\^^ -^ 
 
Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine 
 
 Cummings School of Veterinary Mecttcme at 
 
 Tufts University 
 
 200 Westboro Road 
 
 north GiaAon, MA 01S99 
 
HORSES 
 
HORSES 
 
 By ROGER POCOCK 
 
 Author of "A Frontiersman" 
 
 Founder of the Legion of Frontiersmen 
 
 Editor of "The Frontiersman's Pocket Book* 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 Professor J. Cossar Ewart, f.r.s 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W, 
 
 1917 
 

 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 Introduction - - - - vii 
 
 I. The Origin of the Horse - i 
 
 II. The Origin of Horse Varie- 
 ties _ - - - . lo 
 
 III. Habits of Outdoor Horses - 54 
 
 IV. The Conquest of the Horse - 95 
 V. The Horse in History - - iii 
 
 VI. Horsemanship _ - - 142 
 
 VII. The Pleasure Horse - - 207 
 
 VIII. The Soldier Horse - - 222 
 
 Conclusion - - - 243 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 By PROFESSOR J. COSSAR EWART, F.R.S. 
 
 Roger Pocock's book is in many ways 
 remarkable. It affords evidence of far 
 more erudition than seems compatible with 
 the unsettled and busy life of a frontiersman. 
 In some parts it is highly speculative, deals 
 with problems rarely discussed or even 
 mentioned by hippologists, in others it is 
 severely practical, and affords evidence of 
 the close study of horses and horsemanship 
 in all parts of the world. The more the 
 reader knows of cosmic changes and of the 
 origin, history and habits of horses, wild, 
 feral and tame, the more he is likely 
 to be fascinated by "Horses." The 
 
 chapters on the History of the horse 
 and on horsemanship are highly suggestive 
 and interesting, but at the moment those 
 on the Pleasure Horse and the Soldier 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 Horse claim and deserve most attention. We 
 soon forgot about the loss of over 300,000 
 horses in the Boer War, with the result 
 that when the World War broke out in 
 1 9 14 we were as deficient in horses as 
 in men and munitions. If the suggestions 
 made by a horsemaster who knows more 
 about Range than Indoor or Pleasure 
 horses — suggestions as to the breeding, rear- 
 ing, and management of military horses — 
 are duly considere(;J we may have an ample 
 supply of suitable horses for our next war. 
 
 J. COSSAR EWART. 
 
 UNIVERSITY, EDINBURGH. 
 September, 1916. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In the world where the horse Hves there is 
 one god. This god is only a human creature, 
 soldier by trade, stockrider, groom, or dray- 
 man, but from him all things proceed. So far 
 as the horse knows his god made the girth gall 
 and the harness, the oats and the weather, and 
 most certainly provides a lump of salt to lick, 
 a canter over turf, or any other Httle scrap of 
 Heaven which falls into the world. So he 
 hates his god or loves him, fears or trusts him, 
 trying always to believe in him, even if he has 
 at times to kick the deity to make sure he is 
 really divine. His religion, his conduct, his 
 whole value, depend upon that poor god, who 
 is usually well-meaning enough although wont 
 to practise a deal of ignorance. To get better 
 horses one must improve the strain of gods. 
 
 As a god to horses I was never quite a success, 
 however hard I tried to live up to a difficult 
 situation. I attempted, for example, to learn 
 about my horses from scientific books, yet 
 found the scientific writer rather trying. He 
 calls an animal who never injured him by sueh 
 a name as Pachynolophus. This may be safe 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 enough behind the animal's back, provided 
 the philosopher makes quite sure that it is 
 really and truly extinct. But suppose he met 
 one, would he call it a perissodactylic ungulate 
 to its face ? Not at all ! He would shin up a 
 tree and use worse language than that. 
 
 So if the Reader finds me ignorant, I beg 
 him to lay the blame on men of science who 
 have dug up dead languages to make them a 
 trade jargon lest any education should reach 
 the vulgar. 
 
 In his " Tropical Light," Surgeon General 
 Woodruff, of the U.S. Army, makes no mention 
 of horses, but opens up a new field of thought. 
 Professor William Ridgeway, in his " Origin 
 and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse," 
 commands the respect of every horseman by 
 his researches in history. Professor Cossar 
 Ewart, by far the greatest living authority 
 on hippology, has, apart from the teaching of 
 his books, most generously granted me his 
 private criticism. For the rest, burning my 
 books behind me, I have ventured to write 
 about horses just because I love them. An 
 old rough-neck of the American ranges, who, 
 living with horses, has tried to understand 
 them, sets down a few ideas which may be of 
 use to horsemen. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE HORSE. 
 
 The material used in making a horse consists 
 of grass and water. We cannot make one 
 because we are too ignorant. We know that 
 for such a making wisdom is needed beyond 
 the last conception of our hearts, knowledge 
 far above the scope of our pretentious 
 Httle sciences, power omnipotent. Such 
 attributes of wisdom, knowledge and power 
 are divine. 
 
 The Almighty made the horse out of grass 
 and water. From the generating engine which 
 we call the sun He used certain energies dimly 
 perceived by our science, the chemical, phy- 
 sical, electrical and psychical forces which 
 evolved, moulded and coloured the mechanism 
 of a creature strong, swift, enduring and 
 beautiful, which is inhabited by a pure, 
 courageous, generous spirit hke that of a 
 
2 THE FOREST AGES 
 
 human child. It only remains for man to 
 shut this creature up in a box, and then cut 
 off his tail. 
 
 Horse Ancestors. — ^To find the origin of 
 the horse, one must trace back to the Sixth 
 Day of the Creation, a period known to science 
 as the Dawn of Times Present. The lands 
 and seas were not arranged as in our maps, for 
 there was a Continent on the site of the North 
 Atlantic, and broad seas rolled over the areas 
 now filled by Europe and North America. The 
 cHmate, too, was different, for except along 
 the Equator, the skies were rarely clear, but 
 very cloudy, with enormous rains. The air 
 was that of a hot-house, and, even at the poles, 
 trees such as the magnolia slept through the 
 winter night, and flowered in the warmth of 
 the summer day. Except to leeward of big 
 continents and mountains the lands of the 
 whole earth were a continuous forest. 
 
 That was the closing phase of the long Age 
 of Dragons. The principal beasts of the sea, 
 the land and the air were reptiles who laid 
 and hatched eggs instead of giving birth to 
 living children. Few of them were so large 
 as the elephants and whales of our own time, 
 the greatest were already extinct, but still 
 there were enough uncouth and monstrous 
 
LONGTAILS 3 
 
 beasts to make life exciting for the creatures 
 on -which they fed. 
 
 Hidden away in the forest there were 
 Httle animals, of reptile descent indeed, but 
 quite free from family pride. These con- 
 verted reptiles were filled with the first 
 divine quality which ever appeared in the 
 world, that mother-love which suckles the 
 young at the breast. We will call them 
 the Longtails. 
 
 We humans often feel that there is not 
 enough food to go round. We find it hard to 
 make both ends meet. We have to defend 
 ourselves or run from our enemies. So it was 
 with the Longtails, who were always hungry, 
 hard up, and bound to fight or run. To put it 
 roughly, some tribes of the Longtails took to 
 hunting, and became the ancestors of all beasts 
 of prey, some took to the trees as a refuge and 
 feeding place, and so became the ancestors of 
 apes and men. But our business is with those 
 who took to a vegetarian diet and a habit of 
 hiding or running. These stood on tip toe 
 looking out for danger, or ran to escape being 
 eaten. For such purposes the five-toed foot 
 of the ancestral reptile, most useful on soft 
 ground, became somewhat clumsy and awk- 
 ward. For running they were better off 
 
4 HORSE ANCESTORS 
 
 without a widely splayed foot, so with the 
 passing of many generations their needless 
 inner and outer toes shrank up the leg, became 
 useless, and finally withered away, until no 
 trace remained. Here came the parting of 
 the vegetarian running animals into two big 
 families. One family ran on the middle 
 pair of toes, thus becoming the ancestors 
 of the cloven-hoofed pig, deer, antelope, 
 sheep, and ox. The other family ran upon 
 the middle or third toe, and became the 
 ancestors of the rhinoceros, the tapir, and 
 the horse. 
 
 In the dense forests some of the vegetarian 
 tribes of animals had on the face two little 
 bags or glands, to hold a strong-smelling 
 liquid. This perfume dropped on the herbage 
 helped the members of the herd to scent 
 one another's trails, and so keep together 
 for company or defence. On the skulls of 
 some kinds of horses there may still be seen the 
 hollow where the sac used to be. 
 
 The bald skin of the pig is boldly painted 
 in splashes of pink and brown to imitate the 
 lights and shadows of forest undergrowth. 
 The forest ancestors of the horse were bald, 
 and painted just the same way ; and their 
 forest colouring may still be seen under the 
 
THE TAPIR S 
 
 hairy coat, especially at the muzzle, where 
 the hair is thin. 
 
 Of direct ancestors to the horse the earHest 
 known was a Httle fellow called Hyracotherium, 
 coloured no doubt Uke the pig or the hairless 
 Mexican dog, and not bigger than a toy terrier. 
 His range extended from England to New 
 Mexico, across the old Atlantic continent. In 
 him the original five toes had been reduced to 
 four on the front foot, and three on the hind, 
 as with the tapir, who is the very portrait of 
 a horse-ancestor, although of larger growth. 
 
 The tapir was ever a staunch conservative 
 preferring death to reform. So he remains, 
 one of the most ancient of all living animals, 
 and reHc of the long forgotten ages when the 
 world was one big forest. Nowadays the 
 tapir range which covered all the northern 
 continents has shrunken to three districts 
 widely sundered : Brazil, Mexico, and the 
 Malay Peninsula. In all three he is dying 
 out, and in a few more years will be extinct. 
 
 From the tapir's habits we may reason that 
 the horse ancestors were creatures not only of 
 the deep glades of the forest, but also of closely 
 wooded mountain ranges. They were shy 
 and harmless, feeding at night on buds, leaves 
 and the tender shoots of bushes, not on grass. 
 
6 THE^TAPIR 
 
 To this diet the horse reverts quite readily in 
 times of famine, and in spring before the new 
 grass sprouts, while the stable vice called 
 cribbing develops when there is not enough 
 bulk in his forage. The ancestors were fond 
 of bathing, and when hunted would take refuge 
 in the water. It will be noted that although 
 wild horses do not bathe, the tame stock are 
 excellent at swimming. The dappled skin 
 of the tapir had grown a coat of hair, dark 
 brown in the Americas, their original home. 
 The long tail had shrunk, and in the tapir 
 is reduced to a mere bud. 
 
 But the main interest is in the tapir's snout, 
 which, Hke the elephant's trunk, has wonderful 
 powers of holding and tearing down branches, 
 of feeling, sensing, and handling. The horse- 
 ancestor had a tapir snout of which the horse's 
 upper lip is the survival. Play with any horse 
 and you will notice how the lips try to curl 
 round and grip one's fingers, to bring them 
 within reach of the teeth. They will curl 
 round, grip, and tear the bunch grass or 
 pampas grass of the wild ranges. They are 
 softer than velvet, delicate as a baby's hand, 
 sensitive as the fingers of an artist, will caress 
 like a woman's lips. The short hairs have an 
 exquisite sense of touch, the beard bristles 
 
THE EARLIER WORLD 7 
 
 are used to sense grass with in the dark, and 
 the whole instrument is wondrously designed 
 to select sweet grasses, rejecting poisonous or 
 unwholesome plants, so that feeding goes on 
 through hours of total darkness. 
 
 Had the Earth remained an unbroken forest 
 under a roof of cloud there had been no change 
 since the Age of Dragons, no mighty drama of 
 Creation lifting man and horse out of the 
 shadows to work together as master and ser- 
 vant in the conquest and taming of the wilder- 
 ness and final subjugation of the World. 
 
 The one great factor in Earth's history is 
 the lessening of the sun's heat. Through long 
 revolving ages the heat which the Earth re- 
 ceived from the sun diminished. Ever less 
 vapour was lifted from the Equatorial seas, 
 the world-roof of cloud thinned out and dis- 
 appeared ; direct sunshine poured down instead 
 of the endless rains ; there was no moisture 
 left to nourish the worldwide forest. Little 
 by little glades opened in the woodlands 
 caused by drought, savannahs replaced the 
 timber, of tall jungle grasses, the openings 
 widened into prairies, and vast grassy steppes, 
 thousands of miles in breadth, evolved at 
 their centres an aching core of desert. So we 
 have reached the phase when forest, prairie 
 
8 THE CHANGING CLIMATE 
 
 and desert each claim one-third of the land 
 surface. We are passing on to the phase, 
 which Mars has reached, of world-wide desert, 
 and beyond that is the far future when, Uke 
 the Moon, our Earth will swing dead through 
 the great deeps of space. 
 
 As the slow tremendous change of the 
 Earth's climate narrowed the forest, there 
 was no longer food for all the woodland 
 animals, and some of them ventured out into 
 the open glades. Here was a final parting of 
 the wa3^s between the tapir who stayed in the 
 woods and the horse-ancestor who went out 
 into the open. He was as yet no bigger than 
 a sheep, and still wore three toes on each foot, 
 but the grass diet agreed with him, for his 
 tribe soon grew to the size of an EngHsh 
 donkey. The firmer ground no longer needed 
 a wide tread to the foot. Slowly the second 
 and fourth toes shrank away up the leg, and 
 hung there Uke the dew claw of a dog, some- 
 times surviving more or less even in human, 
 times, as with JuHus Caesar's charger. The 
 next ages evolved an animal the size of our 
 ponies, running on one toe hardened to the 
 hoof we know to-day. The snout diminished, 
 while the tail became a fly whisk. 
 
