ present.”
He evidently felt that he had given me a vast deal of
horse-lore, which in my own country would stand me in
good stead.

The Oriental is not necessarily a beggar. If you get
out into the interior you see little of it—not enough at
least to be annoying. The cry for backsheesh was created
and is generally stimulated by the European tourists; the
new -comers like to see the native’s excitement, as they
elbow each other to reach the backsheesh - distributing
“personally conducted” Cookie or Gazer. While the
Bedouin by no means objects to a “ present,” he does not

naturally ask for it by annoying means. But short con- |

tact with the average globe-trotter will spoil any people
among whom coin is rare.

One of my friends told me an amusing case of back-
sheesh to which: he fell a victim in Constantinople. He
went into a tobacco-bazaar to get a package of tobacco
for smoking. Its value was ten piasters (a piaster is five
cents or a “nickel”’). As he entered he found a solemn
conclave of Turks sitting cross-legged in a semicircle
enjoying their coffee and water-pipes. He had been in
the bazaar before, and thinking he recognized the owner,
strode up to him and handing him a half-medjidji piece,
uttered the mystic word which conveyed the idea of the
article he sought, which, not being a Turk or a smoker, I
cannot quote. The Moslem calmly received the piece,
which summarily disappeared in the folds of his volumi-

cate, ws niepeat

ru

“SOLD 361

nous skirts, and then quietly removed his pipe-stem from
his mouth and pointed with it to another man, who was
the real owner of the bazaar, and to him my friend re-
peated the mystic monosyllable. The owner slowly arose,
got the article and handed it to the purchaser with a
salaam, and then extended his hand for pay. My friend
pointed to the Turk to whom he had given the half-
medyjidji and prepared to leave. This individual sat im-
perturbably there, as if unconscious of what was going
on. The bazaar owner shook his head and went and
stood athwart the door. My friend strode upon the de-
linquent to make him disgorge; but the Turk quietly
looked up, again removed his pipe-stem from his mouth,
~and calmly enunciated “ backsheesh.” ‘ You have made
me a present; Allah will reward you!” he meant. My
friend stood for a moment in doubt whether or not to
clean out the whole crowd, as, being a big fellow rather
handy with his mawleys, he. might easily have done.
Then the ludicrousness of the whole affair came over him,
he burst into a loud laugh, gave the bazaar-owner another
half-medjidji, and retired, the wiser by quite as much as
he had lost. Like the open-sesame of the shilling in Eng-
land, coin as backsheesh is acceptable and accepted in
every part of the Orient.

LX

In feeding and watering the horse the Bedouins seem to
us to be equally unreasoning as in their veterinary prac-
tice, unless it be agreed that a horse can stand anything
he is used to, and that it is well to get him used to
irregular habits. The fact that the Arabian is often com-
pelled to go an indefinite time without food or drink
unquestionably makes him hardy and less apt to suffer
than any regularly treated animal. In every nation there
exists peculiar habits. In Switzerland many drivers will
not water on the road at all, even if the horses have thirty
or forty miles to do on a stretch. They are “afraid of the
colic,” as they say.

It is deprivation which hardens a man to deprivation.
I do not mean that irregular habits will tend to pro-
long life or give uniform good health. Neither will
athletics. On the contrary, the man who never overdoes
anything, be it in exercise or in diet, is the man who is
apt to live the longest and suffer the least from disease.
It is professors in colleges and clergymen who stand at
the head of the longevity tables. But what will kill the
professor or the clergyman is child’s play to the Indian,
who starves for two or three days and then gorges like an
anaconda. The Arabian for this same reason will go all
day in the hot sun and never ask for water—impatiently,
at least—even in crossing a brook. He is fed and watered
—apparently regardless of the fact that he is hot or tired-—
in a fashion which would inevitably founder any horse in

ab ae ele ee

RICH BEDOUIN SHEIK

METHODS OF FEEDING 365

America. He is given his pail of water and his trough
full of dry or green food, or whatever else is available, so
soon as he stops on a journey, or else he is ridden off im-
mediately after. Quite as often he gets nothing at all. I
have seen horses ridden all day, and have camped at noon
with them near by a stream, without any one trying to
water them, because they had no bucket and the banks
were high. It would never occur to a Bedouin to carry a
skin-pail with him. But the horses seemed used to such
neglect, and never even whinnied for the water gurgling
past them. At other times I have seen horses fed at very
short intervals—at almost every stop. This sort of thing
in civilized regions sounds quite foolish; but what is one
horse’s food is another horse’s poison.

As a rule the Arabian has a sound appetite. When it
fails after a hard pull, his master resorts to all kinds of
queer devices to make him eat. He does not rub his ears
and legs to restore his disturbed circulation as we would
do, but tweaks and twists his ears pretty roughly, and
cuffs him about the head; he ties knots in his forelock,
and pulls him about by it; he pulls out and twists his
tongue, and rubs a handful of feed over it. The rationale
of all this is as hard to decipher as the whipping a
Russian horse gets if he refuses to eat. But then the
knout is a cure-all in Russia; there is no knout among
the Arabs.

The food is much as in the rest of the Orient. Barley
is the bulk of the dry food; beans, of which Cyprus
exports vast quantities ; oats, cut up, straw and all; plain
straw cut up; clover-hay; green clover of the first crop.
Barley, fed all over the East, gives a distinctly disagreeable
odor to the droppings, but it is a hardy food. It is much
used in California. :

The Syrian horse has the same peculiarities as his broth-

366 WEIGHT OF ARABIANS

ers in Africa. He weighs little for his height, and yet
without appearing over leggy. Officials in the East are
so very unreliable that I do not feel that I have arrived
at a just estimate of the weight of the Arabian horse. I
have had several put on the scales; but when a horse of
more than fifteen hands, which I should gauge at over
eight hundred pounds, is said to weigh only four hundred
and eighty-eight, as was declared to me on one occa-
sion, I am disinclined to credit the accuracy of the scales
or weigher, or of both. The Arabian has a round, well-
coupled, but exceedingly small barrel, no breadth of shoul-
der or haunch, and in Syria has smaller bone than in
Egypt. From behind he is knife-blady. Still, thorough-
bred bone weighs heavy; a cubic inch of a racer’s shin-
bone weighs three or four times as much as a cubic inch
of the more porous bone of the bulky brewer’s dray-horse.
In most respects the Arabian is built to weigh little and
do much for his weight; but I must still hold him to
four-fifths or over the weight of a similar animal at home.
The same applies to donkeys. I have been told that a
certain donkey weighed only two hundred pounds when
I was certain he weighed two hundred and seventy-five to
three hundred pounds.

The Arabian is generally in good flesh. He more rarely
loses his roundness than our horses do. This comes in
part from his having so small a framework to fill out. It
is easy to keep a narrow-hipped horse fat. His legs and
feet are as near perfect as may be. The reason has al-
ready been given—that he stands day and night on the
ground. No Oriental stable has a floor, unless rarely
that of a pacha or an emir, so that the diseases of the
hoof from which we suffer are not apt to be found. He
is, moreover, not generally called on all day and every
day to ’ammer, ’ammer, ’ammer on the ’ard, ’igh road,

HNN

as
HH

SYRIAN WOMAN ON AN ASS

SHOEING 369

so that his legs remain sound; and his weight saves him
when he does have to do such work. His life out of
doors or in open stables gives him fresh air at all times,
and his lungs remain good. He has been kept under nat-
ural conditions for generations, and the result is a nat-
urally sound beast. He is shod with the Arabian plate.
In Syria the Frank shoe is very rarely seen. The plate
is the clumsiest device imaginable—thick, heavy, and
awkward. Except for a hole about an inch in diameter
in the centre, it covers the entire foot. The toe is curved
upward, and by wear grows more curved; the heel like-
wise curves upward so as to cover the entire frog almost
up to the coronet. We like to see the foot rest flat on
the ground, and the frog, if not touching the ground, at
least close to it. The Syrian horse has the plate curved
upward at the back so that the frog, though resting on
the plate, is high off the ground, and the animal looks
as if he were treading on tiptoe. I at first mistook the
tiptoe step behind as an indication of spavin. We should
consider such shoeing as bad for the sinews. After the
shoe has been on six or eight weeks, the horse travels
very much as if his feet were balled with snow. He
is stepping on a sort of curved surface, and on less than
one-third of the face of the shoe at all times. It is
not a natural position for the foot. The hind toes are
generally worn off square. You may always assume the
foot to be good; but you can see nothing of it except the
outside wall without taking off the plate. This horror
of a shoe the Arabian carries from four to six months!
To shoe a horse every month seems absurd enough to
a Bedouin. The shoe is held in place by six enormous
hand-made nails driven near together, three on either side,
about half-way back from the toe. The nails are driven

so that the clinches are in a group, so close that a quarter-
24

ta

> i

370 RIDING OF WOMEN

dollar piece will cover them, and generally protrude. De-
spite this clumsy device, the little fellow rarely cuts, and
the texture of the wall is so tough that the nails nev-
er break it away, even after months. In the desert the
horse is supposed to be generally unshod; but enormous
stretches of the desert, so-called, are a mass of broken
stone, like a badly-laid and unrolled macadamized road,
only ten times worse; for such places he must be shod.
The women of the people in Syria ride astride a pad,
with long stirrups or none. ‘They frequently use the
men’s saddle. There is nothing odd about their seat as
about that of their Egyptian sisters. They seem much at
home on horseback, though it is the ass which is especially
their mount. |
The various Arabians I have ridden have been excellent
of their kind. When not spoiled by or for the English
tourists by being taught to trot and jog, they have had
easy gaits, nice mouths, and good manners. Many of
them have for their size a good deal in front of you, and
give you the impression of carrying you easily, though
they are usually much under fifteen hands, and weigh
little for their inches. They have fine heads and necks,
little delicate ears which are lively but not nervous, and
a general air of good-nature and ability to go. But they
do not give one the same sense of immense power which
a rangy thorough-bred will do, in magnificence of stride or
in the general action of head and shoulders as he gallops
away from under you. Except for the habit of throwing
up the head, a trick bred of gag-bits, the Arabians are
most agreeable to mount. If you will get one used to a bit
and bridoon, which is easy to be done, he will come “in
hand” quicker than most of our horses and carry his head
just right. Still, it remains true that in gaits the Arabians
lag far behind our racer in stride, far behind our Southern

bi

POOR BEDOUINS OF MOAB

i

(

ROUGH COATS 373

saddle-beasts in-training. As you look at them they ap-
pear tall; when you come to mount your foot goes read-
ily into the stirrup, while at home you must usually
stretch well up to get the left foot in. Their small barrel
is proven by the fact that the immense amount of padding
under the saddle and flaps does not spread your legs too
much. At home we like a saddle-flap to be close to the
horse’s side. It rarely is so in the Orient.

The climate of Syria is chilly in winter, and the horse
of the desert puts on almost as long a coat as the bronco
of our north-western plains. In the spring, until he has
scoured off this coat on the fresh grass, he is a lamentable
object to look upon. The old flea-bitten gray mare in the
illustration shows small signs of blood in her staring coat
and woful appearance; but in a few weeks she may be as
glossy as silk, despite her years; and perchance she can
now out-travel many a May-bird. The Bedouin spear is
quite a feature of this part of the world. Its great length
reconciles one to the historically stated size of the Mace-
donian sarissa—twenty-one feet. It seems as if one could
scarcely use so unwieldy a weapon, but in it the Bedouin
reposes almost as much confidence as in his fire-arm ; and
in view of the common condition of the latter it is no
wonder. The background shows the stony upland com-
mon in the desert. The camel’s-hair tent is a family in-
heritance ; it is almost indestructible.

The clothes of the Bedouin are much like those of all
Arabs, but the tout ensemble lacks the grace which the
burnoose lends to his cousin of Algeria and Tunis. The
garments are mere bags, as elsewhere, either upsidedown
or right side up. The trousers have already been sarto-
rially noticed, though there be many, styles of these, from
the skirt-bags of the Syrian to the peg-tops of the Jew.
The upper garments are strictly on the same pattern, with

374 HANDSOME MEN

holes cut at the bottom of the to-be-inverted bag for arms
and head, and a slit in front, from the neck down, for
ease of putting on. Much may be added to the bag in
the way of embroidery and other ornament, but the pat-
ternremains. The Bedouin does not generally wear nether
bags like the African, though the Syrian of the towns is
wont to do so; his upper bags are long and various, and
he wears as many as the season demands, or his purse
affords.

The Bedouin has the same fine physique that the no-
mad Arab everywhere boasts. It might be said, with
slight fear of exaggeration, that, on the whole—bar those
who are ground down by misery—the Arab is the hand-
somest man on earth. In mere beauty most critics would
be apt to put the Hindoo first ; but he lacks the alert man-
liness of the Arab. Like his horse, the latter partakes of
the thorough-bred character. The standing, walking, run-
ning, lounging Arab is graceful, erect, alert, pleasing; and
his brown skin, when you know him, becomes singularly
attractive. Even when sitting cross-legged, he is as pictu-
resque in figure as in costume. But when squatting on
his hams, in the way all semi-chairless nations sit—as the
poor whites sit in our Southern States—he loses his
flavor ; and yet it must be a most convenient position.
One can take it anywhere, at any time, be apparently
quite at ease, and have but the feet touching the ground.
It is a distinct loss to our comfort that we are not taught
this habit, as well as to sit cross-legged, in our youth. It
does not prevent one’s using benches and chairs; it merely
adds an additional and ubiquitous means of taking rest.
The dignity of the cross-legged seat is generally acknowl-
edged ; one might dispute that of the squat.

We ought not to take leave of the Orient proper without
a word about the palanquin rider. In a land where there

ee ee

— ee a

Se

tiny

’

PALANQUIN CAMEL

s
.

PALANQUINS 377

are no roads, where all travel and traffic is by saddle and
sumpter- beasts, the palanquin is the equivalent of our
coupé. It is by no means as uncomfortable as it appears.
Comfort is relative. An Oriental lady cannot take her
ease and go so far as she might in a Pullman-car, or eke
a travelling carriage over smooth roads; but on a camel
one can journey ten hours a day, at an average of three
miles an hour, with great comfort, over the merest mount-
ain paths. When you try to double up in speed you must
be habituated to the motion from childhood to stand the
fatigue. A single camel palanquin is not as luxurious as
one borne by two camels; but there is much room for
change of position in even this. The palanquin looks
unwieldy, but being made of reed and wicker-work it is
hight, and with its two travellers will not weigh more
than four hundred pounds. The porter-camel can carry
five hundred ; a runner not much over half the weight, if
he is to go far and fast.

LXI

Mvcn of what has been said about the Arab in Syria
applies to the Arab of western Asia Minor. He has per-
haps not as marked characteristics, neither has his steed,
but both bear quite a distinct resemblance to the Syrian.
Wherever the horse is at his best, so, barring the lack of
civilization, is the Arab; but, whatever may be said in
favor of the Arab, we can never forget that he has ruined,
agriculturally, financially, socially, morally, every country
he has conquered. Even the breeding of the Arabian
horse cannot make up for this wholesale havoc. The
Moors, who at one time accomplished so much, and left
their impress on so many lands, seem to have been the
exception which proves the rule. Morocco of to-day,
Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, are all a des-
ert in comparison to what we know from history that they
were in olden days. Nor, with the character of the Arab
as he has shown it in the past, does it seem probable that
any improvement will be made in the future. Whether all
this be not due to religious causes rather than racial, it
may be hard to say. The Turk has accomplished the same
devastation.

The Mohammedan must, however, be given credit for
exemplary fidelity in some matters, as for his annual fast
during the month of Ramazan. From an hour before
sunrise until the sun has set he may neither eat, nor drink,
nor smoke; and, strange to say, for a solid month he hon-
estly does this thing, though he makes merry all through

TWO-CAMEL PALANQUIN

MOHAMMEDANS 381

the nights as a compensation. In Constantinople, should
a man openly break his fast, he would be arrested, and
fined or imprisoned. The fast is not obligatory in the
case of weak men or of women or youth. But when a
lad grows to be twelve or thirteen his soul rests not until
he has won permission to keep Ramazan. On working-
men it is hard, especially when Ramazan comes in the hot
months, as, being by the Moslem lunar calendar made a
shifting feast, it does about a third of the time. _ On sol-
diers it is still more hard; and though in war-time Ram-
azan is more honored in the breach than in the observ-
ance—much as Sunday was in our Civil War in the way
of battles—in times of peace the sentry does his rounds
unfed and thirsty.