 So we have the beginning of a group of 
 
VARIETIES OF THE HORSE 9 
 
 animals the tarpan (Prejevalski) zebra, quagga 
 and ass. They are so much ahke that one 
 cannot easily tell from the bones to which 
 kind a skeleton belongs. We must think of 
 them, then, as varieties of the horse. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF HORSE VARIETIES. 
 
 Propositions. In the study of any subject, 
 if we can only begin by clearing our vision, 
 we shall have a sporting chance of avoiding 
 muddle. 
 
 The horse, like man or any other animal, 
 reflects his environment in times past and 
 present. 
 
 1. If all countries had equal lighting, all 
 horses would reflect one colour. 
 
 2. If all countries were equally warm, all 
 horses would grow the same thickness of coat. 
 
 3. If all countries had equal moisture, all 
 horses would show similar endurance. 
 
 4. If all countries had one type of land- 
 scape, all horses would show the same mark- 
 ings. 
 
 5. If all countries had one soil, all horses 
 would be of one build. 
 
 6. If all countries had one weight of forage 
 to the acre, all horses would have one bulk. 
 
COLORATION BY SUNLIGHT 1 1 
 
 7. If all countries had one quality of 
 forage, all horses would have one strength. 
 
 8. It follows that the study of Hght, heat, 
 moisture, landscape, soil, and food should 
 explain the origin of the wild types of horses. 
 Our breeds are got by crossing from these 
 varieties. 
 
 If, therefore, the facts which we find out by 
 study shall correspond with the reader's own 
 experience of horses, no further proof is 
 needed ; but if they fail to appeal to the 
 reader's sense and judgment, no balancing of 
 proofs upon a point of falsehood will save a 
 useless book from the flames which await 
 waste paper. 
 
 PART I. COLORATION BY SUNLIGHT. 
 
 The best way to train one's sense of colour 
 is to dabble in landscape painting. At first, 
 one feels that there must be a personal Devil, 
 but with luck the colours begin to clear, show- 
 ing that the tones of night and the deep sea 
 are based on indigo, while those of the day 
 are blue, red and yellow variously mixed. 
 The blend of blue and red is violet ; the mix- 
 ture of blue and yellow gives us green ; and 
 if we want an orange we use red and yellow. 
 The blending of all seven is sunlight in theory, 
 but makes mud in practice. 
 
12 MAGIC OF SUNLIGHT 
 
 In nature there are permanent colours like 
 those of the night, and transient hues like 
 those of the sunrise or sunset. So the blue 
 of the sky and yellow of the earth make the 
 green of living plants which seems to be per- 
 manent until, in decay, the blue turns out to be 
 transient, and passes away leaving the herbage 
 yellow. It is odd that the natural food of the 
 horse is dried herbage from w^hich the blue 
 has faded 
 
 And so it is with man. We may eat green 
 salads, containing transient blue, but the 
 permanent colours of our food are free from 
 blue, and based on red and yellow. Neither 
 horse nor man would fatten on blue food. 
 
 Sunlight shining through blue glass will stop 
 the growth of plants. The various actions of 
 coloured light upon the human body are being 
 studied in many hospitals. 
 
 The blue indigo and violet, or actinic rays, 
 appear to have a special mission in burning 
 bad microbes, such as the germs of disease. 
 A green forest, for example, despite the per- 
 manent yellow in its colour, is said to be partly 
 transparent to these rays which kill germs 
 lurking in the soil. The flesh of men and 
 beasts is red and yellow, save only for the 
 blue tinge of blood from which the oxygen has 
 
CLIMATE AND COLOUR 13 
 
 been exhausted. Yet even despite its colour- 
 ing, the tissue of the flesh is partly trans- 
 parent, so that actinic rays may kill bacilU, 
 and sunshine is used as a medicine for the sick. 
 But the rays which begin by kiUing germs may 
 be strong enough in time to burn the living 
 tissues. For that reason man and the greater 
 animals are armoured by red and yellow liquid 
 paints in the layers of skin, which vary in 
 strength and volume with the degree of sun- 
 hght in each climate, from pale hues in cloudy 
 districts of low sun to an intense black in the 
 tropics. 
 
 Stocks native to forest shelter such as men, 
 elephants and pigs are guarded only with skin 
 body colour. Those exposed to direct light — 
 horses, cattle and sheep, have also a coat of 
 hair as a second armour against the actinic 
 rays, and this also varies in colour with the 
 strength of sunshine, from white in the regions 
 of snow to the golden dun of lions and tigers, 
 the dun and bay of horses and the black of 
 many species in regions of strong Hght. 
 
 In men and other animals there is little red 
 flesh covering for the brain, the spine and the 
 great ganglia of the nerve machinery. So 
 many animals hke the lion and bison have 
 manes as an extra shield for the nerve centres. 
 
14 PROTECTIVE COLOUR 
 
 The human head and neck, for instance, grow 
 hair, not to encourage barbers, but for the pre- 
 vention of sunstroke, and this varies in colour 
 with the degree of sunHght. So all natural 
 breeds of horses have a dark forelock and mane 
 with a streak of strong brown or black colour 
 from the withers to the root of the tail, thus 
 guarding the whole length of the spine. This 
 armour and shield defines for us two primi- 
 tive types : 
 
 The Bay of the Desert produced in fierce 
 light the year round. 
 
 The Dun of the Steppes produced in fierce 
 light limited to the summer. 
 
 And here the need of clear thought leads to 
 a new definition of " protective " colour. 
 
 The dun Siberian tiger, largest and fiercest 
 of all cats, hunted the Dun pony of the Steppes. 
 The dun lion of Africa hunted the Bay horse. 
 Had both cats and both horses been painted 
 sky blue, their relative chances in the chase 
 would be exactly the same. They do not owe 
 meat or safety from attack to their body 
 colour. Both species would have perished 
 under the actinic rays of sunhght but for their 
 equal shield of non-actinic colour. 
 
 The purpose of body colour is defence 
 from actinic light. Only the markings are 
 
THE GREAT ICE AGE 15 
 
 protective as concealing animals from one 
 another. 
 
 So far I have not been able to find in books 
 about horses these appHcations of facts ac- 
 cepted by men of science, which are of use to 
 horsemen. In the light of such evidence the 
 close hogging of horse's manes needs recon- 
 sidering. 
 
 PART II. THE GREAT ICE AGE. 
 
 Unless a fellow can swim he has no business 
 to go out of his depth ; but if he minds his 
 business, he loses all the fun. 
 
 It is the appHcation of these two principles 
 which leads me to a problem in the history of 
 the horse which nobody has solved. 
 
 The species is native to the Americas, where 
 it became extinct. One theory of this 
 extinction imagines a germ, like that of 
 horse-sickness, whose range covered all lati- 
 tudes from tropic to sub-arctic. Such a 
 hearty microbe as that would seem unusual. 
 
 The other theory relates to a disagreeable 
 change in the chmate, which overwhelmed the 
 drainage basin of the North Atlantic with a 
 field of massive ice. That seems conclusive 
 until one reflects that the Pacific slope of the 
 United States and the continent of South 
 America remained as warm as ever. The cold 
 
i6 THE ICE AGE 
 
 of the Great Ice Age does not explain the 
 wiping out even in North America of the 
 camel, elephant, tapir and horse. 
 
 It has been my good fortune to make a series 
 of voyages to Bering Sea and Norway in the 
 winter, and in summer along the flanks of both 
 the St. Elias and the Greenland ice-caps. In 
 these journeys by sail and steam, in boats, in 
 canoes, with many landings and scrambles 
 across country, I was able to test the theories 
 of Glacialogists against the actual facts of the 
 Great Ice Age. 
 
 The Croll theory makes the orbit of the 
 Earth to change at regular intervals into a 
 long ellipse. By roasting one entire hemis- 
 phere it provides vapour to cover the w^hole of 
 the other hemisphere with snows which do not 
 melt. Evidence is scratched up and made 
 the most of for previous ice ages. An imagi- 
 nary series of cosmic cataclysms is invoked to 
 explain one merely local unpleasantness. 
 
 Another theory sinks Central America — 
 politically quite a good idea — and throws the 
 Gulf Stream into the Pacific, leaving the North 
 Atlantic to be frozen. It does not explain the 
 American lobe of the icefield which brushed 
 the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in a 
 region outside the influence of the Gulf Stream. 
 
THE ICE-FIELD TO-DAY 17 
 
 It was never the business of Glacialogists to 
 notice that under the inland ice and the great 
 lava floods of Greenland lie pressed magnolia 
 leaves in the high Arctic. These tell me of 
 cloudy skies saving the summer's warmth all 
 through the polar night, of a vast cloud sphere 
 sheltering the whole Earth from a sun much 
 hotter than we know to-day. The Ice Age to 
 me is an incident in that clearing of the skies 
 which dried the world-forest, made the grass 
 steppes and deserts, and evolved the horse. 
 
 The Glacialogists make the Ice Age an 
 episode of the past. Without the sHghtest 
 relevance to any obhquity of the Orbit, or 
 vagaries of the Gulf Stream, the Ice-cap per- 
 sists to-day as a living fact. I have been 
 there, have seen it, and cannot be persuaded 
 otherwise. The forces which created the Ice- 
 cap are still at work, and as they merely 
 strengthen or relax, the Icefield grows or 
 shrinks. These forces made the Ice flood to 
 plough the fields and train the folk for seeding 
 a crop of human empires — British, American, 
 Russian, and German world-powers. The ice 
 which prepared town-sites for Moscow, Petro- 
 grad, Berlin, London, and New York, may 
 come again to sweep them all away. We are 
 not behaving ourselves so very nicely. 
 
1 8 THE SOU '-WESTER 
 
 I have no theory as to what forces enlarged 
 or contracted the ice flood. The theme of 
 this study is the horse, a creature of grass and 
 water constructed by the forces in sunshine 
 and fresh air, and coloured by the skies. To 
 the skies we must look if we would trace his 
 origin, to the mechanism of the Ice-cap if we 
 would know how his varieties were specialized 
 out of the general type. So let us have a look 
 at the machinery which made and maintains 
 the Ice-cap. 
 
 PART III. THE sou '-WESTER. 
 
 We have to study four regions of one great 
 Sou '-wester wind, which is known to navi- 
 gators as the South-west Counter-Trade. 
 
 Western Region. The tropic sunshine 
 lifts masses of hot, tremulous vapour from 
 the surface of the Equatorial Pacific. This 
 vapour lifts to a great height and there con- 
 denses into clouds. The clouds are swept by 
 the south-west wind and form their floor at a 
 height above the sea of about two miles. The 
 Rocky Mountains reach up bare and stony 
 hands to clutch at the flying moisture and 
 bring down whirling snowstorms. On sweep 
 the cloud fleets across the Canadian Plains 
 with rarely a drop of rain to spare through the 
 summer for the thirsting grass beneath. But 
 
CENTRAL REGION 19 
 
 slowly the cloud-floor slopes downward until 
 at last the cloud-fleets come to ground, and 
 the breath of the sou '-wester becomes visible 
 as the Northern Forest. Beyond that forest 
 the wind trails its cold vapours over the sub- 
 Arctic tundras of North-Eastern Canada, 
 lashing bleak rains on Baffin's Bay, to spend 
 the last of its moisture in the form of snow 
 upon the Greenland Ice-cap. 
 
 Central Region. From the eastern part 
 of the Equatorial Pacific, about the neigh- 
 bourhood of the Gallipagoes, a second echelon 
 of the sou '-wester brings its immense load of 
 flying clouds high in the air across the United 
 States to slant down out of the skies and brush 
 the Atlantic in the Forties. Strong gales trail 
 their clouds along the Gulf Stream, taking a 
 deal of warmth out of that current. Exposed 
 trees in North-western Europe are slightly 
 bent by the stress of Atlantic gales, while all 
 the traiHng clouds discharge their cargoes of 
 warm rain across the Baltic Region. The 
 British Isles, for example, get an annual ration 
 amounting to thirty cubic miles of water fresh 
 from the Equatorial Pacific. 
 
 These two large echelons of the sou '-wester 
 carried the vapour which once fell as snow to 
 form the Icefields of the Great Ice Age. 
 
20 THE ICE-CAP 
 
 The skies were clearing. The planet was 
 being stripped of its cloud roof, so that its 
 warmth from the sun was radiated at night 
 and in winter directly into Space. Except to 
 leeward of the Gulf Stream, the lands of the 
 North Atlantic are still sub-Arctic as in 
 Labrador. These lands were more extensive 
 then than now, forming a bridge about a 
 thousand miles wide from Arctic Canada 
 across Smith's Sound to Greenland, and thence 
 by way of the Faroes to Scotland, which was 
 part of the European main. On this bleak 
 bridge which spanned the North Atlantic per- 
 manent snows heaped up to mountainous 
 heights forming the nucleus of the giant Ice- 
 cap. Its western lobe touched the Rocky 
 Mountains and the Missouri Valley, its eastern 
 wing covered the Russian plains as far as 
 Moscow, and southward flooded the German 
 Empire. It may be that the North Atlantic 
 bridge, remnant of an elder continent, sank 
 slowly until it foundered under its load of ice. 
 So the sea melted the ice and the climate began 
 to mend. 
 
 Eastern Region. A third echelon of the 
 sou '-wester comes from the equatorial belt 
 of South America down to 1 5°s. This does not 
 take up any great load of moisture, for the 
 
BERING LAND 21 
 
 wind blows nearly dry across the heights of 
 air which overhang the Atlantic. It has little 
 moisture to spare for the Mediterranean sum- 
 mer, none at all for the levels of the Sahara, 
 Arabia, Persia, and the deserts of Central Asia. 
 The lands to leeward of Brazil are deserts. 
 