I have a hearty respect for the best Mohammedan
element. I have found them as liberal, sensible, and
gventle-minded as the lower classes can be fanatical —a
fact I ascertained to my sorrow when they stoned me and
my son out of Hebron last year. One day in Jerusalem
I had a long and interesting discussion with an Arab
gentleman, which drifted from travelling to social matters,
from social to political, and from political to religious. I
found no grain of prejudice in the man. To him, as to all
Moslems, Abram was one of the great and holy men of
the past, Christ was one of the wisest teachers. “ But,”
sald he, most reasonably, ‘“‘ we Mohammedans do not think
that you Christians of the present day teach the just and
beautiful doctrines of Jesus. We look around us and we
see many sects, each expounding a separate dogma; we
look at the Mohammedans, and we find them believing
absolutely the same doctrines in every section of the
world. The Koran means but one thing to all of us;
there have practically never been quarrels as to what it
contains. So ought it to be with the Bible, which, to me,

Bn tn =
4

382 CHRISTIAN SECTS

so far as relates to the teachings of Christ, appears to be
plain and simple, and I have studied it much. But is
it so? I go into one of your most sacred temples, the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to search for the simple
truths I find in the Gospels, and what do I see? One
altar erected in one section of the edifice by the Arme-
nians, another in another section by the Greeks, a third
in a third section by the Copts; again one by the Roman
Catholics. No priest or communicant of any one of these
sects will religiously mix with one of any other; and at
Easter, the most holy day for all for them, I see the theo-
logical rivalry of these several sects at so white a heat
that the Government is compelled to put a company or
two of Turkish troops— Mohammedans— within the por-
tals of this Christian church to prevent bloodshed on the
very steps of the altar. This leads me to think, not that
the Christ was wanting in the true spirit of prophecy, but
that His followers have lost touch with His true teach-
ings ; it leads me to think that true Christianity had dis-
appeared in the maze of doctrinal rivalry. And when
again I contemplate the fact that half of the Christian
world has seceded from the mother-church—lI refer to
the Protestants—that this seceding half is divided into
yet more sects, all differing in many points of belief—
well,” he continued, with a smile, “I am reconciled to our
one undisputed belief, which seems to suit both the lowly
and those who think—at least, as well as what the Chris-

_ tians of to-day can teach us.” What was there for me to

say? He had covered the ground completely. I had no
answer.

There is not much in Syria proper which distinguishes
it from Palestine, but the farther north you go the far-
ther you get away from the perfect type of horse; the
farther east you go the more you lose the stanchness

ew Oe ee 6 Oe He,

ote

VIN DU PAYS 383.

which characterizes the Arabian. You might call the
Arabian desert the centre-point from which the horse has
got distributed ; at too great a distance, without special
efforts to keep it pure, the stock gets diluted or lost. If
you wander, for instance, towards Kurdistan, you will find
a tough little horse, but he is no longer the Arabian of
the desert. He is more of a steppes runt. There is the
same peculiar family resemblance in the common horse
of almost all ‘countries which there is everywhere to the
vin du pays. The bronco and Medoc express the types,
which vary as the inhabitants vary. Better care produces
a better article. We see the little mean Texan grow fat
and handsome when put into the stable of the polo-play-
ing swell; we should again see him, not less tough but
the very picture of wretchedness, if put for a month into
the brutal hands of an Indian or a Mexican. We see the
excellent Chianti of Italy degenerate into the vile pitch-
flavored kpaot petowwaro of Greece. So with the horse or
the wine of the country everywhere.

Some of the oddest equestrian habits which a horseman
has ever imagined are to be found in lands abutting on
the home of the Arabian, though, indeed, the Arab has
himself enough of oddities. The Kurds ride a tree cov-
ered with plaited straw, quite flat, and padded with blank-
ets. This they never remove from their horses, except oc-
casionally to dry it out. The horse is kept saddled day
and night, summer and winter. This seems incredible,
but it is literally true. In Turkestan the horse’s entire
body, from the ears back, is kept covered up with the bib-
lical number of blankets—seven—which he likewise wears
at all times, and which are supposed to sweat him out and
keep him in condition. The saddle is placed on the top
of these. The habits of horsemen in such countries vary
after a curious fashion. The Kurds sit in their straw, pad-

384 PERSIAN HORSES

like saddle, with very short stirrups, and employ a severe
bit. The Circassians also ride in a straw-covered saddle,
but with an exceptionally high cantle and pommel, and
with extra long stirrup-leathers, forked-radish or cowboy
style. The Cossack again rides with short stirrup, as well
as the Persian, and neither the latter nor the Circassian
uses, aS a rule, a bit, but a simple rope halter; while the
Cossack uses an easy bit. Wherever the Arabian is in
his glory you find substantially the same seat, already
described ; as soon as you wander away from the Arabian
type you find as great a variety of equine habits as of
dress.

The Persian horse, although a neighbor, appears to be
a creature of quite different blood. He is taller and leg-
gier than the Arabian, and has comparatively little stam-
ina. The Kurds and Turcomans use a horse which is said
to be the produce of Arabian sires on Persian dams, and
this horse seems to gain the endurance of the desert blood,
which it sadly needs. One does not expect much from
Persians, and the horse corresponds to one’s notions.

To wander for a moment while on the subject of Persia,
it is said that when available funds run short in that
despot-ridden land, the governors of the several provinces
are paid by a firman granting them control of a given
number of lashes. A viceroy is appointed with a salary
and emoluments of, say, four thousand lashes per annum.
He reaches his capital, and after making himself agree-
able to his new subjects and getting settled in his duties,
which are generally confined to ascertaining out of whom
he can squeeze moneys, he sends word to the rich men
of his district that he shall begin to apportion his salary.
“To you, M. or N., of the wisdom and generosity of His
Most Gracious Majesty the Shah, whom Allah preserve!
and of my own loving-kindness, [ award but two hundred

LASHES AS SALARY 385

of my four thousand annual lashes. These will be duly
administered for your soul’s health to-morrow at sunset.
Allah Hu! Great is the Shah!’ The clause to be read
between the lines is: “ If you desire to commute, my dear
fellow, I shall be most happy to welcome you. I shall be
in at almost any time to-day or to-morrow morning.”
M. or N., who may be a wealthy trader or a noble brig-
and, naturally enough prefers to pay with his purse rather
than his person ; he loses no time in accepting the polite
invitation, and no doubt after interminable discussion as
to amount and terms, endless gesticulation, and unlimited
coffee, finishes by buying himself off with a good round
sum, payable in whatsoever coin is current—flocks and
herds, jewels, women, slaves, or grain. The viceroy re-
peats the stratagem on others, and finds himself rich in
short measure, and is glad enough to go halves with his
royal master. In a country where the Government steals
from every rich citizen, where these do the same by the
first come’, where brigandage pure and simple is the daily
rule, this to us novel salary-scheme works to a charm.
The annual budget is an easy one to cipher out. At all
events, the method suits the people—and the Shah.

LXII

One is always led to imagine that the Arabian you find
in Constantinople—in the imperial stables, or among the
rich or high in place and power—is the créme de la créme.
But, in truth, while you do find some very splendid speci-
mens of horse-flesh under the shadow of the Sublime Porte,
most of the best of them are not Arabians. I have rarely
seen a finer lot of mounts than at Selamlik, one beautiful
Friday last April, when His Imperial Majesty, accom-
panied by his ministers and generals, and escorted by a
corps d’élite of the Turkish army, went from the palace,
in state, to the mosque, where he might humble himself
in prayer.

And let me here interpolate a word about the Sultan.
- His Majesty is currently imagined to allow his ministers

to do all his work, while he himself lives a life of luxuri-
ous indolence, moving from one palace to another with his
large and well-filled harem. The very reverse is the rule.
The one man in all the Turkish dominions who works
morning, noon, and night, whose mind never rests from
effort to carry his people through the difficulties which
beset bad system and lack of means, is the monarch. The
ministers work little, the Sultan incessantly. Not only
is this well understood, but my old schoolmate, hereto-
fore referred to, is in daily attendance on his Majesty,
and my ideas, gleaned from him, have given me a hearty
respect for the personality of the present Bearer of the
Crescent. Since his accession he has scarcely left his

ee

A HUNGARIAN THOROUGH-BRED

HUNGARIAN TROOPERS 389

palace in Pera; here he labors with honest fidelity to
effect the impossible; for the bad Turkish customs are
like the laws of the Medes and Persians. The system is
as rotten as the people are hard to teach. Moreover, the
Sultan is the simplest and most unrequiring man in his
dominions. The unpretentious courtesy of his personal
bearing, his apparent lack of egotism, his rather pale, nerv-
ous, overworked face are dignity itself. I have never
witnessed a more patriarchal ceremony, or one of higher
tone than this quiet procession of Selamlik.

To come back to the horses, I could not recognize in
many of those I there saw the characteristics of desert
blood; I suspected the truth, and was, on inquiry, told
that they were largely imported or of imported stock.

The Arabian is not considered heavy enough for the
Turkish cavalry in Europe ; a Hungarian horse is bought
or bred for the army, and, to a considerable extent, crossed
with Arabian blood. It seems most natural to use the
Arabian as the sire; but the experiment, I was told, is
being tried of putting Arabian mares (where they man-
age to get any but scrubs I do not know) to the stallion
from Hungary, the latter being largely impregnated by
the English thorough-bred. This horse is for the man.
Many of the officers—in Turkey all swells have military
rank—import well-bred ones from various countries ; and
though you see a number of typical and very beautiful
Arabians, especially in the Sultan’s stud, you are out of
the domain of the unalloyed article. And as to general
grading, one may any day see a lot of saddle-beasts rid-
den in and out of our Southern towns, which in every

saddle quality are superior to what I saw at Selamlik.
The horses would not be splendidly caparisoned, nor the
riders gorgeously clad, but the style and gait and blood
would tell the story. The New York Horse Show is not

25*

r’
=
-

390 TURKISH SEAT

approached in its exhibit of high grade saddle-horses by
anything to be found in the Orient.

His Imperial Majesty, however, rides chiefly Arabians ;
and in the Selamlk procession there were led after ie
carriage a number of these, all white, richly mounted, and
with a gold-bedecked blanket thrown over each, so that
should he choose to return to the palace on horseback
he might have his selection. The beauty of these horses
seemed to elicit universal but injudicious admiration ;
they were more to be admired for their sleek, well-
eroomed appearance, and for their general air of extreme
docility, than for any qualities they showed in the pro-
cession. A fine team of white Hanoverians in a low
hung phaeton was also on hand, in case his Majesty
should elect to drive himself back to the palace, as on
this occasion he did.

The Turkish seat (¢n Europe at least) is no longer Ori-
ental. It has become exclusively military. This is natu-
ral enough in a military autocracy. The English saddle,
or some modification of it, and the extra long stirrup-leath-
er—which is a simple perversion of the useful or appro-
priate in a flat saddle—is the regular thing. The short
seat has become so universal that it has invaded the im-
perial stables, and the stud-grooms all ride, in their fancy
liveries, strictly @ la meletavre. This is as heartily to be
condemned as the Frenchman in gala uniform riding a
to-cover gait.

On the whole, I do not like the flat saddle for the sol-
dier. It does not, it is not intended to, give an upright
seat. The knee is often back of instead of gripping the
stirrup-leather, and the knee-pad on the saddle-flap might
as well be on the horse’s ears for any good it does with
such short leathers. The flat saddle is cut for an entirely
different seat. Hunting produced the English saddle; its

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ONE OF THE SULTAN’S RIDING HORSES

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MILITARY SEAT 393

use by a military man is a mere fad. I have seen many
more “ unmilitary ” seats—if there still be such a thing—
since the introduction among soldiers of the English sad-
dle than before. It seems to breed a loosish seat—I by no
means say a bad one, but a free-and-easy method—the
very best in its place, but quite too slipshod for the sol-
dier. A man naturally leans forward in a flat saddle
rather than sits erect, and so long as we insist on a soldier
being well set-up, why not make him ride erect as well?
The perfect seat and method for a soldier is, I maintain,
the one which enables him to preserve an upright, well-
set-up position in the saddle, to ride with one hand, at
need without any, to have his sword-arm at all times free,
and on occasions both. I have nowhere seen so near an
approach to this seat and method as in the officers of
our own regular cavalry, and they ride McClellan or
Whitman saddles. It is quite possible for the soldier to
have it, and yet not hang down his arm like a pump-
handle and stick out his thumb, as the merry caricaturist
will have it that he does. And as to effectiveness, the
proof of the pudding is in the eating, and it would puzzle
the best cavalry of any nation to follow some of our
veteran squadrons across the Bad Lands in pursuit of a
band of bucks on the war-path, or, for the matter of that,
to hold head to them when caught.

A soldier in Europe used to be a soldier, afoot or ahorse-
back. Now he is not unwont to be a dawdling kind of a
rider, and he threatens in many places to become as bad
a footman. Ramrod setting-up and pipe-clay may both
be overdone; but the new tactics may also go too far in
relying on individual intelligence and initiative. A good
setting-up, mounted or not, does a man no harm, and it
should be conserved for what it is really worth. Officers
and men both threaten to slouch too much. Because the

394 GOOD MANNERS

modern idea is skirmish drill, there is no need to lose the
military bearing of the old elbow-touch days. I have of
late abroad seen altogether too many soldiers of all ranks
with very poor carriage. On the whole, we need never
be ashamed of the West Point bearing, nor of the man-
ners of our old regular soldiers. And, by-the-way, my
friend, did it ever occur to you that, next to the manners
of a cultured man of the world, the manners of a self-
respecting old soldier were the best to be found? Keep
your eye out and see if I am not right. And then seek
for the reason.

EXE

CoNSsTANTINOPLE is now a European city, as well in style
as in geography. It is fast losing all its Orientalism.
The fez is the only thing left which is universal. A crowd
still remains, as of old, “a sea of fezzes.” But the origi-
nal Constantinople leg-gear has begun to cede to the con-
venience of * pants ”’—always the first and costly step in
the downfall of national costumes and customs. ‘Trousers
are bad enough; pants are intolerable. Alas, that the
landing-place of our brave old knee-breeched Puritan an-
cestors should have been desecrated by a three-dollar pair !

In a certain fashion, the trouser is the type of all hu-
man growth or backsliding. With the loss of the knee-
breeches we lost the stateliness of the olden times; with
the advent of “pants,” gentlemen have become “ gents.”
Wherever, nowadays, men are careful of their trouser
creases, and of the proper length and flow of the garment
over the instep, we find the telephone and the electric
light and art and letters. Where, as in the Orient, the
matter of six inches in the length of either leg of the
prevailing trouser is of no material consequence; where
the cut of the leg-clothing is quite disregarded, and a re-
spectable or a rich man may appear in public with a ridic-
ulous pair of cotton drawers in lieu of the well - brushed
and well-fitted broadcloth, we find fanaticism, caste, and
retrogression. May not the trouser be considered a meas-
ure of human endeavor and success, moral, material, and
esthetic? I submit this as a debatable point.

396 CONSTANTINOPLE HORSES

The Turkish cavalryman rides a gelding. The line of
demarcation in the common use of the stallion and the
gelding appears to be the Mediterranean and the Aigean
Sea; in other words, in Europe you find the gelding, in
Asia and Africa the stallion. The Hungarian gelding is
a larger, bonier horse than the Arabian, averaging, per-
haps, a scant fifteen two, generally dark in color, with
fairly good points, but far from the whip-cord legs of
the Arabian, and a poor tail and head. He is considered
serviceable. The Arabian cannot be said to be highly
regarded in Turkey, except as a pleasure horse. Carriage-
horses are frequently bought among the Russian trotting-
stock; they are black, and high steppers. The Turkish
cavalry looks well as a body, but many of the men ride
poorly. There are a great many Germans among the
officers, who are doing well for it, but the arm is of re-
cent erection.

At another great ceremony, the visit of the Sultan to
the Treasury in the Old Seraglio on the fifteenth of
Ramazan, to pray on the mantle of Mohammed, which
is therein carefully preserved, and only taken out once
a year, I had a chance to gauge the general run of the
horses of Constantinople. The world and his wife (or
rather his wives) were present. Everything on four legs
turned out. The average struck me as very low. Among
some exceedingly good ones there were altogether too many
weedy, wretched little ponies under thirteen hands high.
The harems of the whole city were on hand, and the at-
tendants and eunuchs rode trashy stock of the meanest
description. The livery-stables were emptied to carry
the in-door female population out for an airing, and I
doubt if you could have found so many poor specimens of
the equine race in even a South American city, which is
saying a great deal. The every-day hack of Constanti-

AN OLD ARABIAN FROM THE SULTAN’S STABLE

A VETERAN 399

nople, as can be plainly seen, is an offshoot of Arabia ;
but I was not favorably impressed by the influence of
desert blood on the horse under civilized conditions of
hard work. The average size, weight, and serviceability
would have been far greater in America. During the
day I saw but one or two clean, fine-bred Arabians
among the many thousands out. The army and bureau-
crats appeared to monopolize the good horses, and there
was but a small force of cavalry on duty to line the
streets through which his Majesty passed, so that the
common stock was the more unduly prominent.