 Far Eastern Region. In Asia, the move- 
 ments of the sou '-wester are compHcated by 
 the south-west monsoon, and the immense 
 ranges of the Himalaya. Eastward lies one 
 more echelon of the South-west Counter Trade. 
 Just as the sou '-wester in the North Atlantic 
 is warmed by the Gulf Stream, so the sou'- 
 wester of the North Pacific is warmed by the 
 Japan current. Before the uplift of the St. 
 Ehas Alps, the region of Alaska, and of Bering 
 Sea was a warm and well-watered lowland. 
 Alaska still grows gigantic timber in latitudes 
 where North Scotland and South Norway 
 have only scrubby bushes. 
 
 PART IV. THE STORY OF BERING LAND. 
 
 Any reader who is really and truly inter- 
 ested in tapirs will remember that some live 
 in the Malay States, and the rest of them in 
 South and Central America. Between these 
 countries there is a slightly flattened facet 
 of the planet filled from remote ages by the 
 Pacific Ocean. Nobody with the slightest 
 
22 BERING LAND 
 
 liking for tapirs would suspect them of swim- 
 ming across, and since their family existed 
 there has been no land passage round the 
 southern edge of the Pacific. So, if we would 
 find the ancient tapir range which once con- 
 nected Malaya with Mexico and Brazil, we are 
 driven to search for a pathway round the 
 North Pacific. 
 
 The map of the ocean floor shows the Pacific 
 Deep as reaching northward to the sixtieth 
 parallel. Beyond that lie the new shoals of 
 Bering Sea, with a ground-swell so terrific in 
 winter that I have seen a hard-bitten middle- 
 aged seaman driven mad with fear. This is 
 the site of Bering Land, an ancient country 
 about the size of Scandinavia, which joined 
 the mainlands of Asia and North America. 
 The latitudes of this land were those of Nor- 
 way, and it formed the basin of the lower 
 Yukon. 
 
 Before there was any polar cold on Earth, 
 when the magnoUa blossomed in Greenland, 
 this cloudy rain-swept country was warm 
 enough for tapirs. As the sky cleared it managed 
 to harbour camels, and became a pasturage 
 for animals of the horse family. Let us see 
 then whether these were of the actual species 
 we call the horse. 
 
THE LANDSCAPE 23 
 
 The Landscape. Warm lands with little 
 sunlight, such as Ireland, have green turfed 
 grasses. The polar summer which is one long 
 day covers all pastures with a blaze of flowers. 
 The bushes also yield a bounty of blossom and 
 wild fruit. The mosquito season is the great 
 event of the year. 
 
 So we may see the meadows beside the lower 
 Yukon, green pasture starred with flowers, 
 bushed, wet, mosquito-stricken range for the 
 bearded Celtic pony, utterly unlike the sun- 
 baked golden steppe of the Dun horse. We 
 must cast back to earlier times when Bering 
 Land was clouded, torrid, range for ancestors 
 of our modern horses, the pasture which 
 changed the brown tapir of Brazil into the 
 skewbald tapir of Malaya. At that time pre- 
 glacial America had seven species of three- 
 toed horse-ancestors, some of which may have 
 ranged westward across Bering Land into 
 Asia, and there given birth to the stock of the 
 Old World. 
 
 With the onset of the Great Ice Age the 
 growing weight of the American Ice-cap seems 
 to have strained the loose skin of the Earth, 
 which, in the Columbia Basin cracked, pouring 
 forth floods of lava to overwhelm a region nine 
 hundred miles in length, eight hundred wide. 
 
24 THE DELUGE 
 
 A series of rock waves folded, forming the 
 coast or island ranges from California north- 
 ward and culminating in the stupendous Alps 
 of St. EUas. There gathered a lesser Ice-cap, 
 pouring its glaciers down the Alaskan and 
 British Columbian fjords. 
 
 It was this barrier of ice which put an end 
 to all migrations of animals. The Alps of St. 
 Elias closed the path-way between those two 
 groups of continents which so far had been 
 the common breeding ground for beasts and 
 men. Within the narrowed breeding ground 
 of the Americas the horse together with the 
 camel, and many other species, became 
 extinct. 
 
 Old Bering Land had become sub-Arctic, 
 the home of the Mammoth, a maned roan 
 elephant. Then the Pacific flooded the plains 
 of the Lower Yukon, and formed the shoals 
 of Bering Sea. Both in Asia and in America 
 faint|memories remain of a drowned world. 
 In Assyria and in British Columbia the legend 
 tells us of a hero, and of rescued folk in a fleet 
 of three hundred canoes. 
 
 So the two groups of continents were finally 
 cut apart at Bering Straits. And now a ring 
 of flaming craters girdles the Pacific, the fit 
 finale to a tremendous drama. 
 
MARKINGS 25 
 
 PART V. THE MARKINGS OF THE HORSE. 
 
 Darwin wrote of the probable " descent of 
 all existing races from a single dun-coloured, 
 more or less striped primitive stock to which 
 our horses occasionally revert." 
 
 The stories of the Great Ice Age and of 
 Bering Land have shown us a variety of 
 swiftly changing cUmates in which the original 
 three-fold dun striped ancestors beg:at a special 
 
 ERRATUM. 
 
 Page 25^ line 9. For three-fold read three-toed. 
 
 <awwiio cxLiKx vdiicj'o, uicvjL cav^ii Lucii spcuicii type 
 
 of the wild horse. 
 
 Evidence of the Wind. It is not so very 
 long since the last clumps of timber vanished 
 from the steppes. Still on the North Ameri- 
 can range one finds the trunks and roots of 
 forest trees which silicate swamps have changed 
 into masses of jaspar onyx and chalcedony ; 
 and these have not had time to sink as stones 
 do into the soil. In a seven hundred mile ride 
 across the Canadian plains, I found a living 
 clump of three pines distant a hundred-and- 
 fifty miles from the edge of the shrunken forest. 
 Such shelters have indeed so lately disappeared 
 that the horse has not yet learned the trick of 
 
24 THE DELUGE 
 
 A series of rock waves folded, forming the 
 coast or island ranges from California north- 
 ward and culminating in the stupendous Alps 
 of St. Elias. There gathered a lesser Ice-cap, 
 pouring its glaciers down the Alaskan and 
 British Columbian fjords. 
 
 It was this barrier of ice which put an end 
 to all migrations of animals. The Alps of St. 
 Elias closed the path-way between those two 
 
 extinct. 
 
 Old Bering Land had become sub-Arctic, 
 the home of the Mammoth, a maned roan 
 elephant. Then the Pacific flooded the plains 
 of the Lower Yukon, and formed the shoals 
 of Bering Sea. Both in Asia and in America 
 faint |memories remain of a drowned world. 
 In Assyria and in British Columbia the legend 
 tells us of a hero, and of rescued folk in a fleet 
 of three hundred canoes. 
 
 So the two groups of continents were finally 
 cut apart at Bering Straits. And now a ring 
 of flaming craters girdles the Pacific, the fit 
 finale to a tremendous drama. 
 
MARKINGS 25 
 
 PART V. THE MARKINGS OF THE HORSE. 
 
 Darwin wrote of the probable " descent of 
 all existing races from a single dun-coloured, 
 more or less striped primitive stock to which 
 our horses occasionally revert." 
 
 The stories of the Great Ice Age and of 
 Bering Land have shown us a variety of 
 swiftly changing climates in which the original 
 three-fold dun striped ancestors begat a special 
 type of horse for each kind of habitat. The 
 high lands and high latitudes, the low lands 
 and low latitudes, the tall grasses, the short 
 grasses, the open woodlands, the northern 
 downs and valleys, bred each their special type 
 of the wild horse. 
 
 Evidence of the Wind. It is not so very 
 long since the last clumps of timber vanished 
 from the steppes. Still on the North Ameri- 
 can range one finds the trunks and roots of 
 forest trees which silicate swamps have changed 
 into masses of jaspar onyx and chalcedony ; 
 and these have not had time to sink as stones 
 do into the soil. In a seven hundred mile ride 
 across the Canadian plains, I found a living 
 clump of three pines distant a hundred-and- 
 fifty miles from the edge of the shrunken forest. 
 Such shelters have indeed so lately disappeared 
 that the horse has not yet learned the trick of 
 
26 AFRICAN BAYS 
 
 wind endurance. If his ears and nostrils were 
 not so fearfully sensitive, he need only face up 
 wind, and the hair of his body would be blown 
 down flat to protect him. As it is, the extreme 
 sensitiveness of his face compels him to stand 
 or drift with buttocks turned to the gale, tail 
 tucked, head down. It is only in that position 
 that the hair is blown up from the skin and fails 
 to give him protection. We may conclude 
 then that he was inured to torrid summers 
 and even to polar winters before he had to en- 
 counter strong gales awa}^ from shelter. Long 
 after the three-toed ancestor had become a 
 horse, the steppes had abundant tree clumps 
 for wind breaks in heavy weather. 
 
 The African Bay. In ever}^ striped horse 
 it seems a general rule that the body stripes 
 are curved in such a way as to point to a spot 
 on the ground midway between the four legs. 
 The leg bands merely cut the upright lines 
 of the limbs so that these disappear. Some 
 natural process of colour photography has 
 made the body stripes a bold copy of the up- 
 ward and outward spread of the tussock grass. 
 It was for concealment then among the rich 
 forage of the tussocks that some of the parent 
 species wore a gorgeous livery which passed 
 on to the Zebra. 
 
THE SAHARAN RANGE 27 
 
 From all accounts the Sahara is the bed of 
 a recent sea, but, possibly along its eastern 
 side, a horse range extended from the Soudan 
 to the shores of the Mediterranean. Such 
 range had not less than ten inches a year of 
 rainfall, carried by the sea breezes from sur- 
 rounding waters. There was moisture enough 
 for trees, and there are abundant traces of 
 quite recent timber. 
 
 The winds were drying, the clouds were 
 burned out, the light was increasing to a 
 terrific strength, and the tussocks began to 
 fail. On the American range I have noticed 
 that these tall grasses, abundant only thirty 
 years ago, have become quite rare since the 
 pasture was overstocked. As the tall grasses 
 perished and streaks of naked desert crept into 
 the dying pasture, all hope of concealment for 
 horses was at an end, the brilliant striping 
 ceased to have any value, and the need for 
 speed outweighed the need for sleep. Three 
 and a half hours for sleep, standing, suffices 
 the modern horse. 
 
 And as the cover vanished, every possible 
 military precaution became imperative against 
 surprise by lions. The gay striped painting 
 had become a danger, and whole colour was 
 the last chance of concealment for purposes 
 
28 PAINTED HORSES 
 
 of rest. Close herding by the stalHons, a single 
 line formation with vedettes and flankers, 
 signals by cries and stamping, and, above all 
 things, speed, were needed to save the 
 horse under the new conditions. The arched 
 markings on the face of the striped horse 
 changed to a star, the leg bands to stockings. 
 White marks to identify members of the herd 
 on the darkest nights. Such markings are very 
 common among horses of desert descent. 
 
 As the deadly actinic rays of light poured 
 into the body between its bars of painting, the 
 natural dye secreted in the skin began to fill 
 the bright streaks with strong colour. So the 
 striped Dun became the desert Bay, with black 
 points and white markings, gifted with the 
 intelligence needed in family and tribal life, 
 but above all things endowed with a speed 
 which was the despair of lions and is the glory 
 of all honest horsemen. So entirely was the 
 danger from lions overcome that the Bay 
 horse has forgotten the art of bucking, which 
 once was needed in fighting beasts of prey. 
 Speed has given the steel-hard hoofs, the steel- 
 strong limbs, dehcate modelling to cut the 
 resistance of the air, the tail set and carried 
 high for the finest steering, and almost every 
 other trait of our Barbs and Arabs. So 
 
ZEBRA, QUAGGA, ASS 29 
 
 intense is the light in his native pasture that 
 even the refracted glow from the ground has 
 had to be met by dark colouring of the under 
 surfaces, wherein he differs from the horses of 
 higher latitudes. 
 
 Zebra and Quagga. Southward from the 
 great Desert the forest of Equatorial Africa is 
 bordered to the eastward and the south by 
 grass lands. In these a few patches of jungle 
 and tussock grasses have preserved the colour- 
 ing of striped horses down to our own time. 
 Their painting is most brilliant towards the 
 Equator, fades in the higher latitudes, and in 
 Cape Colony only the neck and shoulder 
 stripes remained in the Quagga breed. The 
 land does not continue into the latitude of the 
 Dun horse. It is quite possible that with the 
 coming of the Boers tame cattle ate off the 
 Quagga pasturage, but rifles have put the wild 
 stock to an end with the advance of human 
 settlement. 
 
 The Asses. These creatures of moun- 
 tainous deserts are coloured like the boulders 
 of a hillside, but rely for their safety rather on 
 high intelligence and sure-footed speed. Being 
 desert animals of course they are dry inside, so 
 that their efforts to produce the most beautiful 
 music merely rub leather against leather like 
 
30 DUN HORSES 
 
 the sole of a creaking boot. They should be 
 petted like operatic tenors, and indeed there 
 are no animals in the world who improve 
 so rapidly in response to decent treatment. 
 
 There is a legend that the ass who carried 
 the Cross of our Lord Christ upon the way to 
 Calvary had ever afterwards its shadow on his 
 back, still worn by the African breed as a 
 special badge of honour. It is called the en- 
 durance mark, and this with the same leg bands 
 is the special brand of the Dun horse of Asia. 
 