Many men in Constantinople ride an English saddle,
but still cling to the enormous Oriental blanket which
comes back over the horse’s loins and is made of a
long, hairy, woollen fabric, generally red and white. It is
extremely ugly. The saddle and blanket do not match.
They represent a transition stage. The plate-shoe through-
out Turkey in Europe has been almost driven out by the
French shoe. The plate they used to employ in Turkey,
unlike the plate of the desert, had as many as six nails
inside and six outside, sometimes only five, or five outside
and four inside, well distributed.

The Sultan’s stables contain many fine Arabians. Some
are extremely old. I saw one which had carried no less
than four sultans—Abdul-Medjid, way back in 1860; and
Abdul- Aziz, Murad, and Abdul- Hamid since. I was
presented with an interesting series of pictures of them.
Not a few have the curious marks on barrel and haunch
and arm, which, by a queer superstition, are often inflicted
on Arabians “to make them gallop faster,” as they say ;
though what this means I am unable to tell, unless they
give each two or three year old one special test (as is
done in racing stables), and select those who show up the
best; and to make them go the faster use a knife-blade

400 UGLY SCARS

rowel. Others explain the cuts in a different way, but it
is a blind matter at best, less explicable even than the
white foot business in Syria. The cut on the barrel is a
| long and semicircular one from below upward, as if made
by the heel armed with a vicious spur. Into the cut is
rubbed (again they say) powdered glass to make an ugly

if b

al

OLD ARAB OF THE SULTAN’S STABLE ON ARABIAN

scar, much as the German student indulges in unlimited
Kneipen to make the cuts received at Pauwken heal up
slowly and into rough, and therefore much esteemed scars.
On a white horse the scar I have described is peculiarly
distressing. The other cuts are straight horizontal ones
half-way up the buttock and arm. There seems to be

AN OLD ARAB 401

neither rhyme nor reason in the trick. We brand a
bronco to mark ownership; these cuts are a mere outcome
of silly superstition.

Here is the counterfeit presentment of an old Arab
who belongs to the imperial stables, and who is sent
from time to time to the desert to bring back horses. He
retains his normal dress and bestrides a fine specimen of
a high-type Arabian. Most of the stud - grooms wear a
costume as little like an Arab as can be imagined, much
ornamented, and handsome enough in its way. The jack-
et and leg-gear are the Syrian, and highly wrought in
gold. The feet are incased in boots. The fez is worn,
as with every one in Turkey, from the Sultan to the
sweep.

XE G

Tur Greek in some respects approaches more to the
European than to the Oriental civilization, but in his
equestrianism he may well be added to the latter, though
he properly belongs to neither. There is perhaps no
odder-looking rider than a Greek peasant on a pack-
saddle. The saddle is made so as to be equally adapted to
pack or to riding, and while fairly good for the one is
wretched for the other. Unlike those of all other peo-
ples, this saddle, instead of being placed in the middle of
the back or towards the rump, is made to fit so that the
centre of gravity lies directly over the place where the
English pommel sits—7.e., exactly back of the top of the
withers. When the Greek rides this horror of a saddle
he is perched directly over the horse’s withers, with his
legs hanging way in front of the animal’s. The sad-
dle comes no farther rearward than the middle of the
back. The seat, owing to its width, is so uncomforta-
ble that the man is apt to ride sideways more often than
astride.

Just where this trick originated it is hard to say. The
common Oriental habit is to get the load too far to the
rear. In fact, with donkeys it is usual for natives to ride
on the weakest part of the back, just over the kidneys,
because the place where the beast is most limber is the
easiest to the man. With the Greek we have the horse’s
fore-legs loaded down to a dangerous extent, while the
haunches have less than their fair share of work. A

THE MODERN GREEK 403

stumble would be far from a luxury, with the freight all
in the bows, to speak nautically.

The Greek dress, until you get used to it, is too lady-
like to be pleasing. The close-falling kilt of Scotland is
natural enough. But as in Greece the kilt is made in
such ample folds, and starched to so stiff an extent that it
stands out absolutely lke a ballet-girl’s skirt, one never
quite gets rid of a certain flavor of hermaphroditism, so to
speak, until one has long been among the people. It is
bad enough when the Greek wears the picturesque Thessa-
lian leggings; but when, as in Albania, he wears what
the old Rollo books used to call “ pantelettes,”’ one’s ideas
are turned topsy-turvy, even more than in Tunis, where
one sees a pretty Jewess calmly parading up. and down
the bazaars in tight trousers and short sack-coat, all
wonderfully wrought in gold embroidery. In either case,
unless your judgment is very firmly fixed, you have to
sit down and reflect for a moment, or pull yourself to-
gether in some other fashion. |

The Greek is a high-tuned fellow. Though the blood
of the modern Greek is rather Albanian—as also is his
dress—than traceable to the heroic Hellene of twenty cen-
turies ago, no prince of the blood can be more proud of
his lineage, which he deludes himself into believing to be
purity itself. The Greek peasant will strut by you with
the most kingly air; he looks down with a kindly but ill-
disguised contempt upon the American tourist who could
buy up a whole village of his ilk and scarcely know he
owned it. He has many really fine qualities, this Greek,
coupled to some we are not wont to admire, such as in-
ordinate vanity. And in his wonderful garb on a hard-
trotting horse, so near the withers that he gets threefold
the motion he would get if he sat in the middle of the
back, he is truly a spectacle for gods and men.

404 A TREELESS WASTE

The Greek rides the veriest runt of a horse, though it
has endurance. The fine little Thessalian chunk, of the
era of Phidias, which was certainly alive and kicking in
the days of Alexander—for was it not he that won the
battles of the great Macedonian ?—has long since disap-
peared. Nowonder. The forests were all chopped down
eons ago; as a consequence the brooks and rivers dried
up and the land gradually became a desert. This is the
condition everywhere in the Orient. It is a treeless,
waterless waste. Thousands of places which, like Jericho
when Antony made a present of it to Cleopatra, we know
to have been among the most beautiful spots outside of
Paradise, are now a howling wilderness of sand and rock.
Any American who has travelled through the Orient
must assuredly return home an advocate for forestry laws,
a pronounced enemy to the ruthless lumberman who is
fast sapping the sources of our noble rivers, and well
equipped to vote for making public reservations of such
essential forest-stretches as the Adirondacks or the wil-
derness around Moosehead Lake. It is only a question of
time, if the destruction of our forests continues, when the
Hudson River will cease to be navigable, when the beau-
tiful granite streams of the White Mountains will be tor-
rents in winter and dry beds in summer. The trouble
lies in the fact that we Americans either will not believe
this fact or that we work on the principle of after us the
deluge—of which “the devil take the hindmost” is the
more common equivalent. If we go on, it will be “after
us hades.” Oh, for another Peter the Hermit to preach a
crusade on the preservation of our forests !

So soon as the land dried up, so did all that it produced
and nourished. To-day Greece is fit, on all its hill-sides, to
feed nothing but sheep and goats. The latter eat every
shoot of vegetation ; trees cannot grow. The Greek com-

MODERN GREEK COSTUME

THESSALIAN CHUNKS 407

plains that he has no water for irrigation, but he will not
work for the future ; he will not only not plant trees, but
will not conserve those which themselves strive to grow.
So soon as a pine-tree struggles up, as many do, to a size
big enough to produce resin, he scores it to death to secure
enough of its life-blood to keep his nasty wine, ‘heedless of
the fact that if he would let a few grow bigger, they
would produce resin in abundance and water besides.

So died out the noble little Thessalian, whom Homer
has immortalized in the horses of Diomed with flowing
manes, and to whom Phidias has lent eternity on the splen-
did frieze of the Parthenon; who has written his own
name in history on the pages which narrate the heroism
at the Granicus, the struggle for life at Arbela, the
charges seven times repeated at the Hydaspes. By-the-
way, it is rather curious that, accurate as the horses of
Phidias are in the sequence of step which the photograph
alone has revealed to modern artists, they are faulty in
projecting the fore-feet so far beyond the head. No horse
can hold his head so high as to throw his fore-feet far be-
yond it. In no photographs, even of high-headed horses,
are the fore-feet in any gait even out to a line dropped
perpendicularly from the horse’s nose. But for all that,
Phidias came nearer to giving us the anatomically correct
action of the horse than any one prior to mechanical
Muybridge ever succeeded in doing.

LXV

On the Adriatic coast of Turkey, in Albania and Dal-.
matia, the horse of the country is the same small mean
runt you meet with in every poverty-stricken land. He
is not without his advantages. He eats little, needs and
gets no grooming, stabling, or care; has a vast deal of
endurance—of blows, neglect, and ill-treatment—and car-
ries as big a load for his size as a bronco. But the bronco
can run and keep it up; the little country brute of the
Eastern Adriatic can barely work out of a walk; nor has
he any gaits. He isa poor lot, much like the population
which breeds him. |

The origin of the best strain of Arabian blood has been
related by some romancer. While Mohammed was fight-
ing his way from his humble origin to greatness, he once
was compelled for three days to lead his corps of twenty
thousand cavalry without a drop of water. At last from
a hill-top they descried the silver streak of a distant river,
and after a short farther march, Mohammed ordered his
trumpeter to blow the call to dismount and loose the
horses. The poor brutes, starving for water, at once
sprang into a mad gallop towards the longed-for goal.
No sooner loosened than there came the alarm—false as
it happened — of a sudden ambush. To horse! was in-
stantly blown and repeated by a hundred bugles. But
the demand was too great; the parched throats were not
to be refused; the stampede grew wilder and wilder, as
twenty thousand steeds pushed desperately for the river-

FAITHFUL MARES 409

banks before them. Of all the frantic crowd but five
mares responded to the call. To these noble steeds duty
was higher than suffering. They turned in their tracks,
came bravely back, pleading in their eyes and anguish in
their shrunken flanks, and stood before the prophet. Love
for their masters and a sense of obedience had conquered
their distress, but their bloodshot eyes told of a fearful
torment, the more pathetic for their dumbness. The dan-
ger was over, the faithful mares were at once released,
but Mohammed selected these five for his own use, and
they were the dams of one of the great races of the
desert. From them, goes on the legend, have sprung the
best of the Arabian steeds. It can, however, scarcely be
claimed that the average horse of the land of the rising
sun comes up to this ideal. He must have been bred from
the nineteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-five.

On the whole, I must sum up the horse of the Orient.

as of far from the high grade which is generally under-
stood. The splendid specimens are less splendid than our
prize-winners or our well-known sires; the common herd
is common enough. The general run is exceedingly at-
tractive, but scarcely as good performers as our own equal
class. Beyond the borders of civilization they are not
higher than the bronco; in the busy haunts of men they
are distinctly lower than our own common horse, certain-
ly so for the purposes of our varied commercial and social
demands. The exceptional specimens, which partake of
the peculiar grace of carriage of the Arabian of art, are
more pleasing than a similar creature would be with us;
but to the horseman’s eye their points will score for less.
Size being taken into consideration throws the balance
clearly to our side.

The rider of the Orient is what man is everywhere when
he lives in daily communion with his horse, but he is not

—

410 THE BEST HORSEMEN

an intelligent horseman. If you want to select a score of
men who, after short practice at every style, could show
the best performance in racing, hunting, polo - playing,
road - riding, herding, cavalry drill or work, escort duty, ©
Fantasiya riding, or in any of the usual pleasures or duties
of the Occident or the Orient, these men are far and away
easier to find in the States than in any country where the
influence of the Arabian is still predominant.

LXVI

Brrore we leave this interesting part of the world to
seek for oddities in-riding among the Brahmans and the
Buddhists, let us cast a glance at a rider who, from our
childhood, has been known to us as a synonym of all that
is wild and terrible—the Cossack.

Both Turkey and Russia have a large force of irregular
mounted troops. These are not for the most part in con-
stant service, but hold themselves in readiness to mobilize
at any moment. Such are the army corps of Kurdish
cavalry in Asia Minor; and many of the Cossack troops
are agriculturists and soldiers at the same time. While
organized on substantially the same basis, so much heed
is paid to tribal habits that no two bodies of these troops
are quite identical.

The boys of the Cossack villages from early youth look
eagerly forward to their four years of active service, and
seek to prepare for distinguishing themselves while in the
ranks. All Cossacks consider horses as their proudest
possession. They have plenty of them, and when he joins
his squadron the recruit is held to furnish everything but
his rifle. As against this he is allowed certain marked
privileges beyond the common peasantry who enlist in the
infantry, and what he loses in service is wont to be re-
placed by the Government.

The training of the Cossack lad is a constant prepara-
tion for what is considered most valuable in their peculiar
tactics—that is, to throw his horse instantly, and use him

412 TRAINING OF THE COSSACK

as a rampart from behind which he can fire; to mount
rapidly and attack with the sabre; to use the sabre in any
position or at any gait; to fire rapidly and with good aim
at any speed and in any position ; to turn from the attack
at a gallop and seek shelter. In order to accomplish this
end, the Cossacks are as lads exercised in horse-vaulting,
which they call jzgztofka, and this exercise is carried to
a high degree of excellence.

The ambitious Cossack lad, like the Indian, soon gets
to know every horse in his village, and the adaptability
of each one to the quick turns and twists of the jzgztofka.
Surefootedness is a prime quality in his little steed, for on
it the Cossack must rely in many of his vaulting exer-
cises ; speed comes next, coupled with endurance; and in
other qualities he agrees with what all horse-lovers deem
essential.

There is a preparatory camp of instruction for these
Cossack lads when they have attained a certain age and
skill; and when a boy returns from it he is called a jzgit
or vaulter. At this camp emulation is rampant, and the
exercises call out all the lads can do. They pick up ob-
jects from the ground; they jump obstacles standing in
the saddle, or with their shoulder in the saddle and feet in
air; they throw their horses at a gallop, or, strictly speak-
ing, they stop them suddenly and make them lie down, a
thing which is done so rapidly that the first phrase almost
describes the feat ; they pick up wounded men when going
at speed; they mount and dismount at full gallop; they leap
from one horse to another; they ride two or more men on
one horse and change horses at speed; they perform 7m
petto all they must do in active service on a large scale.
All these things are what our Indians do, varied in man-
ner to suit a people equally wild, but of a different class.
The throwing of horses—but not at speed—was at one

> ee

eee

oT ane ee

COSSACK OF THE GUARD—FIELD TRIM

THE COSSACK SADDLE 415

time introduced into some of our cavalry regiments;
Indians always do it.

In addition to the vaulting exercises, the Cossack ex-
cels, especially in the Caucasus, in the djereet, or dart-
throwing at a gallop. This is an old Oriental practice,
recently revived. The rider gallops up to the target,
which is a ball or a ring, casts his dart at some twenty
paces, and immediately turns to seek shelter. Except
among the Tartars, no people plays djereet so well as the
Cossacks.

The Cossack bit is usually an easy one, though there be
Cossacks and Cossacks, and they cover all Russia in Eu-
rope and in Asia, and all Turkey in Asia. The saddle, in
lieu of being placed as close to the horse’s back as it can
be, is so constructed as to make the man sit very high
above the horse—what seems to us absurdly high—and
this height is increased as much as possible by blankets.
The stirrups are so hung as to bring the rider’s toes on a
line directly under his ear, and his knees are much bent.
He holds on by his heels and calves, not his knees. The
Cossacks defend this seat by saying that when so placed
the rider is compelled to learn to balance himself, and that
the seat is consequently firmer. This latter opinion can-
not be maintained. Nothing can give you as much firm-
ness as closeness to the horse; the point is not really worth
discussion. The Cossack habit creates a difficulty in order
to train the man by making him overcome it. That the
best training consists in overcoming obstacles is true, but
this does not make the balance seat any better because
the saddle is high. You might as well assert that a rope-
dancer is more secure on his rope than on the ground.

The Cossacks also claim that their seat is easier on long
marches, but our cavalry experience belies this. The Cos-
sacks have not made well-recorded marches equal to ours,

416 THE COSSACK’S ABILITY TO RIDE

so far as I can learn. On the whole, the seat does not
appeal to me as a good one. I firmly believe that the
same amount of work devoted to a seat more like our own
would produce better results. But there is no denying
the Cossacks the ability to ride, and as a semi-civilized
light cavalry they are unequalled.