 The Dun Horse. It was in the Yellow- 
 stone Park that I paid ten dollars for a thirteen 
 hand pony called Buck, a bright Dun with the 
 endurance cross and leg bands. Below the 
 black knees and hocks he wore white stockings, 
 and had black mane, tail and points. He 
 taught me the real protective colour for short 
 grass. His upper and lower body lines were 
 the curves of prairie ridges, while the limbs 
 were so cross-coloured that the upright lines 
 became invisible, save when he moved, at 
 about two hundred yards. It was lucky that 
 he always came at my call, because so far as 
 my poor eyesight went, he was lost to me every 
 evening so soon as I sent him off to graze. His 
 wall eye and game knee were acquired from 
 meeting Christians, but an odd trick of carry- 
 
WILD SPECIES DYING 31 
 
 ing the lower jaw sideways while he was 
 thinking, an unusual sweetness of character, 
 and most uncommon pluck, may have been 
 primitive traits. He trotted with my pack 
 a thousand miles, until in Utah I gave him to 
 a cowboy rather than take him on into the 
 desert ahead, where he might die of thirst. I 
 did not know in those days that he was a 
 desert horse who knew a deal more about 
 finding water than ever I shall learn. 
 
 The horse became extinct in the Americas, 
 the Quagga in South Africa, the wild Bay in 
 Northern Africa. The numbers of the wild 
 asses and of the zebras are shrinking rapidly. 
 The wild Dun, or Tarpan, whose range was the 
 whole steppe of Russia and North Asia, is now 
 represented in three small districts of Mongoha 
 by the PrejeValski herds. So far, then, as wild 
 horses are concerned, the species is dying out. 
 
 Among tame horses, to judge from what 
 one sees in the larger stables, there must be at 
 least one hundred Bays, Browns and Chestnuts 
 to every real Dun. All breeders select from 
 the Bay type as distinguished from the Dun, 
 whose only special value is in endurance. In 
 the run-wild or feral herds, however, the Duns 
 have a fair chance, and form a large proportion 
 of the stock. They are not only hardy but 
 
32 DUN AND BAY 
 
 also fertile. If man became extinct, the 
 steppes and prairies would breed Duns, and 
 gradually kill out the other types. 
 
 From the fierce dry heat of the Gobi Desert 
 to the utmost rigors of Siberian cold, the Dun 
 will thrive wherever there is grass. His coat 
 is warm and cool for any chmate, greasy 
 enough to shed rain, and proof against every 
 weather except wet driving snow or a strong 
 gale. Through the longest winters he keeps 
 alive by grubbing through the snow to get at 
 grass. The droughts of summer may so in- 
 crease the journey between food and water 
 that he gets very little time for rest, but some- 
 how he manages to pull through, the last of all 
 horses to yield to difficulties. Lacking the 
 speed and beauty of the Bay, he lives where the 
 Bay will die. In danger or difficulty the Bay 
 is a fool in a panic, while the Dun keeps cool, 
 reasons, and uses common sense with a strong, 
 hearty valour. One would select the Bay for 
 pleasure, but the Dun for serious work under 
 the saddle, for road endurance, for long and 
 rapid marches, and all that makes mounted 
 troops of value in campaigns. 
 
 Just as the working man may be rendered 
 irritable and even vicious by unfair treatment 
 in our social life, the working horse is made 
 
CLOUDLAND 33 
 
 ill-tempered and dangerous to handle by bad 
 horse-mastership. So the Dun has a terrible 
 reputation, and in his defence I am a sort of 
 Devil's advocate. He is the typical range 
 horse whose manners and customs will be the 
 theme of the next chapter. 
 
 PART VI. CLOUDLAND. 
 
 We have seen the close resemblance of warm 
 winds and seas between the North Atlantic 
 and the North Pacific ; but it was only in the 
 North Atlantic region that the great Ice Age, 
 in long pulsations, widened and shrank its 
 Icefields. Ten thousand years ago (Wright) in 
 the Niagara District, and seven thousand 
 years ago (de Geer) in Finland, the edges of the 
 Icefield were withdrawn for the last time, and 
 the climate began to get warm and comfortable. 
 
 In America and in Europe, as the ice re- 
 treated, a belt of tundra crept closely in its 
 wake, and in the rear of that a belt of green 
 turfed grasses. 
 
 In Eastern Canada, and North-western 
 Europe these green turfed pastures are varied 
 with woodlands of such trees as cast their leaves 
 in winter. Amid these changes the horse 
 had vanished from North America, but survived 
 in Asia, and slowly extended his range as 
 the ice retreated from Europe. In Europe 
 
34 CLOUDLAND 
 
 as in America, man also widened his hunting 
 grounds in the wake of the melting Icefield. 
 
 In the big region of the south-west wind the 
 lands which surround the North Sea and the 
 Baltic are different from all others, being under 
 a low sun, cloudy, with only one day's sunshine 
 out of seven. And Cloudland breeds a special 
 type of man with blue eyes, a ruddy skin, and 
 hair of chestnut, bay, brown, or dun, colours 
 like those of horses. 
 
 Under the grey skies of Cloudland, man has 
 lost the protective colour which in all other 
 regions of the world defends the body from 
 actinic light. I think we shall find this true 
 of the horse also. 
 
 The original striped colouring of the Bays 
 and Duns never developed in Western Europe 
 with its climate of cloudy skies and verdant 
 pastures. 
 
 The White Horse. Now let us study the 
 conditions following the Ice Age in Southern 
 Russia. Here the Dun horse has a white coat 
 for sunny snowy winters. Rumour says that 
 foals are not born white, and it must be re- 
 membered that snowy winters are recent even 
 as grassy plains. 
 
 This whiteness is not, Hke the summer 
 colouring, a paint issued by the body to tint 
 
THE WHITE HORSE 35 
 
 the hair, but a mere absence of any colouring 
 matter. It is as though the animal saved his 
 stores to paint his inside to a warm red during 
 the cold season instead of wasting it in mere 
 vanity upon his outer clothing. At the same 
 time nothing could be more reasonable than 
 a white coat for concealment against a snowy 
 background. Hares, Eskimo, and lots of other 
 tribes are most particular in this matter, and 
 among the best people of all snowy regions a 
 white suit is the correct mode for winter. It 
 may be that some tribes of ponies neglected 
 to change in the spring, and so became con- 
 spicuous in summer, a fatal error where there 
 are wolves about. These were not hkely to 
 prosper and raise children except under man's 
 protection, so one suspects that white coats for 
 summer wear date only from the human period. 
 Men have a feeling, too, that the white horse 
 was so beautiful that he must be sacred, a 
 special gift of the gods. Without any special 
 merit, being indeed of lower stamina and en- 
 durance than any other horses, the white stock 
 were favoured by breeders. Left to them- 
 selves, they would die out rapidly in any sunny 
 climate. One notes, however, that the Persian 
 wild ass has a silvery white coat, the hue of his 
 native desert. There are many animals whose 
 
36 BEARDED HORSES 
 
 dark hair is white at the tips, so that 
 they are really brunettes who masquerade as 
 blondes. 
 
 Bearded Horses. The ancient horse- 
 eating artist-savages of France have left us 
 portraits of ponies strongly bearded under the 
 lower jaw. In the earliest portrait we have of 
 the Celtic pony (Ewart), Odin's eight-legged 
 Sleipnir shows the coarse bearded cut of jaw. 
 The Celtic pony types are bearded to the north- 
 ward, clean-shaven towards the southward 
 parts of their wide range. The Prejevalski, 
 who is the Tarpan of Asia, is slightly bearded. 
 So is the Kiang or wild ass of Asia. One finds 
 the beard bristles in all the northern breeds 
 of horses, not in the desert stocks to the south. 
 Why then should northern horses want to 
 grow a beard ? 
 
 A horse has so small a stomach that his day's 
 work to get sufficient grass is seven hours. Up 
 to about fifty degrees of north latitude, he gets 
 seven hours of daylight even in mid-winter. 
 Northward of that he needs beard bristles to 
 aid him in feeling and selecting grass in the 
 darkness. Southward of that, if he is hunted 
 by wolves or tigers, he needs a few beard 
 bristles for night grazing except in cloudless 
 regions where there is always starlight. So, 
 
SIZE 37 
 
 roughly, the range of bearded horses is that 
 of long dark nights. 
 
 The Register of Size. The size of horses 
 varies with their nourishment. 
 
 On the scattered but rich bunch grasses of 
 the desert, where there is much travel for a 
 little food, the pasture registers the stature 
 of the Bay as about fourteen hands two inches. 
 
 The scattered but rich bunch grass of the 
 American steppe makes horses prosperous in 
 summer but famished in the winter, so that the 
 pasture registers a smaller horse than that of 
 the desert — up to thirteen hands. Under the 
 same conditions we may take the register of the 
 Dun in Asia as up to thirteen hands. 
 
 The poor grass of the British moors registers 
 a pony of ten to eleven hands. 
 
 Strong feeding of grain and hay registers 
 stabled horses up to nineteen hands. 
 
 The great abundance of green turfed grass 
 the year round in North-western Europe 
 should, under its best conditions, register as 
 large a horse as either steppe or desert. 
 
 The Three Pastures. The Bay pasture 
 and the Dun pasture are each of continental 
 size, wheras the green pature is only a small 
 province. In the same way, the rock forma- 
 tions of the Bay and the Dun pastures are each 
 
38 THE THREE PASTURES 
 
 continuous for several thousands of miles. In 
 sharp contrast is that little ragged edge of a great 
 continent known as North-western Europe, a 
 district which has many times been flooded 
 by the sea, each bath making new beds of rock. 
 
 The lowlands of Great Britain, for example, 
 have been frequently submerged, and the 
 island shows samples of almost every rock 
 formation known upon the earth. This Euro- 
 pean pasture then is not only small, but also 
 varied in its rock formations, its soils, and its 
 landscape. One may get a standard horse of 
 registered size in the Bay range or the Dun 
 range, but would expect to find on the green 
 range of Europe not only many colours, but 
 also many breeds derived from the primitive 
 stock, strains of all sorts and sizes. A glance 
 at three formations will show how much the 
 build and size of a horse is varied by the 
 rocks. 
 
 Granite. In North-western Europe the 
 granitic or speckled formations form upstand- 
 ing moorlands. The poor but abundant grass 
 maintains ponies both light and heavy of build, 
 derived from several kinds of ancestors. They 
 are so secured from attack by beasts of prey 
 that they do not need to run far and fast on 
 ground where running would be dangerous. 
 
LIMESTONE AND CLAY 39 
 
 These are grouped under the general name of 
 Celtic pony. 
 
 Limestone. Allowing for some districts, 
 like the central plain of Ireland, where the Ice- 
 sheet has left the country very badly drained, 
 a limestone formation usually makes dry soil. 
 The vegetable mould may hold a little water and 
 make mud, as on the chalk downs, but the 
 rock is so porous that most of the rain soaks 
 down, and the waters run mainly underground. 
 Moreover, the vegetable mould gives chemical 
 qualities to this water, which is enabled to 
 dissolve the rocks and form caverns on the 
 underground water courses. At the same 
 time the water becomes ' hard ' with lime in 
 solution, so that the springs will petrify moss 
 and twigs. 
 
 The dryness of the ground tends to make 
 horses sound of bone. The carbonate of lime 
 in the water supplies them with the material 
 for bone. As the result the bones are very 
 hght in proportion to their strength. So this 
 pasture registers a well-built and very light 
 horse. If such an animal is of Bay blood, he 
 is larger and swifter than the Arab, lacking 
 only in soundness and in travel endurance. 
 
 Clay. As clay holds water, its soils provide 
 abundance to the grass roots, and so produce 
 
40 HORSES OF CLOUDLAND 
 
 thick turf with a great weight of green forage 
 to the acre. Such heavy feeding without any 
 exercise in search of water, would, after the 
 killing out of the w^olves, tend to produce a 
 large, heavy, slow-going gentle horse with 
 steady nerves such as our draught stock, 
 lacking in that soundness of feet and legs 
 which is limited to the breeds of arid 
 regions. 
 
 So far, the argument presents for the green 
 pastures of cloudland horses of several colours ; 
 and, for the varied rock formations in the North 
 Sea and Baltic basins, horses of many 
 types. 
 
 Professor Ewart traces among the ancient 
 wild horses of the forest species three very 
 distinct types : 
 
 1 . At the time when the glacial drift of the 
 Rhine and Weser valleys had a climate like 
 that of the Outer Hebrides of to-day, the con- 
 ditions of cold and damp matured the Diluvial 
 horse (Equus Caballus occidentaUs). This ani- 
 mal stood fifteen hands, had a longer face than 
 the general forest type, was coarsely built, had 
 heavy fetlocks, a short upright pastern, a broad 
 round foot. This is the cart horse breed. 
 
 2. The Grimaldi Grottoes in the Riviera 
 preserve remains of a forest-upland horse, 
 
FOREST VARIETIES 41 
 
 large, coarse, heavy in build, with a short, 
 broad face, and a flat profile. 
 
 3. The Solutre Caverns of France preserve 
 paintings made by ancient savages of a small 
 stout, chunk}^, bearded horse, rather like a 
 long, low Iceland pony, with a short broad face, 
 elk-hke nose, and low-set tail, rough-haired 
 towards the root. He stood from twelve to 
 thirteen hands in height. 
 
 From these three forest varieties our draught 
 horses are mainly descended ; but there were 
 also in Ancient Europe two other species 
 besides that of the woodlands. 
 
 A. Siwahk type. A fifteen-hand horse, 
 lightly built like the modern thoroughbred. 
 The forehead recedes at an angle from the line 
 of the face, and there is a prominence between 
 the eyes. The limbs are long, withers high, 
 and tail set on high. 
 
 B. Prejevalski Tarpan steppe type, the 
 Dun of Northern Asia. The face is long, 
 narrow and straight. The nasal chambers are 
 large, causing a Roman nose. The limbs are 
 clean, with close hocks and narrow feet. 
 Height twelve to thirteen hands. 
 
 We must think then of such types a* the 
 Forest and Siwalik adapting themselves to the 
 soils of North-western Europe. 
 
42 A VALLEY IN CLOUDLAND 
 
 PART VII. THE CHANGING LAND. 
 
 The North Sea is only a recent flood in an 
 old river valley. We must consider it not as 
 a tract of permanent water, but as a lost hunt- 
 ing ground of our own ancestors, a pasturage 
 for horses not very long ago. 
 
 In the year 5200 b.c. the Scandinavian 
 glaciers, shrinking at the rate of about one mile 
 a year (the rate of shrinkage in the Alps of 
 St. Elias), withdrew from the province of Fin- 
 land and the Baltic Lake. Let us suppose 
 that, in that year a traveller from civilised 
 Egypt made his way down the Rhine, and so 
 entered the valley of North River, which is 
 now flooded by the North Sea. At first this 
 river wound its level way between low chalk 
 downs, but presently the Thames came in 
 from the West, and forested sw^ampy clay- 
 lands extended northward. Abreast of Aber- 
 deen came the last chalk downs, and beyond that 
 lay Arctic tundras where the delta widened 
 to an ice-drifted sea nearly abreast of Faroe. 
 
 The whole valley was as varied in rock and 
 soil as Eastern England, with little lakes, 
 ridges of boulder clay, and downs of gorse and 
 bracken. Northward across this verdant land 
 crept succeeding waves of the fir, the oak, and 
 the beech. 
 
CLOUDLAND HORSES 43 
 
 Out on the delta coast, far to the right, 
 beyond a deep sea channel, rose the white Ice- 
 cap of Sweden, whose Ice-flood filled the Nor- 
 way fjords with berg-breeding glaciers. Far to 
 the left rose the ice-clad Grampians. 
 
 The Delta people and those of the Baltic 
 Lake were poor savages living upon shell fish, 
 and making mounds of shell refuse round their 
 hearths. Inland were stronger peoples who 
 had lake villages or trenched encampments on 
 headlands of the downs. 
 
 As the grass followed the advancing fir 
 woods, the primitive stock of Cloudland re- 
 turned to pastures from whence it had been 
 driven by the cold. These w^ere not Duns, 
 Bays, or striped, but native Cloudland horses 
 adapted to this region of little sunshine. 
 Strong Dun was not needed to guard them 
 from the actinic rays of sunlight, so their dull 
 colour had yellowish, brownish and reddish 
 tones which blended with the landscape, such 
 colours as are worn by the Celtic ponies of 
 Britain and other Atlantic isles. 
 
 The wild horses were evolving three utterly 
 different types. On the chalk downs, and on 
 the limestone tracts north of the Humber, 
 there were Hghtly built, slender, graceful 
 horses of fair height. On the clays there were 
 
44 THE DELUGE IN CLOUDLAND 
 
 horses, heavy, coarse, and slow. On the 
 Breton, British and Scandinavian moors there 
 were Celtic ponies. 
 
 It needed but little sinking of this land to 
 flood the Delta, and open a long channel up 
 the North River valle^^ The sea washed out 
 the clay foundations of the forests. The sea 
 breakers wielded boulders of the glacier-drift 
 and hurled them like battering rams against 
 the dissolving limestone of low chffs. The 
 tide swung gravels to tear out bays in the fore- 
 shores. Winter frosts cracked the headlands, 
 and summer rains melted the ice cracks so that 
 the capes fell into the sea in landslides. Thus 
 the sea widened, biting its w^ay deep into 
 Europe until men began their losing fight with 
 dykes for the saving of doomed netherlands. 
 The North Sea cut its way through chalk downs 
 into the English channel. The tribes who held 
 fortified headlands of the chalk downs and set 
 up temples at Stonehenge and Avebury on 
 the mainland of Europe, about 1800 B.C. found 
 that their country had become an island. 
 
 The old horse pasture of North-western 
 Europe was split into sundered provinces by 
 the advancing sea, but the breeds, native to a 
 lost valley are still almost identical on either 
 shore. The Breton and British moors have 
 
THE HUMAN INFLUENCE 45 
 
 one type of Celtic pony whose ancestral range 
 extended across the Straits of Dover. The 
 clay fens of Lincolnshire and of Holland still 
 have draught horses alike in build and in 
 colour. The hmestone districts north of the 
 H umber have the same tall horses as the similar 
 provinces across the water in Schleswig, Hol- 
 stein and Jutland. The granitic lands of 
 Scotland and Norway have one type of the 
 Celtic pony. (Low's Domesticated Animals.) 
 It is none of my business, but I cannot help 
 feehng that the flooding at about the same 
 period of the Lower Yukon and North River 
 Valleys is something more than a coincidence. 
 The Geological people are always cocksure that 
 the sea cannot rise, that an hemisphere — the 
 Southern, for example, cannot be flooded, 
 and they assume quite blandly that lands 
 have sunk, without explaining why. Their 
 theories never seem really to fit that mighty 
 wilderness, to which I have seen them come as 
 visitors or strangers. Science will never under- 
 stand until it learns to love. 
 
 PART VIII. THE HUMAN INFLUENCE. 
 
 We have now reached a stage of the argu- 
 ment which shows for Europe no continental 
 type hke the Bay or the Dun, but a horse stock 
 of varied colouring, of diverse heights and 
 
46 SHUFFLING OF THE HORSE PACK 
 
 builds, and most curious dispersions as native 
 to the green pastures of Cloudland. 
 
 The problem in nature was intricate as a 
 jigsaw puzzle, before man's interference broke 
 that puzzle into Httle pieces. Our ancestors 
 were not such fools as to import Duns from 
 Asia for purpose of breeding, but in their wars 
 and migrations drifted Asiatic Duns and South 
 Russian white horses across the face of Europe. 
 No wars of invasion brought Bay horses out of 
 Africa ; but as each tribe needed a better 
 strain of horseflesh, the Bays were carried in 
 the courses of trade to Europe. 
 
 THE HUMAN INFLUENCE IN CROSSING HORSE 
 STRAINS. 
 
 The Chestnut. This colour is possibly 
 bright Bay from African blood crossed with a 
 slight proportion of golden Dun. Both in the 
 humans and the horses, chestnut hair goes 
 with a certain temper described as sanguine, 
 generous or fiery if we happen to be in a good 
 temper, or untrustworthy and vicious if we 
 dislike the person. Setting aside the cold 
 sorrel, or light chestnut, which in my own mind 
 is associated with commonplace horses and 
 with one or two very bad women, the real chest- 
 nut, with its red-gold glory, makes most of us 
 catch our breath with its beauty. In human 
 
SCALE OF COLOUR VALUES 47 
 
 hair it so appeals to artists as to be generally 
 reserved for the most sacred portraiture. In 
 horses, it so appeals to horsemen as to rank 
 next bright Bay in the scale of values. 
 
 The Brown Horse. This is a colder, 
 washed-out tone of Bay. 
 
 The Black Horse. Among feral and range 
 horses, those of the very darkest bay and brown 
 become brown-black under the summer sun- 
 light. True black is unknown among outdoor 
 horses, and can only be due to special selective 
 breeding. 
 
 The Grey Horse. All greys are obviously 
 crossed between white and the various whole 
 colours. 
 
 The primary horse colours are Dun and Bay. 
 
 The secondary colours are white, black, 
 grey, chestnut, and brown, whole colours 
 shared by human and horse folk. 
 
 The tertiar}^ colours are crosses of white 
 with Bay, Dun, black, chestnut, brown, which 
 produce the various roans. Beyond that the 
 human hair withdraws from competition. 
 
 The quarternary colours are crosses of white 
 with whole roans, producing strawberry and 
 cream roans, and roan-balds ; while a peculiar 
 mixture of white with black, bay or chestnut, 
 gives us the piebalds and skewbalds. 
 
4S CORRECTING BY SUNLIGHT 
 
 The white horse has been saved from the 
 wolves by man, but the secondary tertiary 
 and quarternary colours are also very largely 
 the result of man's work in crossing the primi- 
 tive strains of Europe with the imported African 
 Bay within the last couple of thousand years. 
 
 Migration. The Romans imported milHons 
 of negro slaves who have not left a trace of 
 their blood in Europe. Wave after wave of 
 Blonde Migration from the Baltic has conquer-, 
 ed the Mediterranean states, but left no fair 
 descendants. The negroes become extinct 
 in Europe. The blondes become extinct on the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 And so with horses. Imported horses fail 
 to breed healthfully in the damp provinces of 
 India and Brazil, while horse sickness makes a 
 clean sweep of them in many parts of Africa. 
 It is probable, with horses as with men, that 
 no sudden importation to regions outside their 
 native zone of sunhght results in permanent 
 healthy breeding. The imported strain dies 
 out unless it is constantly renewed. Hordes 
 of Asiatics with Dun horses have swept from 
 time to time into Europe, and into India, but 
 Dun horses are scarce in both regions, and do 
 not exist in large numbers except in Scandi- 
 navia and in Katywar. 
 
THE BRAND OF EUROPE 49 
 
 So the strong action of man in sudden flood- 
 ings of Europe with Bays from the desert, 
 Duns from the steppe, is outweighed by a 
 stronger law of nature. With strains of horses 
 as with tribes of man, the penalty for sudden 
 migration from their native zone of light is 
 gradual extinction. 
 
 Yet is there one difference between Bays and 
 Duns. The Dun is not worth renewing, and so 
 dies out unnoticed. The Bay is worth breed- 
 ing and so persists. 
 
 PART IX. THE BRAND OF EUROPE. 
 
 In nature's immense and gentle processes, 
 throughout the amazing story of the Europe 
 horse, the bewildering actions of forgotten 
 tribes of men, and the sun's own slow adjust- 
 ments, a single force persists in branding the 
 stock with a sign of ownership. 
 
 A partial ecHpse of the sun had made his 
 figure that of the crescent moon. Standing 
 under some oak trees, beside the road puddles 
 made by recent rain, I noticed that the bars of 
 reduced sunhght which came down through the 
 leafage shone upon the httle patches of water. 
 The image of the crescent sun was reflected 
 upside down. 
 
 The bar of sunhght coming down through 
 leafage acts as a lens to the sun's image. The 
 
50 THE BRAND OF EUROPE 
 
 woodland glade is a camera. The coat of a 
 woodland animal is coloured by the direct 
 action of hght, is sensitive to light, is a sensi- 
 tized film for colour photography. To the 
 peculiar reversed and condensed rays shining 
 through leafage into the woodland camera, the 
 coat of the horse responds, forming rings of 
 deeper colour limited to the parts of the animal 
 which are exposed to direct light. In the 
 course of many generations, the rings become 
 permanent and are known as dapples. The 
 dappling in the dappled light of woodlands 
 gives concealment both to hunting leopards 
 and to hunted horses. 
 
 Since dapples have not been traced to any 
 other country, and may well be native to wood- 
 lands of Western Europe, it seems fair reasoning 
 which gives that special quality of colour to a 
 type we will now define as the European horse. 
 I do not contend that the woodlands were more 
 extensive than the open downs, or that any 
 large proportion of European horses developed 
 dapples. I do contend that a certain stocky 
 build and well conditioned heaviness of type 
 more or less dappled is characteristic of Western 
 Europe, just as a more or less striped Dun is 
 typical of Asia, and more or less striped Bay 
 typical of Northern Africa. 
 
PROFESSOR RIDGEWAY'S THEORIES 51 
 
 I am nothing more than an old rough-neck. 
 My poor little theories about the Europe horse 
 have the impudence to contradict a great au- 
 thority. Professor Ridgeway brings historic 
 proof that the Tarpan, who is the Prejevalski, 
 the wild Dun of Asia, inhabited the green pas- 
 ture of Europe, that he was a small scrawny 
 and foul-tempered person unfit to ride, and 
 that his crossings with the slender imported 
 Bay produced our gigantic sturdy and gentle 
 draught horse. I have ridden so many Duns, 
 packed so many, loved them so much, that I 
 am sure they would agree with me in bucking 
 hard against Professor Ridgeway. I do not 
 beHeve that the Dun wore his tawny colour in 
 green pastures where he would be a target. I 
 do not believe that the wild Dun in an average 
 district was small, scrawny or vicious. I do 
 not beUeve that a horse of the Dun type could 
 be an ancestor to draught stock. History is 
 the lens through which we see the past — out 
 of focus. 
 
 Against the evidence of history and the 
 proofs of science, I have nothing to offer ex- 
 cept the common heritage of sight and reason, 
 with that experience which trains a fellow to 
 interpret landscape and to care for horses. I 
 cannot expect others to ride as I have through 
 
52 SENSING THE COUNTRY 
 
 the green pasturage of Cloudland seeing as I do 
 under the combed, trim countryside of to-day 
 the fierce rough wilderness of prehistoric times 
 and of outlandish frontiers. It is not by 
 asking the way or reading sign-posts that one 
 reasons out the route of a day's journey, but 
 by a vivid sense of hght, form, colour and at- 
 mospheric distance, the old familiar structure 
 of the rocks, the slopes of drainage, the course 
 of running waters, the shape of woods and 
 trees as fashioned by the wind, the ancient 
 dangers deflecting trails and roads, and the 
 phenomena which result in forts and churches, 
 villages and towns. 
 
 So one senses the radiant perfumed land and 
 sees how it shaped and coloured its native 
 horses. It was from that raw material the 
 breeder wrought just as a sculptor models clay 
 into his statuary Under his hands the wild 
 traits disappeared, the short-sighted ponj- 
 grew into a long-sighted hunter, sound hoofs 
 and limbs were softened to unsoundness, the 
 language of signs gave place to understanding 
 of human speech, while disciphne of the harem 
 and the herd became obedience in the fields of 
 sport, of labour, or soldier service. 
 