LXVII

Ir is related of a naturally reticent but observant old
tar, who had definitely returned to his native village
from many trips to foreign shores, that on being asked to
give his assembled friends some account of the manners
and customs of a certain savage tribe in one of the rarely
visited islands of the south Pacific, he shifted his quid to
the starboard side of his mouth, and, after considerable
preliminary humming and hawing, gave vent to four
words: “ Manners, none; customs, nasty.” In lke fashion
I propose to tell you—but at somewhat more length—
about the riders of a land which, in comparison with those
we have recently visited together, has no riders.

India is not a land of horsemen. How can you expect
a man who for sole garb wraps a dirty piece of cotton
cloth about his loins, wears ear, finger, and toe rings, and
ties up his long black hair in a Psyche knot, to be a
horseman? Our American Indian, whose full dress is
sometimes a paper collar and a pair of cavalry spurs,
shows at least a natural tendency to equestrianism ; not
so the pathetic-eyed Hindoo. Practically, over the entire
extent of the Indian peninsula, the animal which the cow-
boy picturesquely classifies as a beef-critter is (to speak
Celtically) the horse of the country. The bullock does
everything for the Hindoo as the ass does everything for
the denizen of Egypt or Syria. He is as universal in his
capacity to help man in his struggle for existence as
the little burro of Mexico; and when he is not sacred he

27

418 BULLOCKS AND BUFFALOES

is one of the most useful, as he is always one of the most
picturesque, creatures in the service of man.

Our idea of any member of the bovine race is associated
with clumsiness. We can scarcely imagine even a Jersey
heifer hitched to a trotting-sulky. But the working bul-
lock of India is not only quick and handy, but he is a
rapid walker; and the light-hitch bullock can go a very
lively gait. He moves as easily as a deer, and is safely
guided by his nose-ring bridle by throwing the single
rope-rein over to either side of his hump and giving ita
pull. I have seen a pair walking four and a half miles an
hour; they can trot a seven or an eight mile gait, and
keep on doing it. They are really attractive animals,
with their placid, pleasant faces, sleek mouse-colored
hides, round bodies, and fine limbs; and the hump, which
is on all cattle in India—which was there when Alexan-
der conquered the Punjaub—becomes a rather pleasing
incident in their outline when you get used to it. They
bear their yoke well, physically and morally, and are
equally good at traction and under a pack. The buffalo
—our buffalo is a bison, you remember—does the heavier
work, and is somewhat of a slouch, though strong and
patient. There are donkeys in many parts of India; but
the ass is not all things to all men as the bullock is.
Droves of asses and bullocks mixed (you can hardly tell
them apart) work very amicably carrying stone, or grain,
or merchandise of any kind; and the bhistie, or water-
carrier, is always a bullock or a buffalo. The small bul-
lock measures scarcely higher than the ass, and many are
no bigger than big dogs. A large number have the fine-
bred look you see in our choice cattle; but in the south
they score fancy patterns all over them, much to the detri-
ment of their looks; and the driver is apt to be a “ tail-
twister,’ and often permanently injures that appendage.

THE HINDOO NO RIDER 419

The bullock has driven out both the horse and the ass
as a general utility beast, and India is not a land of riders
mainly because the bullock works better in a cart than
under saddle, and because three-quarters of the land is
one vast plain on which roads can readily be kept in good
condition. There is, of course, a large cavalry force be-
longing to the Indian army; but to descant on the
mounted troops of the British forces, wherever they may
be recruited or serve, is to rehash much of what -I have
heretofore said about other cavalry. The fact that it is
in India by no means makes it Hindoo cavalry ; it is pat-
terned on the army system at home. The Sepoys, and
especially some of the Sikhs, are often extremely inter-
esting; but not being to the manner born, they are, in
riding, gradually growing to the European pattern. In
fact, everything is. The introduction of cheap tapestry
Brussels to replace the lovely hand-made rugs of yore,
‘and of yet cheaper imported furniture to stand in the
stead of the soft divan of the last generation, is working
havoc. Telegraph and railway and steamer are doing
their inevitable duty; and when a Parsee merchant offers
you “a rare old bit of native work,” you can almost smell
Birmingham or Manchester on it. No one denies the
value of steam transportation or the telegraph; but they
do destroy many beauties which the strictly useful cannot
replace.

The Hindoo is not much of a rider in the sense of the
Indian or the Arab, and yet one sees an occasional in-
teresting specimen in some country districts. In Bombay,
save a rare mounted policeman, you find none but Euro-
pean riders, generally on Arabian horses, or some prod-
uct of Arabian blood. In Calcutta you see more walers
—as are called the Australian range horses; and in the
inland cities, where there are garrisons, the waler is

420 ARABIANS AND WALERS

common. Wherever the English go, thither follow polo,
racing, athletics. Even at Singapore, within forty miles
of the equator, the irrepressible Briton—may his shadow
never grow less!—carries out his regular programme of
sport, and in India all the games of the mother-country
are played, and tent-pegging and pig-sticking are in great
esteem. but this is not Hindoo horsemanship.

There are many Arabians imported into India across
to Kurrachee or Bombay. A few reach Madras. A small
part of the British cavalry is mounted on them, though
the regulation horse is either the waler—contracted for in
large numbers and delivered in Calcutta—or the country-
bred. In Bombay there is an immense sale-stable of
Arabians, where several hundred are at times collected.
This horse commands a much better price than I should
expect. I was asked from three to six hundred rupees—
one to two hundred dollars at current exchange—for
only fairish specimens. This is double the price of the
same horse in Syria. How much it could have been beaten
down I do not know. It is curious how, from the Ara-
bian Desert, this nimble little creature radiates in every
direction, carrying the impress of his blood wherever he
goes, and improving every native breed with which he
comes in contact.

The native Indian horse is not a remarkable creature.
They run of all sizes and shapes; but though a few big
ones come from the Katiwar and Cutchi country, they
average small and of rather slim structure. They look as
if little had been done for them for many generations and
that little only of recent years. I have seen a few in
the interior which were said to be native horses that ap-
peared strong and able, but rather ungainly in points.
If the native horse was available, or could be raised in suf-
ficient numbers, it is clear that the cavalry would not be

MANY STYLES 421

mounted to such an extent on walers, not only because na-
tive industries are naturally encouraged, but because the .
waler, though he is of decent size and has some endur-
ance, reaches India always partially, often wholly, un-
broken, generally goes through a long course of acclima-
tion, and is not universally liked. By unbroken I do not
mean that he is as bad as our unbusted bronco, but he
is bad enough to give a deal of trouble. I have met
English officers who thought very well of the country-
bred horses of India, and purchased them for their own
use. The Arabian, they say, does not have to go
through an acclimation influenza; he is always gentle
and well trained.

Still, Australia has and furnishes good stock. It is the
English horse taken thither and bred on the ranges.
Some excellent racers have come from Australia to India
at half the price their equals would cost in the mother-
country, and have won much money.

There is no type of rider in India as there is apt to be
in other lands. You see in the same province, in the
same town, a dozen different styles. In Rajputana, for
instance, the men ride with a somewhat natural seat, but
many depress their heels in a way to outdo a military
martinet, while others will thrust their legs way out like
a Mexican on his muscle. The heels are not so uniformly
dug into the horse’s flanks as among the Arabs, though
one sees many men whose sole reliance is on a heel grip,
and who seem to have no idea of what their thighs and
knees are for. You see as many old condemned army
saddles as you see native trees, but they are in some places
hidden by a cotton slip-cover like a country grandmoth-
er’s spare-room chair, in others by a piece of bedquilt tied
on or strapped into place, so that you cannot see what
the man is riding as he passes by you. As a rule the bit

422 . BEDQUILTS

is a simple one—a snaffle or a double ring, sometimes a
chain bit, but always of European manufacture. One
rarely sees a gag, and yet more rarely a native-made bit.

Northern India might well be dubbed the land of bed-
quilts. What old house-keepers still call ‘comforters ”
are, in cold weather, never out of your sight. Every na-
tive, unless he is poor, has one to sleep in—a red, yellow,
green, or Cashmere pattern, cotton-padded, quilted spread
—and this serves as his burnoose, bar grace, whenever he
sallies forth. If he be well-to-do, he has him a long coat
made of the same stuff, and when he parades up and down
on a chilly day, he makes you think of a perambulating
feather-bed, all made up. -In Bengal there are not so
many bedquilts. You see a population apparently better
off, and many men wear Cashmere shawls in every stage
of decadence. In lower Bengal the people look well fed.
You no longer see the canary-bird leg and spare frame;
the coolies are fairly rounded up and muscular; and the
same remark applies to the Madras Presidency.

LXVIII

Let me draw you a picture of a Hindoo rider. Imagine
this bedquilt individual on horseback. He has a turban of
Turkey red, marvellously wound in a hundred folds around
his head, and literally as big as a half-bushel basket; a
pea-green comforter is thrown about him, and he wears a
pair of tight violet cotton trousers on legs without the
semblance of a calf; while over his saddle a blue quilted
padding raises him far above his horse’s back. His stir-
rup-leathers are wound with yellow cotton cloth, and a
pair of huge crimson shoes finish off his nether members.
Imagine his dark-brown skin, black piercing eyes, and a
long mustache and beard stained brick color, and combed
and jixatived in a sidewise and upward curve, the like of
which one never sees except in a picture of Blue- beard ;
imagine him sitting a horse with so many and awkward
ways of going that he cannot be said to have any gait ex-
cept a walk—a horse naturally of a dirty white, but touched
up with about a hundred spots of dull red paint all over
his body and legs, with a tail dyed green, and wearing a
broad blue bead necklace and a jangling silver chain; add
to the man’s equipment a small round inlaid shield of
about the size and defensive value of a tin dish-pan, and a
twelve-foot reed spear of equal offensive value; imagine
all this internecine color carried off with an ingenuous equi-
poise and air of general and genuine self-satisfaction which
leads you to suppose that the man owns half the earth,
and you have a Rajput of distinction. He is really an im-

424 A RAJPUT RIDER

pressive spectacle, this rider; no picture which does not
give color can yield any distinct impression of him. But
he is not properly a horseman; he is a man on horseback
merely. He can, I dare say, ride in his fashion; but he
has no kind of a horse, nor any knowledge which will
help him teach himself or it. Neither have his ancestors
had any, and the consequence is plain. Farther north,
nearer the Himalayas, there are tribes of quasi-horsemen,
but not in the provinces usually known to tourists as Brit-
ish India. This rawness in color is, by-the-way, natural
to the Hindoo. You see it in all the decorations of his
palaces and his temples.

I saw a lot of horses in the stable of his Highness the
Maharajah, at Jeypore. They came, the grooms informed
me as they unblanketed and named each one, from every
section of India, from Arabia, Morocco, and Burmah, and
some from Europe. The majority were native. The sta-
ble was a long, shed-like structure, on one side of a huge
quadrangle, massively built of stone, and highly ornate.
It had no partitions throughout its entire length, but back
of each horse was an arch some seven feet wide and fifteen
high, while the mangers were built into the stone-wall op-
posite. The horses stood on the ground, which was not
solid and cool, but warm and stamped into dust like very
fine dry sand, fully three inches deep. The season being
chilly, each arch was closed in by a straw-woven mat
hung over it like a curtain. The horses were all blanket-
ed with an extremely thick wadded cotton blanket, over
which a second thinner one was thrown and girthed; and
each horse, under its fancy halter, had its face and eyes
entirely covered up by a piece of loose-woven cotton cloth,
“to prevent his seeing the flies,” as the grooms said, and
I presume to prevent his getting worried and unnecessari-
ly stamping at them. This practice of blindfolding them

HOBBLING 425

in the stall and then taking them out into the glaring
sun of India seemed to me singularly bad for their eyes.
I fancy the covering may serve to keep the flies from set-
tling on the horse’s eyes and producing inflammation ; but
this was not the reason given.

The thing that would strike you as the oddest was the
style of hobbling—universal here, and used in whole or in
part in many Oriental stables. A twenty-foot road ran
outside the stable, back of the arches. On the farther
side of this road, opposite each arch, was a stone post,
around which was fastened two ropes, just long enough to
run across the road and into the stable to the point where
the horse’s hind-feet would comfortably stand. Each rope
ended in a flat woven loop, which was passed around the
horse’s fetlock-joint, so that he could neither stamp nor
kick flies, nor move his hind-legs to change his position,
nor lie down. His halter ropes were fastened to rings
in the ground below each end of the manger, say five feet
apart. He might as well have stood in the stocks. The
horses were some ten feet from each other.

They were fed on hay, rather too short and fine to suit
our notions (the kind whichin New England we call good
cow-hay), dried peas, and a queer-looking, small species of
oats, all of which were given largely in mashes; and as a
consequence the horses were all overfat—as fat as the usu-
al circus horse that is fed up to ride bareback. Except
one Arabian and a couple of Burmah ponies, I did not
see a decent set of legs under a single one of the horses.
They were all supposed to be saddle-beasts.

I asked which was the Maharajah’s favorite. To my
surprise I was pointed out an English horse, over seven-
teen hands high, all but as fat as a London brewer's dray-
horse, and with very coarse legs, unclipped. Unless for
size, why he should be a favorite it was hard to imagine;

426 THE COUNTRY HORSE

one could perceive no evidence of any saddle quality. In
the mountains his Highness rides his Burmese ponies. I
did not see any of the horses led out, and a horse in the
stall is rather a deceptive thing to look at. They may
have been better than they appeared.

The little country horse which you see drawing the na-
tive springless cart, or used for a pack, or ridden, is usual-.
ly the meanest kind of a runt imaginable, whose ancestry,
hard-worked, badly fed, and never cared for, has transmit-
ted to him crooked legs and an ill-shapen body—I am not
sure that I have ever seen a worse. But he is scarcely in
our line, for he could by no means be twisted into the
semblance of a saddle-beast.

LXIX

Anp yet, when you get up into Nepaul, or on the bor-
ders of Thibet, in the foot-hills of the Himalayas, you find
a sturdy, round, able pony of eleven or twelve hands,
stocky, and weighing a good deal for his inches, which
will carry you at a good walk, a rapid amble, or a strong,
steady trot. He much resembles the Burmese pony, but
is supposed to be the same animal as the Hindoo plains
pony. Whatever his origin, the mountain air seems to
have given him strength and roundness, as it has to the
Mongolian men and women who inhabit these hills. As
a general rule, you may notice that the long-bodied, short-
legged mammal is produced by the hills, the long-legged
and smaller-bodied mammal by the plains. It requires, so
to speak, a good deal of boiler capacity to drive even a
small engine up the sharp slopes of the hilly country.
The plains dweller does not need to get up so much steam
to propel him. The pony ridden by the young King of
Nepaul shows the type. One might call the little fellow,
as a generic name, the Himalaya pony.

The woman, by-the-way, is the cooly of the Himalaya
region. She shoulders, or rather backs, a heavy trunk,
which she holds by a rope passed under it and over the
top of her head, and will carry from a hundred to a hun-
dred and twenty pounds, her own weight almost, for a
considerable distance. I have heretofore said that the
Lord never made an animal except the ass which could
stagger along for a day’s work under its own weight; but

=

428 WOMEN AS COOLIES

I must come close to excepting the Thibetan or Nepaulese
woman. The children of six or seven begin carrying packs,
small at first but gradually increased ; by the time a girl
is twelve or thirteen, she is a full-fledged cooly. She
works all day for the merest pittance; carries stone for
building or wood for burning, bamboo for huts or straw
for thatch, traveller’s packs or railway luggage; and if
after years of toil she can save enough to buy a silver
prayer-box to hang on a string of cornelian and turkis
beads around her neck, and to fee the priest to write and
bless a prayer to put in it, she is happy. Nor is this a
great ambition. Cornelian and turkis are found in every
hill-side, and silver is all too cheap. I have been told that
these little giants—they are rarely more than five feet
high—can carry a hundred and fifty pounds and upwards.
I have seen a string of them carrying from eighty to one
hundred and twenty pounds each. The band over the
head ends by making a distinct depression in the skull.
But no matter, the Mongols in this Himalaya region are
a sturdy and an intelligent race.

Among them are many different tribes—Lepchas, Nep-
aulese, Bhooteas, and others; and farther north the Goor-
khas, who make the best soldiers the British have found
in their Indian possessions, not excepting even the Sikhs.
All these Himalaya races appear to partake of the free-
dom-loving hardihood and manly courage of mountaineers
in every part of the world. They are centuries ahead of
their Mongolian cousins, the Chinese—or is it behind
them? The Goorkhas are said to be capital fighters, to
possess, indeed, the genuine gaudium certaminis, a thing
the Chinaman most notably lacks.

Many of the customs of these Himalaya Mongols are
peculiar, but they are readily understood. I have often
heard of the Thibetan prayer-wheel, and had imagined it

el

KING OF NEPAUL

PRAYER-WHEELS 431

the most mechanical of religious devices. But I find that
it amounts to no more than a species of rosary. It con-
sists of a small cylindrical box, perhaps three inches in
diameter by four long, through the centre of which runs
a spindle with a wooden handle. A three-inch chain with
weighted end is fastened to one side of the box, and its
centrifugal force will keep the box revolving easily on the
spindle. The owner pays the priest to write him a suit-
able prayer, which may be for the recovery of one sick,
for the repose of a deceased relative, or for forgiveness of
sins. This prayer he puts into the box, and then twirls
it about, while he recites (pardon misspelling) : “Oo manee
pay mee hoon!’ (O God, hear my prayer!) Wherein this
is more idolatrous than the fingering of beads, or genu-
flections, or bowings, or the sign of the cross, or kissing
relics, or than any mere form of any religion, I fail to
see. It is a simple means of keeping the simple devotee
faithful in the performance of a holy duty. The box, by-
the-way, has usually the words of the ejaculation engraved
on its margin.

The Thibetans have perhaps the queerest of all customs
in disposing of their dead—or, at least, many of the tribes
have. No doubt the Hindoos, especially in view of their
hot climate, use the wisest method of burial—to wit, burn-
ing. The Hindoo body is placed on an ordinary pile of
wood, and the fire is lighted by a relative with certain
ceremonies; the ashes are cast into the nearest river, and
thrice happy he who is burned on the banks of the holy
Ganges. The Parsees, on the other hand, consider the
elements—fire, earth, water—as too sacred to be polluted
by dead bodies. They expose their dead in Towers of Si-
lence, where the vultures devour them —an operation
which lasts a bare hour. The Thibetans cut up their dead
into small pieces, and cast these forth to the birds and

432 THE LORD’S PRAYER

beasts, and the richer the deceased the smaller he is cut
up. This sounds very horrible, but, unless cremation is
practised, are not all dead given over to some creature to
feed on ?

And so with nearly all religious customs. They seem
odd, often what we characterize as heathenish, but they
are really no worse than many of ours—who should know
better. The howling dervishes, if properly considered, are
truly devout worshippers, and make no more noisy dem-
onstrations than some of our revivalists at home, even
when they work themselves up to real religious fury in
their cry of “Allah Hu! Hu! Hu!’ (Allah, He is God!
He! He!) The twirling dervishes are assuredly more
dignified in their services than many troops of the Salva-
tion Army ; and, after all, did not David dance before the
Ark? Do not all nations sing their praises ?

In this connection I must tell you of one of the most
curious cases of misapprehended religious fervor that ever
came to my notice. Years ago, I was once taxing an old
negro, deacon of a colored church in Washington near
which I lived, with the fact that his congregation made an
undue racket in ‘their Sunday evening services. ‘“ Meejor,”
said the old man, seriously and respectfully, “doan’ you
know de Lawd’s Prayer?’ “ Why, of course, Uncle Dan;
but what has that got to do with it?” I queried. “ Mee-
jor,” he replied, with evident sorrow for my apparent ig-
norance expressed on his good old black face, “doan de
Lawd’s Prayer say ‘Hollered be Dy Name?” This col-
ored brother honestly believed that the second clause of
our daily invocation was a direct command to praise the
Lord with loud hosannas, and no doubt so did the entire
church. I was silenced. There was no time to instruct
Uncle Dan in the A B C of religion.

Reverence is much the same the world over, but it is

REVERENCE 433

manifested in different ways. It was, they say, a good old
Puritan lady of the bluest sect who once remarked that
she was “ going to Boston Wednesday D. V., or Thursday
whether or no.” She meant not to fly in the face of Provi-
dence, but she was of the trust-in-God and keep-your-
powder-dry order. With most of us, by-the-way, D. V. is
wont to stand for something more in the financial way—
something akin to Dato Vento—“ If I can raise the wind.”
But here I am, trespassing again, and most inexcusably.

LXX

Wuite the Hindoo cannot be classed among the riders
of the world, it would seem that at least once in the
course of his life he is bound to make his appearance on
horseback. It is commonly said at home that no man
fails to get at least one carriage ride while above-ground,
though it may be on the day of his funeral ; and similarly
the Hindoo, in many localities,on his marriage day always
appears on horseback. The bride leads the procession in
a palanquin. Unlike our brides, she is by far less an object
of curiosity than the groom; nor is she dressed so beauti-
fully or borne in such magnificence. It is a rare circus
that can turn out so gorgeously caparisoned a beast as the
horse that bears the groom. His head is crowned with a
tossing plume; his face and neck are covered with gold
brocade from which hang innumerable bright-hued tassels;
he wears a wide pad-like saddle, over which is thrown
a gold-brocade blanket which hides his entire rump, and
hangs down to his hocks ; and from the sides of it depend
huge clusters of gay tassels as big as cauliflowers. On
this gaudy creature sits the happy groom, usually a lad
under twelve, clad in equally stunning garb, and with his
face hidden by a veil of gold fringe; for, though the
bride on this day may show her face, so may not he. His
horse is led by two men; while others fan him, still others
hold long-handled sunshades over his precious head, and
many attendants surround him. When the contracting
parties are rich, all this magnificence is real. The kincob,

FINE EQUIPMENTS 435

or gold-thread woven cloth, is as expensive as it is beauti-
ful, and the horse’s rig may have cost many thousand
rupees. When they are poor, it is no less showy, but runs
fast into the tawdriness which besets all shams and imita-
tions.

In the Benares region I saw a number of goodish horses
very neatly equipped. I took them to be native, with an
impress of Arabian blood—the latter is always unmistak-
able—and to belong to Hindoos from the north-west prov-
inces, who had come down to bathe in the sacred Ganges
on the ghats of the Holy City. These horses had a fancy
red or yellow bridle, with a double-ring chain bit, and a
standing martingale of wide red cotton cloth inserted into
a loose sort of rope with flowing ends. The saddle was
stitched in white and red and yellow patterns, with a wide
padded saddle-cloth of soft woollen goods; and while the
tree proper may have been of wood, the pommel and
cantle and seat were made of heavily-padded and quilted
woollen goods, cleverly fashioned into the guise of a saddle.
It looked quite soft and easy. Leathers and stirrups were
of common pattern, but five or six thick party-colored
ropes passed loosely back over the horse’s rump, and were
gathered at the tail as a sort of ornamental breeching,
while his mane hung in many braids, which were length-
ened to three or four feet by jute-cord worked in with
the hair, and were then looped up to the saddle-bow.
Altogether, the steed was admirably caparisoned in his
own barbaric fashion, but the general effect was spoiled
by the hideous bedquilt in which his master ensconced
himself. The rider was scarcely the peer of the horse.
When the hotter weather compels him to shed his outer
integument he must be more picturesque. But nothing
can equal the grace of the Algerian burnoose.

Among the military one sees an occasional upstanding

436 MANIPURI POLO-PONY

and good-looking horse; but among the natives of India
a good horse is so rare that one must set the two hundred
and fifty millions of this great peninsula down in equine
matters as far below the rank of other Orientals. The
little mountain pony is almost the only thing one sees
which has any attractive points; the plains horse aver-
ages low. All those worth having go into the army.

Polo is much more of a national sport in India than it
is in Europe. The English adopted it barely thirty years
ago; but they have assimilated it, as they do everything
that savors of athletics. The little Manipuri pony illus-
trated is a fair specimen of what is used in the native
sport. The Europeans sometimes import a small Arabian
for polo; but the native has to be content with the best
of the clever ponies of the country. This little specimen
is not fast; you cannot play a racing game with him;
but he is nimble and intelligent, and makes good sport.
The native is an expert. Polo rules vary considerably
from ours, but the game is pursued with great enthusiasm
and skill) There may not be so many cracked heads or
mallet-shy ponies, for the Hindoo character quite lacks the
brutal side which degrades while it improves all sport ;
but the native game is quite as well worth watching as
many a game at Hurlingham.

This little Manipuri is unquestionably allied to the
Burmah pony. He has the same chunky, short-legged
skeleton and the weight-carrying power which character-
izes the Burmese, apart from the fact that his habitat is
close by. Polo is played in many sections, and this same
pony is often a favorite with the English.

Pig-sticking is said by those addicted to the sport to be
the most splendid one which can be pursued in the saddle.
I have heard even old fox-hunters give voice to this opin-
ion. When you are running down a fine old boar, and,

MANIPURI POLO-PONY

t
4,
4

point

a

,

f

PIG-STICKING 439

some two or three hundred yards ahead of you, he turns
and viciously awaits your arrival; when, by a sudden shy
or a fluke of your spear, your pony may get ripped up
and killed, or you may get thrown and end with an ugly
wound yourself, they say there is enough excitement
lent to the sport to place it easily at the head of eques-
trian pleasures. An old boar will often turn and face a
dozen pursuers, and will charge as furiously as any ani-
mal on four legs. I regret to say that I have never had
an opportunity to do any pig-sticking; though, as I have
done boar-hunting with dogs in Silesia, I well know the
value of this distinctly noble beast. I have seen him
eviscerate half the dogs in a big pack and send the others
to the right-about in a tussle of less than sixty seconds,
and then stand his ground until the huntsmen gave him.
the coup-de-grace.

The sole inducement to raise a good horse in India is
that he may be sold into the army. ‘There is practically
no sale for a draught-horse where bullocks do all the
work. The horses which draw the cabs in the large cities
are mostly from cast-off army stock, or army “culls.”
The little runts are used in odd bamboo carts for passen-
ger conveyance all over India; but by no chance do you
ever see a good and sizable horse in a native’s hands,
unless he be a rich one or a powerful. Nor can it be said
that the Indian horse has any special gaits. If he drifts
into the army he acquires the trot and canter; all other
gaits would be taboo. So long as he remains native
property, he ambles or racks, but in a rather inexpert
manner. The Indian is not enough of a horseman to cul-
tivate the gait. Even the donkeys are rarely ridden, and
as if to imitate their English rulers, under loads they as
often trot as amble.

LXXI

Tue French have managed to make Algeria a French
province; it will take the British longer to Anglicize
India; but their hand lies heavy on the land. Though
equal before the law, the native “has no rights which a
white man is bound to respect,” and the way in which he
is repressed is, with due deference to the Briton, more
worthy of criticism than our much-rebuked Southern
method of bulldozing the negroes. The Hindoo may do
nothing of his own free will; Government takes so father-
ly an interest in him that he is fenced in at every turn,
and prevented from doing this, that, or the other. He is
hustled aside as our negro cannot be, and there is a sort
of moral Post no Bills on every street corner. It reminds
one of the celebrated witticism of the Louis XIV. era,
when there was.a “ Défense” to do something on every
hoarding, and a multitude had assembled at a new mira-
cle-working shrine in numbers which threatened to be-
come a nuisance. Some one posted up during the night
near the spot a placard reading:

‘“De Par Le Roy, Défense a Dieu
De Faire Miracles En ce Lieu.”

Our good cousins have a sad trick of berating us be-
cause the few millions of negroes in America are not ad-
mitted by the whites to social equality; and they allege
that we have done nothing to raise the negro since his
emancipation. But, with their usual obtuseness, they for-

MOTES AND BEAMS 44]

get that here is nearly a fifth part of the population of the
world under their care, who are held down and despised
far worse than our black man and brother. And yet the
Hindoo is an Aryan cousin. What a mote and what a
beam !

The Hindoo is free enough in theory, but he is kept
down in a markedly high-handed way. The Southerner
really takes an interest in the negro. It pays to do it.
Not so the Briton in the Hindoo. And while in a certain
sense the latter has intelligence and some artistic qualities
beyond the American negro, his religion will prevent his
rising as the negro is eventually bound to do. It cannot
be said, indeed, that the Briton does much of anything to
raise the race. Of course he improves the land. He
builds water- works and railways and telegraphs. He is
just and liberal. All this reacts in a general way on the
people. India is distinctly mending her ways. But in
the matter of personal intercourse with the native, he
is far more of a sinner than the worst of the Southern
brigadiers.

In order to provide work for the immense population
at a mere living wage, labor of all kinds is subdivided in
a manner we cannot understand. You hire your “bearer”
or travelling servant, a very intelligent sort of man, for a
rupee and a half (forty-five cents) a day, and he boards
himself. A friend of mine in Madras keeps thirty-six
servants to do the work which my six at home do quite
as well. One man will sweep out the rooms, but will not
dust them; another will bring you fresh water, but his
caste forbids him to throw out the slops; a third will per-
form the most menial work, but will not touch a plate
which a Christian has eaten off. Each horse my friend
keeps must have a syce and a grass-cutter, usually the syce’s
wife; and he needs a coachman for every two carriages

442 CHEAP LABOR

besides. And yet all these servants cost but about the
wages of my six, and they all of them lodge and board
and clothe themselves, which mine do not.

Labor in India is extraordinarily cheap. You hire a
servant to wait on you in a hotel for four annas (eight
cents) a day, and have no care as to his keep or shelter.
But the cumulative labor in the country is sometimes
absurdly dear. On leaving the Great Eastern Hotel to go
to the P. & O. steamer last spring, I had two small trunks
and two smaller hold-alls. At home one porter would
have shouldered a trunk and carried a hold-all; in two
trips he would have loaded them on a cab, and would
have been well paid with ten or fifteen cents; in England
or France with less. But a “bearer”—lucus a non—
never bears anything except abuse. There followed him
into my room no less than seven coolies. Two hoisted a
trunk on their heads and marched off quadruped fashion ;
two others did the like with the other trunk; the fifth
and sixth took each a hold-all on his head; the seventh
carried my umbrella, and the bearer looked on. Down we
tramped, nine in all of us; the four things were loaded on
a two-bullock cart with two drivers, and I was put in a
cab with a driver and a syce. Thirteen full-grown men
thus escorted the four bundles, or, to express it in more
correct terms, it took a dozen men, two bullocks, one
horse, and two vehicles to see me and my four small bits
of luggage to the boat. Total disbursement, exclusive of
the cab, one rupee and ten annas, or just about fifty cents.
I was ruined by Hindoo cheap labor, but I could not go
for the heathen Hindoo on account of his plurality, let
alone custom.

The two coolies carrying a trunk on their heads re-
minds me of a wonderful answer once given in court by
old Harvey Waters, the mechanical expert. It was the

HARVEY WATERS 443

case of Ross Winans, who had got a patent on a truck-
car-—7.é., a passenger-car mounted on two trucks, instead
of having the axles running in boxes fixed to the car, as
is still the habit in all Europe. The truck-car will run on
a shorter curve and on a rougher road-bed, and Ross Wi-
nans thought that he held the entire railway system of
the States in the hollow of his hand. The patent was
attacked, and Harvey Waters was expert for Winans.
Mr. William Whiting was counsel for the party opposing
the patent, and had shown that it had been usual to
transport long pieces of merchandise or tree-trunks or
lumber on two small four- wheeled cars, to which each
end of the long thing would be lashed. He sought to
make Mr. Waters acknowledge that a passenger-car on
two trucks was the same thing as a big log lashed on two
small cars; but could not do so. After a very long cross-
examination, in which Waters’s clear method of statement
quite baffled the lawyer’s acumen, Mr. Whiting said:
“Will you please tell the court, Mr. Waters, wherein re-
sides the difference between a log lashed to two four-
wheeled cars and a passenger-car riding on two trucks?”
Old Waters thought an instant, and then looking up with
his glistening black eyes, and running his fingers through
his snow-white hair, answered, ‘ Mr. Whiting, a log lashed
to two trucks is no more a passenger-car riding on two
trucks than two men carrying a log between them on
their shoulders are a quadruped!” This astonishingly
keen reply told the story better—made the case clearer—
than a whole day of legal refinements had been able to
do. Harvey Waters was as wonderful as his scythe-roll-
ing machine.
Among the very best of the Eastern populations which
now owe fealty to Great Britain are the Burmese. They
are very much like their native ponies, small, but muscu-

4A4 THE BURMESE

lar and stocky, with excellent endurance and the very
best of manners. The Burmese are Mongols, but even
in Lower Burmah the healthful influence of their orig-
inal uplands in the Himalayas is clearly to be traced.
The men are strong, and many of the women are pretty;
they are quite another race from their Hindoo neighbors.
Why they did not ages ago conquer the entire Indian
peninsula it is hard to say, unless they prefer their own
rugged hills.. The Burmah pony has all the character-
istics of the Burmah man; and he is said often to pos-
sess road-speed, probably not, however, in our sense. He
finds his way all over India under the pseudonym of —
Pegu pony. | :

The aspect of Southern differs materially from that of
Northern India. The soft, moist, tropical heat keeps the
native’s pores open and seems to make him a cleaner mor-
tal. He strikes one as better fed—it is an ambition here
to grow fat; his huts are neater, and altogether he fills
your ideas of decency to a greater degree. By decency I
do not refer to clothes. If the bathing-suit of a modern
belle can go in a bonbon box, so will the full dress of a
Hindoo go in.a thimble. A string around his waist, with
a breech-cloth scarcely as big as a handkerchief tied to it
front and rear, is all he needs. He wears no turban ex-
cept in the extreme summer heat, and goes about looking
for all the world like an old black-bronze statue. The
children remain as the Lord made them. The women are
always scrupulously clad, if diaphanously. But though
the Hindoo sometimes rides a bullock, he is rarely enough
astride a horse. His little native jutka pony is barely
worth notice; he is not half as good a goer as the trotting
bullock.