 I would not have my reading take the place 
 of thinking, but rather use books to inspire 
 
THE DAPPLE SIGN 53 
 
 thought and be thankful to them for correcting 
 blunders. Thus, aiming at the truth, no matter 
 what I hit, I see in Western Europe a horse- 
 currency which is of striped extraction, and, 
 like a coinage in bronze, silver and gold, has 
 evolved its moorland ponies, its lowland 
 draught stock, and its upland running breeds. 
 The measure of Bay blood stamps out its 
 values ; and, where one can decipher a device, 
 it is to read the dapple sign for one of the sun's 
 own kingdoms. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HABITS OF OUTDOOR HORSES. 
 
 I. THE RANGE. 
 
 The North American range of the run-wild 
 herds enlarges northward out of Mexico and 
 covers the region between the Mississippi and 
 the Pacific Ocean up to the edge of the North- 
 ern Forest in Canada. This gives an area of 
 three milhon square miles, a range much the 
 same size as Europe, the United States, Aus- 
 tralia, Brazil, or Canada. The eastern half is 
 a prairie, the western a desert shaped like a 
 swell of the sea about eight thousand feet high 
 at the top, and laced all over with a skein of 
 mountain ranges thrown like fisherman's net 
 and broken all to pieces. Moreover, the 
 southern or higher half of this desert is cleft 
 to the roots by sheer abysmal chasms known 
 as the Canons. 
 
 It has been my good fortune to ride from the 
 edge of the Canadian forest along the general 
 line of the Rocky Mountains to a place just 
 
 54 
 
THE WILDERNESS 55 
 
 twenty miles south of Zacatecas in Mexico, 
 which is the southern boundary of the Stock 
 Range, on the Tropic of Cancer. I have also 
 ridden from Regina in Saskatchewan to Red 
 Bluff in California. These two routes cross the 
 grass from north to south, and nearly from 
 east to west, making a rough total of seven 
 thousand miles. 
 
 The land as I knew it first had just been 
 stripped naked by the hunters who swept 
 away almost the whole of its native stock of 
 bison, deer, and antelope, wild sheep and 
 goats, together with the hunting animals, such 
 as wolves and panthers who earned a living 
 there. The land as I saw it next was over- 
 stocked with ponies, cattle and sheep, so that 
 the grass was poor. The land as I saw it last 
 was being fenced, watered and ploughed by 
 pioneer settlers. In thirty years I witnessed 
 the passing of the wilderness and its frontiers- 
 men. 
 
 A meadow gives a totally false idea of the 
 herbage which built up the strength and 
 vigour of the ancient pony herds. It is a 
 mixture of many grasses and other plants all 
 closely turfed together so that a horse cannot 
 readily select what he likes best. The grass 
 contains a deal of water, stays green throughout 
 
56 THE NATURAL PASTURES 
 
 the year and tastes sour between the teeth. 
 One finds turfed pasture in forests and their 
 outskirts, and usually where there is rainfall 
 enough for crops, as in Western Europe and on 
 the eastern half of South Africa. That, I 
 think, is not the pasture which made the 
 hardy range horse. 
 
 Where there is less than eight inches of rain 
 one finds the range grass, of separate plants 
 with the bare earth between. The three 
 American kinds are the bunch grass of the 
 hollows, a tall tussock with tap roots reaching 
 down to moisture ; the httle buffalo grass 
 from two to four inches high ; and the gramma 
 grass of the same size which inhabits Mexico. 
 
 One may presume that the tussock fed the 
 oldest herds and that, as it failed, the pony 
 took to eating the shorter grasses. 
 
 The horse in a meadow pasture does not eat 
 the ranker growths, but grazes the shorter, 
 smaller kinds of grass. From this we may 
 reason that the little buffalo grass of the ranges 
 is the typical food of the species. The leaves 
 of this plant are green in the spring but soon 
 cure to a golden tawny colour, which changes 
 to brown in the autumn, and a washed-out, 
 gre3dsh brown in winter. As they cure, the 
 leaves curl downwards one by one until the 
 
CONDITIONS OF THE STOCKRANGE 57 
 
 plant becomes a ball or tuft exceedingly 
 springy underfoot, sweet as a nut in taste, 
 and equal in food value to standing oats. 
 
 As ' one approaches the desert the land is 
 sprinkled with bushes which protect them- 
 selves from being eaten with a very strong 
 nasty taste, or deadly thorns. Of these the 
 sage brush comes first, a thousand miles wide, 
 followed by a thousand miles of greasewood 
 and acacia varied with forests of cacti. The 
 grass becomes more scanty as one forces a way 
 onward into the heart of the desert, where 
 there are regions of naked rock and belts of 
 drifting sand. 
 
 As the annual rainfall varies from year to 
 year the desert tracts expand or shrink by 
 turns. As the winds swing from side to side, 
 or wax or wane in their supply of moisture, a 
 fertile region is made desolate for a few cen- 
 turies as Palmyra, or a desert shrinks before 
 the spreading pasture. In cycles the desert 
 blossoms or withers, but with the millions of 
 years it slowly widens. 
 
 Such, then, were the conditions of the stock- 
 range to which the ancient herds had to adapt 
 themselves, learning to dispense with the 
 shrunken meadows, and make the most of 
 varying crops of bunch grass. 
 
58 THE GRAZING RULES 
 
 The taste for green pasture is so far for- 
 gotten that range horses will swim rivers and 
 break fences to escape from the richest of 
 meadows and get to the desert hillsides which 
 seem to grow nothing but stones. Where 
 sheep tear the bunch grass out by the roots and 
 leave stark desert, the horses' lips and teeth 
 are so dehcately adapted to this feeding that 
 they never uproot the plant. 
 
 It is a sound rule that range ponies do not 
 travel beyond their necessities of grass and 
 water. Leaving the water, they graze out- 
 wards, forming a trampled area which widens 
 daily as they feed at the edges. So, riding 
 across the rich and untouched grass lands of 
 the south-western deserts, I have come to a 
 line w^here the pasturage ended abruptly, and 
 beyond were innumerable pony tracks leading 
 from six to ten miles to a water hole. The 
 wild horse looked upon that ring area as the 
 tame horse does a stable, with water and feed 
 conveniently arranged. That was his home, 
 and if man or the storm, or wolves drove him a 
 couple of hundred miles away to better feed 
 and water, he would always break back at the 
 first chance, travelling steadily with little delay 
 for grazing. 
 
 A horse's neck is exactly long enough for 
 
RULES IN GRAZING 59 
 
 grazing on level ground, but I never saw one 
 try to graze downhill. Neither does he readily 
 graze directly up any steep place, preferring 
 to quarter along the hillside, rising very 
 slightly. 
 
 His first rule in grazing then is to crop uphill. 
 
 But the moment the air stirs he applies his 
 second grazing rule, which is " feed up wind." 
 
 If he had the man's way of reasoning, he 
 would argue thus, " If I graze down wind I 
 smell myself, the grass, and the dust. But if 
 I graze up wind I get the air clean to my nos- 
 trils, and can smell an enemy in time to fight 
 or run." 
 
 His third rule is to graze if possible home- 
 ward or towards shelter. 
 
 If the grass is plentiful he feeds quickly, 
 and has time for rest on warm sheltered ground 
 or in the lee of timber. If food is scant, he gets 
 no time for rest. 
 
 On the natural range there are hollows to 
 which the surface waters have carried the ashes 
 of burned grass. These alkali hcks are needed 
 to keep horses in health ; but rock salt in the 
 stable seems to meet their wants. Failing that 
 they will lick brick walls. Even the Ucking 
 of a man's hand is a means of getting salt from 
 the skin^rather than making love. 
 
6o HORSES ON CLIFFS 
 
 II. BETWEEN GRASS AND WATER. 
 
 The best way to measure the distance and 
 the sort of ground which the ancient herds 
 were accustomed to traverse between grass 
 and water, is to study the conduct of a horse in 
 deahng with steep places. 
 
 I was dining with some friends at Gibraltar 
 when the story was told of long ago times when 
 a couple of mad midshipmen rode ponies for a 
 wager up the Mediterranean stairs. This is a 
 stone stairway up the eastern wall of the Rock 
 which is sheer and some thirteen hundred feet 
 high. The story had special interest for me 
 because my father was one of the two mad 
 middies. He had told me that the ponies 
 were not frightened, except at the last flight of 
 all when the Atlantic wind was blowing into 
 their faces over the summit. There a step was 
 missing, the ponies reared, and bothl ads had to 
 dismount, losing a wager for which the leader 
 had undertaken the ride. 
 
 The ponies were Spanish, of the type which 
 re-stocked North America. 
 
 I frightened an English horse into hysterics 
 with such small rock walls as I could find in 
 Wales, but have never known an American 
 range animal to show very much alarm. My 
 worst climb was made in twelve hours, with 
 
SLOPE CLIMBING 6i 
 
 three horses up a 3,600 foot cliff where a trail 
 would have been a convenience. The pack 
 and spare horses pulled hard at times because, 
 although ambitious animals, they would have 
 preferred some other way to heaven. That is 
 why the lead rope got under the saddle-horse's 
 tail, which made him buck on a ledge over- 
 hanging blue space where there really was no 
 room. A little later the led horses pulled my 
 saddle horse over the edge of a crag. I got off 
 at the top, and the horse ht on his belly across 
 a jutting rock about twelve feet down. He 
 thought he was done for until I persuaded him 
 with the lead rope to scramble up again. Near 
 the summit the oak and juniper bushes forced 
 me to dismount, leading the horses one at a 
 time under or round stiff overhanging branches 
 on most unpleasant ground. They showed off 
 a little because they wished to impress me, but 
 I found out afterwards that horses or even 
 cattle, held at the foot of that cUff until they are 
 hungry, will cHmb to the top for grass. The 
 place is known as The Gateway and leads up 
 out of the Canon Dolores in Colorado to the 
 Mesa la Sal in Utah. 
 
 Much more dangerous was a 4,000 foot grass 
 slope down from the Mesa Uncompaghre into 
 the Canon Unaweep. I managed that by 
 
62 BAD GROUND 
 
 leading the horses and quartering the slope in 
 zigzags. I was much more frightened than 
 they were. 
 
 Many times I have ridden along the rim rock 
 of cliffs of any height up to a mile sheer, and so 
 far from being afraid, I found some horses pre- 
 ferred the very edge. One may ride slack rein 
 where one would never dare to venture afoot. 
 
 But although range horses like cliffs, they are 
 poor climbers. One may ride them up any 
 place where a man can climb without using his 
 hands, but they will never face a step above 
 knee high. Sometimes I have been obliged 
 to pass my rope round a tree and pull my horse 
 down walls that he dared not jump. Even 
 then he would argue the point. 
 
 American railway bridges have no pathway, 
 and when one leads a horse, stepping from tie 
 to tie, he thinks he has five legs. With two 
 legs down, and a train expected or a bear 
 sauntering ahead, he looks so damned patient 
 that one begins to reaUse an obscure trait in 
 his character which needs explaining. It is 
 easier to take him across bridges than to ride 
 or lead him through a waterfall. He prefers 
 a waterfall to a corduroy-timbered swamp road 
 when it happens to be flooded and afloat. I 
 have tried him with quicksands and moss 
 
HORSE SENSE 63 
 
 holes and glare ice on the mountain tops. 
 Because I cannot swim I have stayed in the 
 saddle swimming lakes, rapids, and rivers 
 which run sand. Still worse are beaver 
 swamps under a tangle of deadfall timber, and 
 old avalanches. All these and sundry other 
 kinds of evil ground a horse accepts as fate so 
 long as he trusts his man. It is not his busi- 
 ness. It is the man's affair. One begins to 
 think that, hke a savage, he lacks continuous 
 purpose of his own and is merely the meek 
 victim of his destiny. And that is exactly 
 where the man is fooled. When a horse really 
 wants grass, water, or to get home, he rivals 
 the white man in sustained purpose, and does 
 his own job with an intelligence and courage 
 which he never gives to that of his employer. 
 In other words, the difficulties of travel 
 between grass and water gave to the ancient 
 ponies the highest possible quaUties of endur- 
 ance, valour and skill. These qualities are 
 latent in every horse. 
 
 There is a more important lesson to be 
 learned by practical study of wild range. 
 
 The range has two types of herbage, the 
 bunch grass and the thorned or aromatic 
 bushes. The bunch grass is the staple food, the 
 bushes a reserve in time of drousrht The use 
 
64 THE TRAIL TO WATER 
 
 of the reserve food has taught the horse to 
 adapt his stomach to a change of diet. 
 
 Compared with farm land the range has 
 very httle food to the acre, supports only a 
 small population of grazing beasts, and, in its 
 distances between food and water, has trained 
 the horse to a deal of exercise as well as to 
 endurance of thirst. On the other hand the 
 needs of travelling for water and of grazing 
 have reduced his time for sleep to about three 
 and a half hours per day, which he takes 
 standing, however weary, unless he is quite 
 confident as to safety and kind treatment. In 
 brutally managed stables horses are apt to 
 sleep standing, because they are not off guard. 
 
 At first glance, too, the water on level range, 
 however distant from the edge of grass may be 
 safely visited. Yet as one approaches the 
 stream by slopes of the usual coulee, densely 
 bushed with poplar and wild fruit trees ; or, 
 coming down open grass, enters a grove of 
 Cottonwood along the level bottom, one begins 
 to note that the horses appear to be nervous. 
 A bunch of loose ponies will let the wisest mare 
 scout ahead while they string out in single file 
 to follow all alert, picking their way most 
 deUcately, pointing their ears at all sorts of 
 smells and sounds, and glancing backward 
 
RACE-MEMORIES OF PERIL 6$ 
 
 often as they go. Again one watches tame 
 horses watering at a trough, always alert, on 
 guard. If one of them makes a sudden move- 
 ment the rest will at once shy backward. Some 
 horse are so nervous that they have to be 
 watered singly. Always a horse drinks while 
 he can hold his breath, lifts his nostrils to 
 breathe deep and fill his lungs, then takes a 
 second drink, perhaps a third, and turns away 
 abruptly. There is no lingering at the water- 
 side. At the bank of lake or river no range 
 horse goes deeper then he need, or offers to take 
 a bath. 
 