In Madras the waler is omnipresent. He is fair for
carriage work, not more. A pair of good-going sixteen-

PRICE OF WALERS 445

hand walers command twelve hundred rupees; a good-
looking, well-trained saddle-beast, a thousand.

As we leave the land of the Brahman, we feel that it is
the least of a land of riders of any we have seen. The
Hindoo cannot be called a horseman. |

LXXII

Wuevy, in coming from India, you reach the land of the
Mongol, you are first of all struck by the sturdiness of the
people. The Malay Peninsula shows you a population of
athletes. Nowhere outside of Japan have I seen such a
collection of muscular legs; the ’ricksha men have an
abnormal underpinning, and the naked-torsoed coolies are
a pleasure to behold, though perhaps they lack the thor-
ough-bred type which you find in our own men in training,
with its exceptional depth of lung-space. It is fortunate
for Europe that the Turanian race is conservative in-
stead of enterprising. If, with its numbers and physique
and habits of obedience, it had the colonizing spirit and
good leadership, it would sweep over Europe like an ava-
lanche. But it is scarcely possible that a people which
for so many thousand years has been content to starve at
home will seek an outlet across the tremendous mountain
barriers of Central Asia.

The bullock as the horse of the country disappears after
you round the Malay Peninsula, and we are greeted by
the same little pony which has excited our admiration in
the Himalayas, and in Burmah and Pegu. When you
reach Cochin China, or Annam, or Tonquin (I am not
enough of a geographer or a politician to tell where one
ends and the other begins, for in territorial divisions na-
tions seem nowadays to be playing at hide-and-seek all
over the world), you run across a race of men which needs
no beast of burden. Indeed, they have not the where-

THE HIMALAYA PONY 447

withal to feed it. These Mongols are essentially foot-
men; the coolies are the sumpter-animals; they have nei-
ther bullock nor horse nor ass for labor; man does all the
work; the horse is a mere luxury. The population of the
plains is so dense that there is food only for man. But in
the high lands the little Himalaya pony may be found;
he has wandered along the water-shed and spurs of the
“backbone of the earth” to Siam and beyond, and has
lost none of his sterling qualities.

He is indeed a wonderful little creature, this Himalaya
pony. I do not know how otherwise to name him; but
whether he be called the Burmah, or the Pegu, or the
Annam pony, he is in race as markedly the same as the
Barb of the Libyan is the cousin of the Arabian of the
Syrian desert. He varies in size. In Burmah he is often
nearly fourteen hands; in Cochin China he is barely twelve.
He is amiable and intelligent, has the same solid qualities
which all pony races seem to inherit, and, for his inches,
will carry or drag a wonderful weight. A man of over
two hundred pounds will ride a little eleven-hands pony
all day; a rat of less size will draw a cab with four passen-
gers inside and two men on the shafts. There is no S. P.
©. A. in the Far East.

As it decreases in size all horse-flesh gains immensely in
proportionate ability to labor. The same rule applies, in
fact, to all creatures. The flea can jump a hundred times
his own height or length; imagine an elephant lightly
hopping from the Champ de Mars to the top of the Tour
Eiffel and back again! The same ratio does not hold in
mammals; but the pony can certainly do twice the work
of the cart-horse in proportion to his avoirdupois, and this
is the case with every race of ponies. Some hybrid ani-
mals (such as the Spanish jennet) lack this peculiar quali-
ty ; but the rule is sound.

448 SAIGON RACES

I attended some races in Saigon, the French town of
Cochin China. They struck me as rather funny, for all
the entries were these same little rats, and the time made
was slow enough; but the plucky ponies proved clearly
that they had endurance, and speed according to their
kind. There were, among other events, trotting races in
harness and under saddle; and, providing the horse went
anything but a gallop, it was looked on as within the law.
In one saddle-race, with only two entries, one pony paced
and the other single-footed. The latter was a phenom-
enal little beast, and won the trotting-race in as fine a
three-minute rack as you ever saw, with the side-wheeler
at his tail. The whole thing was as interesting as it was
ludicrous.

Practically, no one rides in these Mongolian countries.
Only a stray mandarin who wants to put on an extra bit
of dignity uses a saddle-beast, and then he does not ride;
he occupies, as it were, a box-seat on the four-footed con-
veyance—a phrase, by-the-way, which recalls the lady who
is said to have gone out riding on her pet trained tiger,
and on the return-trip to have occupied an inside seat.
The mandarin. has rarely a well-caparisoned mount. He
himself is as gaudy as the birds of his native land, but his
knees wobble to and fro and his toes point in every direc-
tion in and out of season. He does not ride, he gets trans-
ported by the horse.

The French officers serving with the army of Tonquin
and its dependencies ride the Himalaya pony; and all the
beasts they use in the artillery and trains are of this race;
but the native uses him little. No other horse can take
his place. The Government buys ponies at about thirty
Mexican dollars ($20 of our money) a head; an officer
pays forty to sixty for a good one; and the universal testi-
mony is that he is unexcelled.

FAILURE OF ARABIANS 449

Curiously, the Arabian, who thrives in every other part
of the world, has failed here. The French have essayed
to acclimate him, but he has proven useless. The speci-
mens brought over from Algeria, at a cost of over a hun-
dred and fifty dollars each, went to pieces before they had
rendered any service; and some officers who bought them
for ten or twenty dollars at the Government sale, and tried
to get this value out of them, practically had their trouble
for their pains.

This pony needs little care in any weather or under any
exposure. He is as surefooted as a Bad Lands bronco, a
rather exceptionally good roadster, and hard to kill. He
has lots of grit, and you can put him right along without
fear of injury. He is not a small horse like the bronco;
he is a pony with the real pony head, body, and legs; but
he has a well-rounded crest, and carries a rather better
than average tail. When this is squared, and his mane
hogged, he is as neat-turned a little fellow as you may
want to see. Few except whole horses are used.

LXXIII

THE Celestial is less of a horseman than even the Hin-
doo. There are scarce a dozen public horses in Hong-
Kong; in Canton there is not one kept for public use, for
there are no streets wide enough for him to travel on.
In Shanghai there are a few cabs to supplement the ’rick-
shas and the queer passenger-wheelbarrow on which the
Chinese take their outings or pay their social duties; but
the only riders one sees in any part of China are military
men, or residents, who ride @ 1’ Anglaise.

Riders may be said to be habitual or accidental. So
soon as you leave Arabia to the west of you, the latter
condition obtains. In the far East no one who must not
ever thinks of riding, unless he be a European stranded
away from home by official duty or by commerce. One
cannot wonder. that, with this lack of appreciation of his
good qualities, the Chinese pony has become a wretched
specimen. On the whole, I do not know anywhere, but
in Japan, a horse which shows so poorly. He is coarse
in every sense. Even when clipped he still looks coarse.
A large percentage are white or of light color, and they
all resemble each other like eggs in a basket. This pony
averages little over fourteen hands, if that. His head is
large and meaty, though exhibiting in the face no signs of
vice. His neck is put on so that he cannot by any possi-
bility carry a good head; and as at all gaits and in all
positions it sticks out in linear prolongation of his back-
bone, so he has no throttle, and his head is affixed to his

CHINESE PONY 451

neck as the head of a hammer is fixed on its handle. His
body is clumsy, and his hair rough. The mane is thick,
and the long, bushy tail is curly and carried close. His
legs show neither bone nor sinew, and his feet look flat,
though I have seen few lame ones. He is ungainly to a
degree, and far removed from the Burmah pattern, which,
while partaking of all the points that ponies exhibit all
over the world, is neat turned, and boasts a good crest
and well-carried tail. The fact is that the Himalaya pony
will not wander far from his hills and retain his identity.
The same thing has happened in China that has happened
in India, but in a greater degree; and in neither case has
man tried to breed for a good stock.

The Chinese pony may have endurance; but no animal
so meanly constructed by Nature can possess the grit of
the finer-made creature. Blood will tell. Not but what
he will respond to good treatment. Some foreign resi-
dents manage to improve his looks, and, no doubt, to a
certain degree, his qualities. But whenever you see a
good one he is apt to be an imported pony.

I have met Europeans who speak well of the Chinese
pony. The best specimens come from Mongolia, where,
they say, a few Arabians which were brought to China
by the English army in the fifties eventually turned up
and gave a good impress to the native stock. This state-
ment does not accord with the French experience in Ton-
quin, nor does the Arabian blood show here in the remot-
est degree—though it invariably does elsewhere, at once
and permanently.

The Chinese pony is brought in herds to Hong-Kong
and Shanghai from Mongolia, and is sold for from ten to
fifty Mexican dollars. A good one can be got for sixty,
and from that upwards. Why, en passant, can Mexico
manage to palm off her dollars on the entire distant East,

452 A MOUNTED MANDARIN

while our handsome trade-dollar cannot be forced on the
people? The pony arrives half broken, but he may be
trained to fair utility, and many people make a decent
hack of him. Some say he can jump, but this cannot be
what we mean by jumping. At his best he is far below
his Himalaya cousin. His appearance proves it. Some
individuals, without points, may turn out to be good; but
I never knew a race of horses without points—or of men
either—who were worth their salt. |

Nothing but necessity, or the desire to cut a figure—an
incentive, by the way, of the most potent among all hu-
man beings-—can possibly get a Chinaman astride a pony.
I am not referring to the Tartars; they are another folk.
But John Chinaman, as we know him, the inhabitant of
the region to which Hong-Kong and Shanghai serve as
outlets, the pidgeon-English, “ chin-chin” Mongol, is no
horseman. There are race-tracks in both these great
ports, but the sport is sustained by the foreign popula-
tion, not by the Chinese. You may see a Chinaman ex-
ercising his master’s horse, and clad in the garb of the
British groom; but he is the exception, and acquires
- horsemanship in an imitative fashion.

The Mandarin on horseback is a sight for gods and
men. He is pompous enough in his element; but astride
a horse his dignity may be expressed by a minus quan-
tity. To us this is very evident; but to the never-riding
Chinaman no doubt the mounted Mandarin gains in im-
portance as he gains in height. He objects to being shot
at by a kodak, does the Mandarin, and still more to being
deliberately posed by the man with the tripod apparatus ;
but he makes an interesting picture. His inverted wash-
bowl hat of scarlet silk has a rich black fringe loosely
flowing upon it, while a peacock feather sticks out from
it like a rudder to the rear. His inner gown of bright

A MANDARIN’S RIDING EQUIPMENTS 453

yellow brocade, as he sits in the saddle, hangs like the
very best pattern of the divided skirt so vainly longed
for by our fair equestriennes. Over this goes a loose but
stiff silk shirt-like garment of more modest hue, which
hangs down only to the pony’s back, and his cork-soled
shoes are thrust into gilt stirrups, with his knees much
bent but his lower leg nearly perpendicular. If he goes

CHINESE MANDARIN

out of a walk, however, he will cling with all the legs and
heels he can command. His omnipresent fan he has mo-
mentarily exchanged for a lash-whip, and his general air
of uneasiness is in keeping with the ill-kempt condition of
his pony, who seems utterly indifferent as to whether he
bears a Mandarin ora cooly. Barring a necklace of big
beads, or sometimes sleigh-bells, and a thick saddle-cloth
ot gaudy color, the pony is meanly equipped ; and he is

454 THE ABACUS

uniformly led by an attendant, though why, it is hard to
see. An umbrella-bearer and other servants surround
the Mandarin, lest the many-headed should press too close-
ly upon his Immaculate Transparency. Thus mounted
and equipped he goes to and from the Joss-house—the
cynosure of neighboring eyes, and in his own the mirror
of purity.

The Chinaman is a very able mortal, in his way. It is
astonishing what excellent and reliable work he can do
at the rate of twenty-five cents a day for skilled labor.
He will copy you a coat, a clock, a steamer; he will
stallfeed and cook you a rat that you shall roll for as
sweet a morsel under your tongue as a gray squirrel; or
he will prepare you a puppy that shall serve you for a
sucking-pig. He touches nothing that he does not adorn,
from philosophic thinking to cheating at cards. Confu-
clus was a Chinaman; so was Ah Sin. He has his limi-
tations, to be sure. His coat may rip; his clock may not
keep time; his steamer may not go. He rarely perfects
anything; ‘will pass” is his motto. It costs him an
effort to get to the true inwardness of things. Take the
case of the abacus. You buy three articles at ten cents
each; the Chinese shopkeeper cannot tell you that the
sum is thirty cents (in America it would be “three for a
quarter,” I suppose), but he goes at his abacus, and after
rattling away a few seconds, exclaims “ Dirty cent!” with
a smile of triumph. I went one day into the splendid
building of the Hong-Kong and Shanghai Banking Cor-
poration, capital ever so many millions, to get some notes
changed—$440 at 1% discount. One must assume that
the employés of this concern are men of the highest abil-
ity in their line; but my particular clerk, though a man
of fifty and evidently in authority, could not tell me that
he must deduct $4.40 for the 14, and give me back

BROUGHAM AND WALLACK 455

$435.60; he had to fiddle away for ten or twelve seconds
at the abacus. In the brocade-shop of Laon-Kai-Fook &
Co. I bought 34 yards of goods at $1.60 a yard. It was
easy for me to say $5.20 at once, and I laid that amount
on the counter; but the clerk doubtfully shook his head,
and going at the abacus, in a short while evolved the same
sum total. Yet he will do intricate sums in interest and
discount as readily as he does the 3+ 10. The abacus
spoils his mental arithmetic as many books destroy the
memory ; but it averages well.

Now, the moral of all this is that the Chinaman rides
his horse much as he does his figuring—not by under-
standing the animal and the work to be done, but by the
use of a sort of equine abacus. If the pony shies, he has
to rattle out the best thing to do by a mechanical process,
or get “rattled” himself. His intuitions, his horse-sense
are nil. What wonder he is no rider !

Which last phrase reminds me of the old story that
John Brougham is said to have once told on Lester Wal-
lack, in payment for some practical joke by the latter.
It was at an actors’ dinner, and in his after-dinner speech
Brougham said that he had lately had a dream. “I had
died,” said he, “and was laboriously plodding up towards
the gates of Paradise, foot-sore and weary, along the dusty
highway, with a lot of other pilgrims, all manifestly from
among the lowly in station, when I heard the sound of
wheels behind me and the blare of a horn; and, turning,
I saw coming towards me a fine crimson coach and four
spanking bays, the leaders cantering and the wheelers on
a strong, square trot, as stylish as you please. Stepping
aside, to my surprise I perceived Lester Wallack on the
box, tooling the team in a masterly manner; and as he
passed, heedless of my shout of recognition, flicking a fly
from his off-leader’s nigh ear with the nonchalance of an

456 THE CHINESE RELIABLE

artist of the first water. JI watched them as they bowled
along at a fifteen-mile gait, fancying it too bad that I
should thus be left behind by one of my old friends and
one of my own ilk; and, mzrabile dictu, as they neared
the outer portals, these were swung wide open as.a wel-
come, and the coach-and-four rumbled in. Some hour or
so later I reached the gates and humbly knocked at the
small side- wicket. After a while a sort of little ticket-
window was cautiously opened and St. Peter put out his
head. ‘Who’sthere? ‘It is I, St. Peter, John Brougham,’
I replied, with fear and trembling. ‘Where from? ‘New
York. ‘H’m—profession? ‘Actor’ ‘Oh, don’t come
bothering here! said the saint, testily, rattling his keys;
‘first turn to the left, broad road, downhill; we’ve no
room in this place for theatre - folks, and was about to
slam the window in my face, when I hastily exclaimed,
‘But, good St. Peter, I just saw Lester Wallack drive
through the beautiful big gates in gorgeous style.’ ‘ Les-
ter Wallack, did you say? mused St. Peter—‘ Lester Wal-
lack? Why, e's no actor ! ”

This story may be like a jewel of gold in a—well, mis-
placed ; but ’tis a good story.

It is due to the Chinese merchant to say that, even if
he has no horse-sense, he is business-like and reliable. No
Chinaman’s note ever goes to protest at the banks; and
the man who handles the cash all over the far East, even
in Japan, invariably wears a pigtail.

LXXIV

TuE every-day Japanese pony is a buffoon,.the clown
of the equine circus. His character seems to.come from
a lack of appreciation of what a horse is fit for on the
part of this amiable people. When you see a rider dis-
mount at a hill, walk up himself and push his horse, stop-
ping to rub the sweat off his nag’s face at intervals; or
when you see him perform half his journey afoot on a hot
day, walking along beside and fanning his horse mean-
while, you may indeed conceive a high opinion of the
man’s sweet reasonableness, but you do not gain in re-
spect for the brute as a saddle-beast. Wouldn’t a cowboy
erin at such an exhibition? No wonder the pony is a
perfect Jack-pudding.

His appearance corresponds with his character. Per-
haps there is no animal which more distinctly belies the
noble qualities of the race. If the Chinese pony lacks
good points, the common run of the Japanese may be said
to have none at all. Generally of a dirty brown color,
this horse has a shock of coarse mane about his neck and
ears and face which would do honor to a Dandie Dinmont
terrier. Since the Japanese themselves have begun to
adopt European customs, they have given up the pictu-
resque paint-brush queue, which used to be brought from
behind up over the head and pointed at you like the barrel
of a Smith & Wesson, and now get their polls cropped
about twice a year. After some six months’ growth, the
thick raven hair with which the Jap is blessed stands up

458 JAPANESE PONIES

like nothing in the world so much as a coarse black
clothes- brush ; and the Japanese pony’s head is an exag-
geration of his master’s. Old pictures show that this has
always been so. The shaggy mane and forelock is not hke
that of a good pony; it is not only unkempt, but scarcely
possible to comb; it exhibits the lowest form of breeding,
and the rest of his appearance corresponds. He is, how-
ever, much larger and apparently stronger than the Chi-
nese pony.

There is no typical Japanese rider at the present day.
The daimio of old has gone into the army, and rides ac-
cording to the modern dispensation; the samurai have
degenerated into policemen.- They are out of our cat-
egory. Polo may be said no longer to exist. The fact
that there is a Polo Club—an aristocratic survival of Old
Japan—and that a formal game is now and then played—
much as we hold a Forefathers’ Ball—merely serves to
prove the rule. I have said above that the Japanese ex-
ceed all other players in skill at polo. This is true; but I
must limit the statement to that part of the game which
consists of handling the ball. In the part which covers _
horsemanship they are far behind.

You may not remember the fact that Japanese polo,
which has been played since the seventh century, is a fine
game of skill rather than a hammering athletic sport.
The polo mallet is really a sort of small racket with a
long bamboo handle, and with the net loose enough to en-
able the player to catch up and by a circular motion of
the wrist retain the ball. It weighs under two ounces,
and the ball under one. Fourteen players range them-
selves in two files down each side of the long enclosure.
Goal is a fence at the farther end of the ground, in which
is a round hole eighteen inches in diameter, holding a net
pocket ; and the object of each player is to put the balls

THE DAIMIO 459

of his side, with which he starts and is kept provided, into
goal, and to prevent his opponents from so doing with
their own. A barrier keeps the players from coming
within eighteen feet of goal. Seven balls goaled on either
side finishes the first stage of the game, when one ball
alone, for the side having so scored, is kept on the field.
If this side can also goal this last ball, it wins. Games
lasting over half an hour are drawn. The game is very
full of nicety, but lacks the vigor of ours.

In olden times—and olden times in Japan date only
back of 1855, when Commodore Perry so lustily knocked
at her doors—there was a rider in this land of the rising
sun. Tradition and art combine to prove his existence.
He may have been a daimio or baron; he may have be-
longed to the samurai or gentry, which was also the war-
rior class. As every one who has ever seen a Japanese
picture-book will remember, this rider is generally repre-
sented by the old artists in a peculiarly fierce attitude, and
with an expression which the vulgar imagine to be evoked
by the determination to conquer some mighty enemy, to
slay some grewsome dragon, or to face some gibbering,
squeaking ghost, the most fiendish of all Japanese fiends ;
but to my horseman’s eye the expression clearly denotes
a determination to stick to the saddle for the next half-
hour or perish in the attempt. The act of riding appears
to have been more terrible to the ancient Japanese war-
rior than the enemy. If the daimio rode as he is depicted
as riding, he was not even a man on horseback; he was a
man who might stay on horseback or might not. Like
John Leech’s Frenchman describing his experiences in the
hunting-field, he might explain: “ Ven she joamp easy, I
am; mais ven she joamp so ’ar-r-rd, I do not r-r-remain.”

But he had a noteworthy saddle, this daimio—a saddle
of gold lacquer. This may not sound very wonderful,

460 GOLD LACQUER

but do you know what gold lacquer is? You pick up a
little shiny yellow box as light as a feather at a curio-
dealer’s, a box which to your inexperienced eye looks
worth fifty cents, and ask its price. ‘One hundred dol-
lars,’ comes the answer. You think the man is joking,
and offer him five, and keep on increasing up to fifty, six-
ty, perhaps eighty, and still you will not get that box.
There is many a gold-lacquer box too small to hold even a
few quires of note-paper, and without any fictitious archee-
ological value, which a thousand-dollar bill will not pur-
chase; and I recently saw, in that wonderful curio-store
of Ikeda’s in Kyoto, eight thousand dollars offered and
refused for a not very large cabinet. The offer came from
a well-known English nobleman. Until you know the
labor which goes into it, and its durability, and acquire
the taste for its refined beauty, you have no idea of what
gold lacquer can be. It is the most indestructible prod-
uct of human skill. Though made solely by repeated coat-
ings of an ill-smelling sort of varnish on a wood frame, a
needle will not scratch it nor a live coal burn it. Some
lacquer sent by the Mikado to the Vienna Exposition
went down off the coast on its return home, and lay eigh-
teen months in the sea-water before it was fished up.
When opened, though its coverings had been at once
soaked through, and though the metal hinges were deeply
corroded, the gold lacquer was found to be as perfect as
the day it had been finished—two hundred years ago.
His lacquer is somewhat of an index to the character of a
Japanese. Both contain much honest gold.

Now, though the daimio may have been less of a rider
than the Indian in his home-made elkhorn tree, he often
sat in a gold-lacquer saddle, which represented the work
of a score of men for a decade, and very beautiful it was.
Its construction was odd. The pommel was like an enor-

JAPANESE ART 461

mous two-pronged fork with short tines much spread; the
cantle was the same, but somewhat wider, and with tines
more spread. These were held together by two side-
pieces placed against them end on, and lashed to them by
gay silk cords passed through holes perforated in each,
and with dangling tassels. The saddle was never a firm,
solid whole; the parts were illy held to each other, and
nothing but a mass of blankets saved the horse from a con-
stant sore back. The daimio sat as loosely in the saddle
as it sat loosely on the horse, and rode with a more than
Oriental seat, leaning forward over the withers and perched
away above the horse, much as I can remember the effigy
of Akbar, the Great Mogul, at Madame Tussaud’s Wax
Works. His feet were thrust into the biggest metal stir-
rups which, I think, have ever existed, and which weigh
six to ten pounds apiece. They are made like a huge pair
of slippers without heels or counters, and with the sides
cut out, while the heavy silk cord which served in lieu of
leathers passed through an eye at the instep. These stir-
rups can often be bought at the curio-stores. They are
generally of iron, ornamented with fine damascene work
of gold and silver. To us less artistic people it seems
queer to decorate with precious metals so common a ma-
terial as iron; but the Japanese thinks only of the effect,
using all metals indifferently to work out his scheme; and
iron lends itself wonderfully well to decoration. The dai-
mio’s bit was a queer affair, a cross between a curb and a
double-ring snaffle, and was hung in a simple bridle of silk
cord. His bridle-reins were often tied to his sash on either
side of him-——a fact which perhaps argues more for his
ability to guide his pony than I have above admitted.
The pony was shod with straw sandals or not at all. The
daimio wore a dress of marvellous goods, with his crest
between the shoulder-blades, and embroidered all over

}
}
{
:

462 STRENGTH OF JAPANESE

with flowers and storks and dragons, and ample enough
to cover half his horse as well as to hide his own person.
He was a gay bird, indeed, but nothing in the old pictures,
or in the modern horse, shows him to have been much of
a rider. }

The modern Japanese horse is properly a beast of bur-
den; so is the bullock; so are the men and women. But
there are few horses and fewer bullocks, while men and
women are plenty. It seems to me that the Japanese
works harder than any other peasant in the world. The
loads he drags on his long two-wheeled cart are enor-
mous; the speed and endurance of the jinricksha cooly
surpass those of any other. He is built for hard work.
With an extra big body in proportion to his small stature,
he has legs which are wonderful for their muscular devel-

opment; and he seems to be able to keep at his work

without distress. The ’ricksha man neither sweats nor
puffs, even after a long pull. A set of tandems took my
party sixteen long miles one morning in two hours and
twenty minutes, over a rise of four hundred feet; they
went the last three miles downhill at a full run, apparent-
ly for the fun of it; and when they pulled up not one of
the eight men was even breathing hard. The home trip
was at an equally lively pace. The demand has called out
a supply of runners. There is no need of a light draught-
horse in Japan.

The Japanese is essentially a strong man of his inches,
and has endurance unspoiled by bad national habits. The
athletes are very able; but until I saw them, I never
could explain to myself how men who eat and drink
themselves into mountains of fat could retain their pow-
ers of wrestling. On seeing the imperial champion, a
man of perhaps five feet seven—this is tall for a Jap,
whose average height is little over five feet—and weigh-

WRESTLERS | 463

ing, I should judge, at least two hundred and fifty pounds,
with fat, indeed, hanging down in big loops over his belt,
I exclaimed that it was not possible for such a man to
wrestle. And I was right; according to our rules he
could not wrestle at all. But Japanese matches require
far less endurance than our own long collar-and-elbow
matches, or than any style admissible among us. A Jap-
anese bout lasts often but five or ten seconds; rarely a
hundred; and bouts are never more than best two in
three. The idea of rules which will keep a man at work
for two hours or more has not occurred to them. So

many things end a bout that the fat man runs no chance |

of getting winded ; he scarcely has to use his lungs. The
ring is not much over a dozen feet in diameter, and if he
can force his lighter opponent out of it, or throw him in
any manner whatever, or force him on one knee, he wins.
A fall in Japan means any fall; a man need not be put
flat on his back. The fat man himself is hard to move;
you cannot get a hold on his slippery, bulky corporosity ;
so long as he has to make no running fight which will ex-
haust him, he is master of the situation. But in a match
that called on him for lung power he would be nowhere,
despite his mere strength and weight. A lively antago-
nist who would jump all round him and keep him moving
would soon tire him out.

Though the average Japanese nag is a poor specimen,
an occasional army officer has a fairly decent pony, well
kept and neatly saddled. A few European residents in
the treaty-ports and Tokyo keep saddle-beasts, but they
are far from good. There are some at livery in the big
cities; but not one of those I have seen would you or I
condescend to throw a leg across at home. A fairish cob
may now and then be observed in a victoria or a dog-cart;
and when he is groomed and harnessed properly he is better

'

464 JAPANESE HORSE

than the mere cheval du pays. But this is due to European
influences. The horse carries a low head, and though his
croup is high, he is apt to hug his tail. From the little
experience I have had with him, I should judge him to
tire easily. Despite his appearance, however, the country
horse plods along willingly, and rarely suffers at the hands
of his master from anything but lack of food—a want
equally partaken by the man.

LXXV

Bur I fear I may be losing my chzar-oscuro: to say that
there is no modern Japanese rider except the cavalryman,
that there is no evidence of there ever having been a
horseman in the best sense, and to stop there, savors of
injustice to this wonderful people. There is no more in-
teresting population in the world. We may indulge in a
good-natured laugh at the odd way in which the modern
Jap combines his graceful kimono and his odd national
clogs with a hideous bean-pot of antiquated pattern, and
worn any way but the right way; or we may scream our
protest at his chopping down venerable cryptomerias
along the highways in his eagerness to make room for the
rigid horror of telegraph-poles ; but the fact remains that
the Japanese are a marvellous race, which has done mar-
vellous work.

It is a singular reflection how this nation, starting from
the same point as our own woad-painted ancestors, has
wrought out a civilization quite as perfect in its way—
judging from the Greek standard probably more perfect
than the European, for it was an esthetic rather than a
material one—and yet as different from ours as black
from white. Of course, at the present day, Japan, with a
territory and a population as large as Great Britain and
Ireland, cannot take the place she aspires to in the society
of nations without conforming to the tenets of our semi-
mechanical, semi-intellectual civilization. This she is now

busied with doing, and has made remarkable strides in
30

466 TOPSY-TURVYNESS

acclimating our steam and electricity. But her own civil-
ization was quite another, as were also her morals, relig-
ion, habits.

Like every other purely human structure, the term civil-
ization is relative. So, for the matter of that, is morals.
So is religion. So iscleanliness. If the end of civilization
be to make men happy and contented, then Japan has had
the greater. If morals be to do nothing of which you
need be ashamed in the eyes of your own particular world,
then the Japanese moral code is quite as good as ours.
If the end of religion be to make men and women good
members of society, and to prepare them for rest in what-
ever future state they may be called to, then the Shinto-
Buddhism of Japan has accomplished it. If to bathe sev-
eral times a day be cleanliness, then the Japanese is the
cleanest of mortals.

But though a highly civilized being, the Japanese has
always done things in, to us, a topsy-turvy way. As
Chamberlain points out, the beginning of a book is on our
last page. A big full-stop heads every newspaper para-
graph. Men make merry with wine before, not after din-
ner, and sweets precede meat. Boats are hauled up on
the beach stern-foremost. People wear white for mourn-
ing. They carry babies on their backs, not in their arms.
Keys turn left-handed. A carpenter planes and saws tow-
ards him, and builds the roof of a house first. It is an
act of politeness to remove your shoes, not your hat.
The Japanese dries himself with a damp towel, and dries
his lacquer in a damp room. He mounts his horse from
the off side; all buckles are placed on the off side, and
when the horse is stabled, he is backed into the stall and
fed in a tub where our drain is wont to be. His very
language is what we should style perverse. If you want
to ask how many guests there are in the hotel, you say:

MORALS 467

“Under roof honorable guests how many as to?” the
last two words suggesting the guant a of the French. For
all this, to us, utterly wrong-headed method, the Japanese,
when Perry’s black ships first approached their shores,
were a wonderfully civilized people.

It has been truly remarked that the Japanese are great
in small things, and small in great things. Their art is
true and exquisite, but it is not a broad art like that of
Athens or the Renaissance. They cannot erect a Parthe-
non or a St. Peter’s, for theirs is a land of earthquakes ;
still their architecture and the setting of their temples are
noble, and they can decorate as no one else ever has.
They have done wonders in small work: their lacquer,
ivories, porcelains, embroideries, are marvellous ; but they
have never created a Hermes or a David; they have
never conceived a Panathenaic Procession or a Parnassus.
In landscape-gardening they are masters; in landscape-
architecture, if the distinction may be allowed me, we
have better work. The Mito and the Hama Gardens in
Tokyo are, each in its way, perfect; but neither has size
nor breadth of treatment such as one may see in Central
Park.

There can scarcely be said to be a positive code of
morals. The Decalogue did not prevent Solomon from
having three hundred wives and seven hundred concu-
bines—I believe that was the number. You cannot main-
tain that the Hindoo mother, who, in the frenzy of wor-
ship, tears from her breast the sucking child and casts it
to the sacred crocodile in the Ganges—the greatest act of
selfimmolation of which a human being is capable—is
guilty of infanticide. So with the Japanese. The present
crown-prince is the son of a concubine, but he is none the
less crown-prince. How far back do we have to go in
English history to find an equal origin of many noble

——— Se a
- Fa =

468 MODESTY

families who now consider their blood pure ichor? How
long ago did the delightful old system of “bundling”
obtain in our own midst? What we choose to cail female
modesty is a subservience to a certain code of convention-
alism. The Japanese woman has one of her own. So
long as she walks pigeon-toed as an outward symbol of
correct morals, she may tear all our ordinary rules of
modesty to shreds. But the Japanese woman is none the
less truly modest. The country girl will enter a common
public bath with men, clad solely in her own ideas of de-
cency, because she has no private bath at home, and to
bathe is a perfectly natural thing to do; but she will not
uncover a square inch of her neck or arms to secure the ad-
miration of men. If her kimono flops aside in the wind
she may show her naked leg half way up the thigh, but
she will not protrude a toe from beneath her garments
from mere coquettishness. The geisha-girl is full clad, and
dances mainly with her arms; she would scorn to show
her person or to do high-kicking, as our ballet-girls do;
and yet she belongs to the class which we frown from our
midst as play-actors. The Japanese rule is simple. Na-
kedness is not immodesty at proper times, such as the
hour of bathing; nakedness, in whole or in part, to in-
cite desire, is the grossest form of immodesty. The
Japanese maiden would blush to see our sea-side girl go
into the breakers with a suit made of half a yard of
serge; but she would go in as the Lord made her without
a notion of impropriety. In other words, the Japanese
woman treats the entire subject of clothes au naturel.
Her ideas are very similar to those of the ancient Greeks,
whom we do not go out of our way to abuse for their
lack of what we call modesty.