 Here are race-memories of mortal peril from 
 a daily watering in face of instant danger and 
 of sudden death. I have seen so many horses 
 piteously drowned in moss or mudholes that I 
 understand why they tread cautiously as they 
 approach wet ground. The bush beside the 
 water is apt to be full of snakes who come down 
 as horses do, to drink in the gloaming, and are 
 not easily seen. The bush beside the water 
 is the lurking place of every beast of prey, and 
 everybody knows how horses go stark mad at 
 the smell of bear. What chance had the 
 ponies, strung out on a bush trail, against grey 
 timber wolves ? What thoroughbred fighting 
 horse would ever have a chance against the 
 
66 THE HAREM 
 
 Siberian tiger, or the African lion ? Cougar, 
 puma, jaguar, leopard — the cats of all the 
 world with their sudden spring at the withers 
 or throat of a range pony, have taught his 
 descendants their art of self-defence. That, 
 we must deal wdth later. 
 
 III. THE FAMILY. 
 
 We have broken up the family life of our 
 horses, and are apt to forget that they ever had 
 private affairs of their own. 
 
 Twice on the range I have met horse families. 
 On the first occasion the family happened to be 
 grazing near the trail as I passed. The stal- 
 lion was furious at my intrusion, trotted up to 
 me and stood glaring, pawing the ground, his 
 great neck arched and splendid mane and tail 
 rippling astream in the high wdnd. My saddle 
 and pack beasts, a pair of gentle geldings, 
 were rather frightened, disposed to halt, even 
 to run away but for my voice keeping them to 
 their duty. The stallion's mares had stopped 
 grazing to admire their master, each with an 
 observant eye cocked at me and an expression 
 of smugness not to be beaten in any Bigo- 
 tarian chapel. Then, as I laughed, the stallion, 
 with a loud snort of contempt, swung round, 
 lashed dirt in my face for defiance, and trotted 
 off to round up his harem and drive them out 
 
THE COMMANDING STALLION 67 
 
 of reach lest my evil communications should 
 corrupt their morals. 
 
 On the second occasion I took a half-broken 
 pack-train into a pasture on the bench of a 
 canon, so that the spring grass might cure an 
 epidemic of strangles which had killed seven 
 and sorely weakened the rest. The pasture 
 belonged to a wild stallion who lived there with 
 his family of young mares, colts and foals. 
 He stole my twenty-five mares, added them to 
 his harem, and made off. I was obliged to 
 build a corrall, round up the whole bunch, cut 
 out my mares, and drive the harem out of the 
 district. Meanwhile my stock had lapsed 
 from civilised ways and become wild beasts 
 who had to be broken all over again before it 
 was possible to use them for pack-train work. 
 
 They say that a horse family depends in size 
 upon the powers of the strongest stallion, who 
 rises to com^mand by fighting and defeating all 
 competitors, and holds his command by single 
 combat with the leaders of rival families who 
 try to rob him. 
 
 The commandant stallion is able to hold a 
 family of fifteen to fifty head, but there must be 
 some who by conquest of rival leaders, and 
 stealing of their harems, rise to commands on 
 a much larger scale. Ranging his family 
 
68 THE FIGHTING HERD 
 
 between grass and water, he is most particular 
 to close herd his mares, to hold his own pasture 
 which he never leaves except under dire stress, 
 and to have special places where he casts his 
 droppings. In range life the geldings have 
 separate families, and their own private runs. 
 There is not very much known about the 
 internal arrangements of wild harems, but a 
 good deal can be guessed from watching the 
 Red Indian's pony herd, the Cow outfit's 
 bunch of remounts, the Mexican remuda, the 
 Argentino tropilla, the stock of a horse ranch, 
 or even a herd camp of Mounted Police, all 
 units of horses living more or less the wild life 
 of the range. From these it is known that a 
 feral pony herd keeps a certain mihtary forma- 
 tion while grazing, with the weaker animals 
 ringed by the stronger, and a few vedettes and 
 flankers thrown out to watch for danger. At 
 the assault of a wolf pack the formation closes, 
 the fighting horses and mares making an outer 
 ring, close-set and facing outwards. When a 
 wolf comes within range, the nearest horse 
 swings round and lashes out with the hind feet 
 to kill. As American wolves only pack in 
 winters of famine this event is rare, but in one 
 case an Indian boy who was herder to a Black- 
 foot tribal camp, was, with his mount, placed 
 
SELF-DEFENCE 69 
 
 by the fighting herd at their centre for his 
 defence, and was able to watch the whole 
 battle until his people came out to the rescue. 
 
 In breeding and fighting the Commandant 
 stallion is sole authority, but it has been noticed 
 that some wise old mare usually decides the 
 time for moving and leads the marches. 
 
 It is said that a foal is able to keep with the 
 travelling herd from the day of birth. It is 
 said that the foal will outlast a hard day's 
 journey — and dies afterwards. To what ex- 
 tent this may be true I have no means of 
 knowing, but I beUeve that the leggy foal does 
 keep up with a moving herd. It is one more 
 bit of evidence as to the desperate emergencies 
 of drought or storm survived by the ancient 
 herds. 
 
 IV. SELF-DEFENCE. 
 
 There is a general beHef among horse that 
 man is vicious. If he were a little more intelli- 
 gent we could explain to the horse that appear- 
 ances are deceptive, and that we are not really 
 vicious when we throw things at each other 
 such as shells, torpedoes and bombs, or lay 
 mines to blow each other to pieces on land or 
 sea. As it is, he bases his behef that we are 
 vicious upon our methods of dealing with him, 
 in the use for example, of bearing reins, of 
 
70 SELF-DEFENCE 
 
 branding irons, and instruments which dock 
 tails. 
 
 My own impression, after many years of 
 experience with both, is that man, and especi- 
 ally civihsed man, is much more ferocious than 
 the horse. May I venture then to quote the 
 wisdom of a gentle Bengali Baboo who wrote 
 an essay as follows : 
 
 " The horse is a highly intelHgent animal, 
 and, if you treat him kindly, he will not do so." 
 
 The discovery was made in Arabia, also in 
 Kentucky, in Ireland and elsewhere, that if a 
 foal is handled as a pet, and so brought up that 
 he remembers nothing but kindness and con- 
 stant care at the hands of men, it never 
 occurs to him that he needs to defend himself 
 from his master as from an enemy. He never 
 develops the arts of self-defence. As a colt he 
 learns that to get at his feed he must jump over 
 a stick on the ground. As he grows the stick 
 is raised inch by inch until jumping over it 
 becomes a part of his accomplishments in 
 which he takes a natural pride and delight. 
 So with the rest of his education. Horses can 
 learn a great deal of the language we speak, to 
 enjoy music, to select colours, to add up 
 figures, to take a vivid interest in sport, to 
 share with us the terror and glory of battle. 
 
VARIETIES OF CHARACTER 71 
 
 They will set us an example in faithfulness, in 
 self-sacrifice, and every finer trait of character. 
 
 But if we teach a young horse nothing but 
 distrust, making fear and hatred the main 
 traits of his character, it is the last outrage 
 upon common sense to call his honest methods 
 of self-defence by such a name as vice. We 
 have the power to raise up angels or devils, but 
 if we breed a horse to be a devil, we cannot 
 expect the poor beast to behave himself Hke an 
 angel. 
 
 Horses vary in character almost as much as 
 we do, and there are with them as with us a 
 small proportion of born criminals whose 
 warped or stunted brains cannot be trained 
 aright by any means we know. What we do 
 not and can never understand is the mysteri- 
 ous power of saints who charm wild men and 
 beasts to tameness, and of certain horsemen to 
 whom the worst outlaws are perfectly obedient. 
 
 Among ourselves there are certain dreams 
 such as the falling dream, the flying dream, and 
 that of being eaten by wild beasts, which are 
 supposed to be race-memories dating from the 
 time when man was a forest animal like an ape, 
 before the immortal Spirit entered into his body* 
 
 Among horses there are race-memories dat- 
 ing from ancient times in the wilderness when 
 
72 RACE MEMORIES 
 
 the pony was driven to self-defence on pain of 
 a violent death. These race memories take 
 the form of habits, and explain the various 
 methods by which the horse defends himself 
 from human enemies. 
 
 Pawing, for example, is the subject of many 
 theories. Not that the habit really needs 
 explanation, because we fidget ourselves when 
 we have nothing better to do. Yet when a 
 horse paws the water at any drinking place, the 
 learned are apt to say he does it to clear away 
 the mud. I doubt if any horse is such a fool. 
 Other observers note that the action is really 
 stamping, a motion of race-memory dating 
 from the time when thin ice had to be tested 
 to see if a frozen river could be safely crossed. 
 That sounds most reasonable, until one wonders 
 dimly how it accounts for either pawing or 
 stamping on dry ground. 
 
 If then the fidgets must be explained by any 
 theory of race memory, one would suppose that 
 the gestures used in kiUing snakes or in scraping 
 through snow to get grass might very well have 
 come down through the ages. I think though 
 that if I had four hoofs and an irritable temper, 
 I might be allowed to indulge in cow-kicking or 
 striking without my symptoms being used as a 
 pretext for abusing my dead ancestors. 
 
HORSE MASTERSHIP 73 
 
 We have seen that the old range harem 
 adopted miUtary formations, and went into 
 action well organized for defence against 
 wolves. They kicked, but any range cow, 
 addressed on the subject of milking, without 
 hereditary training as a kicker, can give points 
 to the average horse. Yet where the cow is 
 merely obstinate the horse is reasonable. 
 
 He is marvellously swift as a critic of the 
 horseman, ready to kick the same abundantly 
 at the slightest sign of ineptitude or nerves, or 
 to render a cheery obedience to one who under- 
 stands. The man who walks nervously through 
 a stable making abrupt movements to avoid 
 possible heels is sure to be criticised with con- 
 tusions by any horse with a decent sense of 
 humour. Yet if one understands the signs of 
 thrown-back ears and balancing in readiness 
 for the kick, one has only to tell the animal not 
 to play the fool, then watch his shamefaced 
 grin at being found out. It is so easy to charm 
 the most irritable horse with a Httle hay while 
 one is busy with him in the stall. He cannot, 
 like a man, think of two things at once, and in 
 military stables, horse-masters who have their 
 grooming done while the horses feed will find 
 that even dangerous kickers become gentle. 
 That is of course contrary to much theory and 
 
74 KICKING 
 
 more army practice ; yet it is not forbidden, 
 and being easily tested is well worth trying 
 before it is condemned. 
 
 Having nearly cured my horses of kicking, I 
 am still extremely anxious to persuade young 
 horsemen to get as close as possible to a horse 
 while grooming him, so that no kicker has 
 room to deliver the full force of the blow, 
 which may be fatal. Horses are very careless 
 among themselves, kicking each other for fun 
 while they forget that the iron shoe may break 
 a leg. I have noticed also that a horse who 
 deUberately gets himself disliked will very soon 
 be the victim of organized attack, a comrade 
 being told off by the rest to lay for him. In 
 this way during the last six months I have 
 been obliged to have four horses shot for 
 fractured legs. 
 
 Horses in pasture will often stand in pairs, 
 head to tail abreast, so that each with his 
 whisk of tail can keep flies from the other's face. 
 One will nibble and Hck along the other's neck 
 and withers out of kindness, adding a bite or 
 two for fun. So in the stable, horses bite one 
 another for fun, but if they apply the treatment 
 to a man it is a sure sign they are badly educa- 
 ted, and liable to get their noses smacked for 
 their pains. 
 
FAULTS AND REMEDIES 75 
 
 Pig-jumping is the plunging action which 
 civiUsed horses suppose to be genuine bucking. 
 It is not so much self-defence as an expression 
 of joy. 
 
 Kangaroo-jumping is unusual, but must be 
 great sport for a horse who knows the trick. 
 It never fails to astonish. 
 
 Rearing. To cure a rearing horse, throw 
 him on his near side. When ready to throw, 
 draw the rein taut, the off rein tightest ; then 
 as he rears, keep the left toe in the near 
 stirrup, but get the right free of the off stirrup 
 with the knee on the horse's rump, for a 
 purchase as you throw your body suddenly to 
 the left. The Horse loses his balance and 
 crashes to the ground while you step clear. 
 As you do so draw the taut off rein back and 
 low to the pommel. So you will raise the head 
 and prevent horse from rising. 
 
 Never strike a horse on the head for rearing. 
 
 Bolting and Stampedes. Horses were 
 trained by wolves and other dangers of the 
 range to run at the warning neigh of their 
 stallion commanding. Sudden and bUnd panic 
 is a trait innate in the horse character, and the 
 best preventive is the human voice. Singing 
 hymns or any familiar songs in chorus is the 
 very best way of preventing a stampede ; but. 
 
^6 BALKING 
 
 judging by my own voice, is rather apt to 
 panic any horse who has a good ear for 
 music. 
 
 Balking. There is a story of a New Eng- 
 land farm horse drawing a load of hay, whose 
 master had no influence with him. After 
 trying for an hour to persuade the animal to 
 move, he made a bonfire under its belly. When 
 the flames caused him discomfort, the horse 
 moved on — eight feet, exactly enough to bring 
 the bonfire underneath the hay. 
 
 Tap quickly with a whip behind his knees, 
 hitting them alternately. He will mark time 
 then walk to get away from the whip. I 
 heard lately of a stranger who walked up to a 
 balking horse, rolled a cigarette paper and 
 placed it carefully in the animal's ear, then 
 led him unresisting along the road. Mr. 
 Horse was wondering, " Why the deuce did 
 he put that thing in my ear ? " He forgot 
 to balk. No horse can think of two things at 
 the same time. 
 