So with cleanliness. So long as he bathes from one to
half a dozen times a day (as he literally does), the Jap

SMELLS 469

cares little whether he changes his linen or not. We do
the reverse— bathe less often but change every day or
two. Which is the better habit? Now, while the Japan-
ese homes are all as clean as a lady’s boudoir, is their idea
of sanitation ours, and the smells in Japan often recall
Coleridge’s impromptu rhyme anent Cologne of old :

‘“‘In K6éln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fanged with murderous stones,
And: rags and hags and hideous wenches,
I counted two and seventy stenches—
All well defined and several stinks !
Ye Nymphs, who rule o’er sewers and sinks,
The River Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash the City of Cologne.
But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the River Rhine ?”

Truly, their ways (as they were) are not as our ways.
But they are fast getting “civilized.” Even that horror
of modern entertainments, the swallow-tailed waiter (why
will he not migrate with the other swallows %), threatens
to make Japan an abiding-place. Not so very long ago,
a Japanese gentleman would invite his friends to a tea-
house (male friends, of course; no lady was ever invited to
dinner) and give them a charming repast, enlivened by
the songs and dances of the most attractive geishas—who,
as a class, are the most accomplished women in Japan.
Nowadays he asks them to a European table, after-din-
ner speeches and all. Is this a gain?

By-the-way, this after-dinner speaking reminds me of
one of the very best things I ever heard said on such
an occasion—but not in Japan. It was at a Papyrus din-
ner in Boston, when the guest of the evening was a gen-
tleman who is now one of our leading young college

presidents. I cannot quote his felicitous words, but the
30*

470 SENTIMENTALISM

idea was this: “I have always thought,” he remarked,
when he was rather unwillingly got on his legs after the
Loving Cup had passed around, “as Daniel was sitting in
the lions’ den, looking dubiously at his glaring, heavy-
maned hosts, and wondering when the performance was
going to begin, that one of his chief causes for self-gratu-
lation must have been the agreeable fact that in all hu-
man probability he would not be called upon for an
after-dinner speech.”

The Jap is a sentimentalist of the first water—in a way
we Anglo-Saxons do not understand. He fairly worships
his cherry blossoms; the first two weeks in April are a
constant fete for the entire population; and prince and
peasant, side by side, will write scraps of poetry on scraps
of paper and tie them, each to a twig of his favorite tree.
Adjoining my country-place at home is the Weld Farm,
renowned for its champagne cider. There is no more
superb sight in Japan than the two hundred acres of
apple-trees on Weld Farm in full bloom; but what
Yankee ever tied a piece of poetry to an apple-tree? His
character, his education, his tendencies, all lead him to
prefer the cider. The Japs are quite crazy over flowers.
If a man were proven before a Japanese jury to have
committed murder in the first degree, and was also
shown to be peculiarly devoted to cherry blossoms or
chrysanthemums, I doubt if any twelve men could find it
in their hearts to bring in a verdict of guilty. But halt!
so far as our subject goes,

‘““The flowers that bloom in the spring, Tra-la,
Have nothing to do with the case.”

LXXVI

Wextt, after this unwarranted interpolation, what more
about Japanese horses? Not much; but there are some
queer tricks which they have with animals in that coun-
try which are interesting as contrasting theirs with our
methods of management. The bulls they use for draught
wear the usual nose-ring, and have their tails tied around
to one side, under the impression, no doubt, that if he
cannot lash himself into fury with his tail, a bull cannot
misbehave. It is something of an Irish bull, this starting
in on horses and ending where I have; but as we have
got so far, it may not be amiss to point out the fact that
our idea that bulls and stallions are necessarily hard to
manage is a mistaken one. When kept for breeding, they
may indeed become so; but all over the Orient they are
in common use; and when they are not put to service
they are as tractable as our steers and geldings. But you
must keep them at work, and with their own sex.

Another queer Japanese trick with sumpter-horses is to
tie their heads back to the girth by so tight a martingale
that they can neither get their heads up nor down, nor
stretch out their noses. The head is held in a complete
vice. The animal, thus hampered, cannot possibly labor
to good effect. The horse’s tail is sometimes tied around
to his girth in the same way as the bull’s.

A certain dread of the horse is very noticeable in the
Japanese way of using him. [I have seen a well-behaved
young driving-horse, which would work kindly and re-

sours ~ STRAW SHOES

liably in a snaffle-bridle, bitted with so severe a curb that
he was worried out of any sense he had; and to offset
the awkward way in which he would act, the driver
would have a footman run beside him all the way, help
him turn corners, and hold back the carriage down the
least incline. You and I would have driven him any-_
where single-handed ; but his Japanese owners made the
poor colt twitchy and nervous by their own nervousness.
The same quality appears in their putting nose-rings on
cows. And yet the Jap is a courageous fellow; it is only
enterprise he lacks.

The straw shoes, with which the horse and bull and man
are alike shod, are peculiar to the Japanese. They last
barely a day or two, but they cost nothing, and any one
can make them. They give a curiously clumsy look to
the feet of the animals, but they prevent the horse from
interfering. If a horse is shod our way, and happens to
lose a shoe, on goes a straw substitute, and the odd shoe
gives him a peculiarly one-sided look.

It is not over-polite, perhaps, to say of the Japanese
that he lacks good looks as much as his horse; but the
fact remains that he is not a handsome mortal. For all
that, the old adage, “Handsome is as handsome does,”
distinctly applies to him, for no man is more patient, more
amiable, more helpful, more loyal than the Japanese. The
men are strongly Mongolian in face, and have almost uni-
formly ugly mouths. I have generally observed that ar-
tistic races acquire sensitive mouths; but to the Japanese
this rule does not apply. The women are far less pro-
nounced in type, and average better looking; really pretty
women are no rarity; but in figure they are too short-
legged to come within the Attic standard. Moreover,
the constant use of clogs gives them an extremely un-
graceful gait ; and when they walk in their stocking-feet,

MONGOLIAN HORSEMAN

GOOD MANNERS 475

as they all do at home, they are still awkward. Like all
undersized mammals, they have heads which are too big ;
they are, so to speak, of a regular pony build.

Still, they are very charming, the Japanese women,
and graceful in their way. The dancing of the geisha-
girls is full of meaning and singularly attractive; and
while, like Chaucer’s nun, who “intuned in hir nose ful
swetely,” their singing is monotonous, it, too, has its good
side. A geisha never shrieks, as all too many of our
singers do; and, after all, may not the style of singing
be a mere matter of taste? A superb soprano aria sent
the members of an early Japanese embassy to Europe
into peals of laughter, and yet we are forced to acknowl-
edge their keen artistic instinct. In grace and dignity
and exquisite pantomime, the dancers are far and away
beyond our own, whose posturing and kicking are nowa-
days mostly directed at the occupants of the orchestra
stalls, much as a well-known preacher was once said to
have delivered the most eloquent prayer ever addressed to
a Boston audience. The Japanese woman’s dress is pretty,
if not graceful. The skirts, cut scant so as discreetly to
clothe the person in whatever position she may assume—
and she squats half the time—lack the pleasant lines of
the best European fashions.

But if manners make the man (and woman) in beauty
as well as charm, then the Japanese stand distinctly at
the head of the list. So delightful a people can nowhere
else be found ; and if they lack grace of person, they pos-
sess grace of manner in superabundant measure, and the
truest form of politeness. That this has always been so
is testified to by no less a witness than St. Francis Xavier,
who was in Japan in the sixteenth century. ‘“ This na-
tion is the delight of my soul,” he writes. On the other
hand, the esthetic Japanese has neither the accuracy, re-

476 GLOBE-TROTTING

liability, nor general vouc of his disagreeable cousin in
China. This seems to be the universal testimony.

I much fear that the foregoing pages would have be-
trayed the globe-trotter, had I not, in my Preface, already
confessed to being one. Unlike the Frenchman, who as-
serted that he had lived in each of the capitals of the
world all his life, ] have not spent my days studying
au fond every country I have been fortunate enough to
get a glimpse of. After all, globe-trotting is no more
than the reading of many books instead of the study of
one science. And is not to be full of many books or
countries an enviable satiety—-if, indeed, one ever becomes
satiated? Globe-trotting is not only an interesting occu-
pation per se, but if your powers of observation and as-
similation are good, your mental book-shelves become
gradually filled with

‘‘A twenty bokes cloathe in blake or rede”

which never cease to give you pleasure so long as heart
(or head) failure can be staved off.

As I am supposed to be writing on the horse and horse-
manship of Japan, I will say, in conclusion, that the gaits
of the Japanese horse—z.e., the only one you ever see
much of, the army horse—have of late been reduced down
to the severity of the British trot. Left to himself, he
will naturally amble or rack. The soldiers ride much of
the time with two hands, in the ranks and out. One sees
a squadron of lancers passing by, and half the men will be
using both their hands to guide their horses. How shall
they manage sword and lance? Is not this two-handed
military riding a contradiction in terms? And yet the
habit seems to be growing. Why it is that the nation
with the least military experience of any of the Great
Powers should be able to force her habits on all the others,

ENGLISH CAVALRY 477

I cannot see. That the English are in fact the best sports-
men in the saddle seems to be held to be a proof that
they are the best horsemen, which they decidedly are not.
Nor, indeed, has English cavalry had the chance to exhibit
any excellence it may possess since the days of Balaclava.

LXXVII

Mripway across the stormy Pacific (a contradictory but
accurate description, by-the-way,) one encounters, in the
Sandwich Islands, two types of riders quite interesting
enough to claim a moment’s notice. The first, or bullock-
riders, are solely from the people. There is no native
horse in Hawaii. The Polynesian first-comers brought
cattle with them, but no horses. Those you now find have
since been fetched from Australia and California, and bear
the European stamp. The bullock is used to a certain ex-
tent for saddle-work, for the country paths are, as a rule,
too narrow or too ill-kept for vehicles of any kind. He
is saddled much as a horse would be, and with a common
horn-pommel tree; he is bridled solely with a nose-ring,
the rope from which is passed upward and between his
horns to the rider’s hands. He is not a fine-bred fellow,
this bullock, neither rapid nor easy of gait; but he serves
his turn. The bullock of India might be made a really
passable saddle-beast; not so this one. Still he is em-
ployed by the natives both for pack and riding. He walks
well, and jogs in a rather clumsy fashion; and as all bul.
locks are more intelligent than you suppose, he is readily
guided by moving bridle rope to right or left.

The other rider may perhaps furnish us with the miss-
ing link between the side-saddle of to-day and the seat to
which our jin de siecle Amazons aspire. She sits simply
and atrociously astraddle. Such a guy as she usually is
in her riding-dress it is hard to imagine-—be she afoot or

HAWAIIAN BULLOCK-RIDERS

BULLOCK-RIDERS 481

a-horseback. This is partly due to the fact that in these
voleanic isles woman has not been wont to be much more
clad than her native hills; and she has not yet learned
how to dress. Her toilet, to be sure, when she has been
semi-Americanized, is not quite so simple as that of the in-
digenous Hula girl, who is robed in her own hair, a short
ballet-skirt of straw, and perhaps a wreath of flowers ; but
it takes her a short time only to get ready for a ride.
Any kind of a hat, any kind of a jacket, guiltless of cor-
sets—in fact, what she commonly wears—remains; and
then, bound about the waist over the latter, she adds a
divided skirt, or rather a pair of huge overalls, twice as
long as the rider’s legs and four times as big around. Bar
starch, they are the same as those in which the Japanese
actor struts his short hour upon the stage—struts, because
in such garments he can do naught else. When our eques-
trienne moves about in this leg-gear, she looks like a
pudgy, but extremely long-legged man walking on his
knees. When she has mounted, which she does with no
great effort, or grace either, she is merely a man in the
usual saddle, with the most uncouth of “togs,” which hang
down on either side to within a few inches of the ground.
The rider sticks her toes in the stirrups, stuff and all, and
otherwise, except for some flowers with which she adorns
herself and her horse, is more original to look at than
soul-filling. The whole rig is ungainly enough and not to
be rashly imitated —though, indeed, it may be improved
by being what we should call “tailor-made.”

But from this questionable beauty there is an evolution
into a decidedly neat riding-suit, in which I saw several
young American ladies cantering about Honolulu, and
very prettily they looked. A neat, horseman-like hat, and
a jacket neither too close nor so loose as to appear baggy,

was finished off by a divided skirt of cloth heavy enough
31

482 WOMEN ASTRADDLE

to fall and stay in place by its own weight, and cut so
snugly in the seat as not to drag upward when in the
saddle. This skirt—though I had no chance to make a
sartorial investigation —must have’ been a mere «pair of
excessively loose trousers, gradually widening to the feet,
which latter, when. mounted, could just be seen. The
lassies used. the common man’s rig, and rode upright and
well. |

Still, nothing that I have ever seen since has impressed
me so strongly as a beautiful portrait of herself which a
lovely old lady once showed me, some forty years ago, in
Silesia. She was painted riding astride, as all women in
her youth had done in that part of the world, with long
flowing Turkish-style trousers, and mounted on a spirited
Arabian. It may have been the impressionableness of
youth—the inflammability, I might say—which has made
the portrait keep its place so freshly in my mind, but I
remember it well, and as the sole pattern worthy of copy-
ing which I have ever seen. This was a picture, however.

I have never seen a woman astride a horse whom I

thought a good model for universal imitation.

HAWAIIAN AMAZON RIDER ;

LXXVIII

Bur after passing in review the Riders of Many Lands,
when I again set foot on shore in the United States I
could not but feel that this country of ours is the home
par excellence of horsemen. The idea is not, I think, bred
solely of national pride ; my readers will surely absolve me
from narrowness or provincialism in the matter of equita-
tion, or from any set scheme to rob other nations. of their
due. Iam happy to admit, for it is manifestly true, that
the best sportsman in the saddle is the Briton. As a cross-
country rider, as a polo-player, as a breeder and rider of
race-horses at home, in tent-pegging or pig-sticking abroad,
he is, on the whole, unequalled. On the other hand, the
German is as far and away ahead of him in military rid-
ing—that is, in the drilling of bodies of horse—as the
Frenchman is ahead of him in the niceties of breaking,
training, and manége-riding. Where to place the Arab
it is hard to say. With all due respect to the man or the
race that produced the original strain of blood on which
we all rely for our speed and endurance, I do not think
that the best Arab is as good a rider as the best European
or American ; while the average Arab is, in efficiency, far
below our riders under parallel conditions. The Cossack
makes, no doubt, the best half-barbaric ight cavalry in
the world, and in his element is hard to equal; and the
Australian—from all reports, though I regret to say that
I cannot speak from personal observation—is a close
second to our plains-rider. But, after all said, it must be

——

eel

486 CONCLUSION
|

allowed that in some matters equine we Americans are
pre-eminent. The word “allowed” is, perchance, too
strong. I know that some Britons—bless their cramped
Saxon obstinate blindness !—will not allow that we Ameri-
cans have ever done anything — be it in electricity, ma-
chinery, or trotting-horses. Not even our republican
institutions or our public schools have any merit or
originality ; that we can build or sail yachts is to them a
mere fiction. But apart from this distinct type of all-
owning, all-controlling, all-inventing, all-comprehending
Briton, I have generally found that the Briton who truly
“knows and knows that he knows” is glad to admit
virtue and ability wherever he may findit. And, eliminat-
ing the Briton who “knows not and knows nct that he
knows not,” I will venture to claim that in distance-riding,

which is perhaps the very highest form of horsemanship,

we Americans are quite unapproached—our army-marches
and express-rides have clearly demonstrated this fact ;
that in rough-riding no man alive comes near the cow-
boy, and that in road-riding and breeding of saddle-
beasts the Southerner “beats all creation.” It might be
more scholarly to make the superlatives a trifle less ob-
trusive; but, on the whole, they may stand. Added to
all this the fact that we have enriched the world by a
brand-new type in the trotter, and that in racing and in
polo and hunting we are fast catching up with our English
cousins ; and while I do not wish to “claim everything,”

I think—to recur to my original word—that. it must be —

allowed that in all-round ability to breed, train, and ride
the horse to the very best advantage, the American is
primus inter pares.

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