 Balking at a Gallop. Whereas refusing to 
 start is evidence of a misguided past, the 
 sudden refusal to take a jump may indicate 
 that the horse lacks confidence in his rider, or 
 that the reins are ver}^ badly handled, giving 
 him no chance of taking off with head free. 
 
LITTLE WAYS ^^ 
 
 To balk at a gallop means throwing the 
 body back and bearing against the ground 
 with all four feet, head down. 
 
 Propping. This is balking at a gallop and 
 taking a series of springs in that position, each 
 with a rigid crash on all four legs. The rider 
 has a tendency to continue his journey alone. 
 Propping is much favoured by range horses. 
 
 This completes the list of defensive measures 
 remembered by civilised horses. 
 
 Treading. They have also invented a few 
 methods of expressing their feelings. When a 
 horse presses his hand on my foot, and adds to 
 the tenderness of the greeting by waving his 
 other hand, I know he means to impress me, 
 although I may not have leisure at the moment 
 to hear what he has to say. 
 
 Taking in the Slack. When a horse takes 
 the seat of n^ breeches firmly between his 
 teeth as I try to mount, he may not wish me to 
 ride, or possibly he wishes to criticise the 
 English riding costume. Breeches with puffed 
 sleeves are perhaps an acquired taste. 
 
 Crowding. A horse may corner or crowd 
 me when I try to leave the stall after feeding 
 him, and if he hugged me he could do no more 
 to express his pleasure. But if he will not let me 
 re-enter his stall while he feeds, I suspect some 
 
78 BUCKING 
 
 groom has been stealing his oats from the 
 manger. 
 
 Joggling. Soldier horses on the march are 
 obhged to keep the pace set by the leading file. 
 If that pace is beyond their walk, they keep up 
 by jogghng. To break a joggling horse to a 
 walk, stand in the stirrups, place the free hand 
 on his neck, and bear v/ith the whole weight 
 of your body. 
 
 To return now to defensive methods. 
 
 Bucking. To lower the head, and spring 
 into the air, humping the back, drawing the 
 feet close together, and coming down on all 
 four rigid, for the next spring. Repeat. It is 
 useful when starting a spring with the head 
 north to twist in the air and come down facing 
 south ; or to make the series of jumps in a 
 narrow circle and then bolt at a tangent ; or to 
 buck on the run, dislodging the rider first, then 
 the saddle which can be kicked to pieces. If 
 the rider is dragged his brains can be kicked 
 out. 
 
 SuNFiSHiNG. To buck, coming down on 
 both hind feet and one fore, while doubhng up 
 the other free Hmb. This brings one shoulder 
 to the ground, and to sunfish is to drop alter- 
 nate shoulders. Very few horses know this 
 exercise. 
 
ACTS OF PASSION 79 
 
 Scraping. To run or buck under low 
 branches or against trees or walls. Some 
 civilised horses know this. 
 
 Backfalls. These may be used to add to 
 the general effect of either rearing or bucking. 
 I once bought a black mare seven years old, 
 snared in the forest, who had probably never 
 seen a man. When ridden she bucked, and 
 while bucking threw herself seven times on her 
 back, three falls being over a cut bank on to a 
 rocky river bed. Towards evening she cricked 
 her neck, and showed blood at the nostrils, 
 making an awful picture of despair. During 
 the night she slipped a foal, of which there had 
 been no sign. Before dawn shi^died — a case of 
 broken heart. The horse breaker, an English 
 gentleman, stayed with her throughout, and 
 was not hurt. 
 
 So far we have dealt with acts of hot-blooded 
 passion, culminating in suicidal rage. The 
 fiercest buckers, having dislodged the rider, 
 will turn at once to grazing and wait with 
 cheerful defiance for the next bout. Almost 
 all horses are sportsmen and there is nothing 
 that they dread more, or are so careful to 
 avoid as treading upon a disabled man. Even 
 in cavalry charges a man down has only to lie 
 still so that the horses can see exactly where he 
 
8o MAN KILLING 
 
 is, and they will all leap clear. They dread 
 placing a foot on anything which might col- 
 lapse or roll, and so cause a dangerous fall. 
 
 There remain extreme cases in which horses 
 are guilty of deUberate, planned murder. 
 
 Savaging is practised by civilised as well as 
 by range horses. It is a sudden, and often un- 
 provoked, wide-eyed staring rush with teeth 
 bared, an attempt either to inflict a dangerous 
 bite or to get a man down and trample him to 
 death. 
 
 Holding wind. The only case I know of 
 was that of a fine buckskin gelding for whom 
 I paid a rifle, a suit of clothes and ten dollars 
 in trade with an Indian. It seemed impossible 
 to get the girth properly tight until, after three 
 days, I concluded that my suspicion of his 
 holding wind was merely foolishness. All the 
 same I used to regirth a mile or two out on each 
 march. I had regirthed at the top of a moun- 
 tain pass, and was mounting, when he suddenly 
 let out all his wind and bolted over rock heaps. 
 The saddle came down with me on the off side, 
 I was dragged, and afterwards woke up to find 
 myself maimed for hfe. Then we had a fight, 
 which he won. It turned out afterwards that 
 holding wind until he could catch out and kill 
 his rider was an old accomphshment for which 
 
SPIRIT OF THE HORSE 8i 
 
 the horse was famous. This is the only case I 
 have known of unprovoked, carefully planned, 
 and dehberate crime, as distinguished from 
 self-defence. 
 
 Vices are human qualities. The worst 
 possible vices with regard to a horse are. 
 
 To show fear. 
 
 Meanness or neglect in fending for him. 
 
 Cruelty or ill-temper. 
 
 V. THE SPIRIT OF THE HORSE. 
 
 The young of the church and of the uni- 
 versities who know all about everything, and 
 attach a deal of importance to their funny Httle 
 opinions, are quite agreed that the lower 
 animal is an " it " as automatic as a slot 
 machine. Put in a penny and the machine 
 utters a box of matches. Put in food and the 
 animal develops energy. So much is per- 
 fectly true of animals and men, for our bodies 
 are automatic. 
 
 Moreover, the animal has " instincts " which 
 impel " it " to beget a foal or a litter of 
 puppies. Humans, with the same instincts 
 are impelled to beget a bumptious young 
 bacteriologist, or a pair of curates. 
 
 In a hke way the wolf, the Christian, or the 
 tiger mates with one wife, while the horse and 
 the Moslem both prefer a harem. 
 
82 THE HORSE SPIRITUAL 
 
 Shall we say, then, that the wolf is the more 
 religious, or the horse not quite so respectable ? 
 
 A certain Sergeant Parker, of the North- 
 west Mounted Police, went on patrol with a 
 saddle horse. They got lost in a bHzzard, and 
 in the succeeding calm the man became snow- 
 bUnd. On the seventh day, the horse saw an 
 outfit of freighters passing in the distance. He 
 ran to their sleighs. He whinneyed to the 
 horses, who understood his talk, and he 
 beckoned to the men, who were not so clever. 
 Then the men noticed that his belly was terribly 
 swollen by long pressure of the girth. They 
 followed him. At a distance of one and a half 
 miles they came to a tract of prairie with the 
 snow grubbed up where the horse had been 
 scratching for grass. In the midst was a heap 
 of snow like the mound of a grave, on which 
 lay Sergeant Parker in seeming death. His 
 long delirium, beginning with visions of angels 
 and closing with a dream of meat-pies, had 
 ended in coma just at the verge of death ; 
 while the horse stayed on guard until it was 
 possible to get him rescued. So much was 
 told me afterwards by the man. 
 
 The other day in France a British soldier 
 was killed, whose horse remained with the 
 body for two days, out in the zone between the 
 
THE HORSE IMMORTAL 83 
 
 opposing armies, exposed to a hurricane of fire 
 beyond example, refusing to be rescued, moved 
 by a love stronger than death. 
 
 The young of the clergy will tell us all about 
 the lower animal who does not subscribe to the 
 tenets of the church, and so must perish ever- 
 lastingly despite the Father's care. Yet if 
 they read the Prophets and the Revelations 
 they will find chariots of fire, and see in visions 
 the deathless chargers ridden by Archangels. 
 Are all the Hosts of Heaven infantry ? We 
 have the full authority of the Holy Bible for an 
 idea that horses may be immortal. 
 
 But then the young of science have assured 
 us that the clergy talk a deal of nonsense, and 
 that the Holy Scriptures are so much folk lore. 
 Our modern teachers, unused to sleeping out- 
 doors, have never seen the great heavens 
 thrown open every night. They believe in 
 nothing they have not seen, and those I meet 
 have not seen very much. To them the lower 
 animal is hardly a personal friend, but rather 
 an automaton steered by instincts, built on 
 much the same principles as a dirigible torpedo. 
 The " instincts " have to account for deeds 
 which in a man would be attributed to love or 
 valour. 
 
 I often meet young people who gently wave 
 
84 THE HORSE PSYCHIC 
 
 aside my life experience while they crush me 
 with some religious or scientific tenet to which 
 they attach importance. Sometimes this bias 
 has caused total blindness, more often the}^ 
 lack sympathy ; but any horse can teach 
 fellows who have eyes to see with, and hearts 
 to understand. Then they will realise in him 
 a personaUty hke that of a human child. 
 
 I do believe that there are men and horses 
 in whom the spirit burns with so mighty and 
 secure a strength that it cannot be quenched 
 by death ; and that there are others in whom 
 the flame burns low or has been blown out. 
 
 Everybody has acquaintances who possess a 
 certain sense, not yet quite understood, which 
 enables them to read unspoken thoughts ; to 
 see events in the past, the distance, or the 
 future as happening to their friends ; or to be 
 conscious of certain states of the atmosphere 
 produced by strong human emotions ; or to 
 see or hear phenomena which some folk attri- 
 bute to discarnate spirits. Such people are 
 called psychic, and, if they use their powers as 
 a means of earning money, they are defined as 
 frauds. As a blind man does not deny the 
 existence of eyesight, so, if I am not psychic 
 myself, I have no call to decry the honest 
 people who possess this gift. I have heard 
 
SENSE OF HUMOUR 85 
 
 stories told in all good faith of dogs and horses 
 showing uneasiness and alarm at apparitions 
 which men failed to see, of so-called ** ghosts," 
 for example, in places which had been the scene 
 of a violent death. Without careful investiga- 
 tion one can scarcely treat such tales as evi- 
 dence ; but it is quite possible that some 
 horses, like some women, are strongly psychic. 
 
 That horses have a crude sense of humour is 
 known to every horseman. To rip the cap off 
 a groom's head and drop it in the water is the 
 sort of joke which appeals to a horse or a little 
 boy. Once I was standing beside a friend who 
 sat in a dog-trap, and each of us enjoyed a 
 glass of beer while we passed the time of day. 
 Just for fun the pony drank half my beer, but 
 when I brought him a bowl of the same, pre- 
 tended to be an abstainer. That pony would 
 visit his master's dining-room of a morning to 
 remove the covers and inspect the dishes for 
 breakfast. 
 
 Another friend of mine once had a horse 
 named Kruger, black roan with a white star 
 on each flank. It had been his hfe's ambition 
 to be a skewbald, and disappointment had 
 lopped both ears over a glass eye, so that he 
 looked like the very Devil. A greyhound body, 
 long legs and a mincing gait completed his un- 
 
86 THE HORSE COMRADE 
 
 usual list of beauties. Some fourteen years 
 after my friend had sold out and left that 
 country, accident brought me to Fire Valley, 
 British Columbia, and dire need of a new pack 
 animal constrained me to buy the horse. Per- 
 haps for political reasons, or to evade the 
 police, by this time old Kruger had changed his 
 name to Spot. Frightened of him at first, my 
 partner and I discovered his great talents as a 
 pack-horse. Besides that, he was brave, loyal, 
 and gentle, and above all things humorous. A 
 rough passage of mountains brought us to 
 settlement, where men would laugh at Spot, 
 but horses never dared. One had only to say 
 '* Sick 'em ! " as to a dog, and Spot would 
 round up all the horses in sight and chase them. 
 His face was that of a fiend save for a glint of 
 fun in the one eye he had for business. For 
 about fourteen hundred miles he spread terror 
 before him, stampeding bunches of loose horses 
 but always coming back with a grin, as though 
 he said, " Now, ain't I the very Devil ? " 
 
 In the North-west Mounted PoHce, a de- 
 tachment of us used to ride down bareback 
 with led horses to water at the ford of Battle 
 River. Close by was a wire cable for the 
 ferry. On one occasion, my horse as he left 
 the water turned under the cable to scrape me 
 
LIMITATIONS AND TRICKS 87 
 
 off his back. Failing in that, he returned 
 higher up the bank, and this time I was 
 scraped off into a pool of dust. Out of that 
 brown explosion of dust, I looked up in time to 
 see his malicious pleasure in a successful joke. 
 
 And so one might set forth instances by the 
 score, all to the same monotonous effect, that 
 humans and horses have a sense of humour. 
 
 Please imagine a man to have his hands and 
 feet replaced by boxes of horn such as the hoofs 
 of a horse, and that, so disabled, he is tied by 
 the head in a cell. Reduced to the conditions 
 of horse-life in a stable, the man would be as 
 clever as a horse in the use of lips and teeth. 
 He would slip his headstall or break his head- 
 rope, open the door and escape until such time 
 as the need for food and water drove him back 
 to prison. When asked to go to work, he 
 might give a clever impersonation of a lame 
 horse. He might also copy the trick of the 
 beggar horse who gives the love call to every 
 man who enters the stable, fooling each of 
 them with the flattery of special homage, a sure 
 way to gifts of sugar, apples or carrots. Or 
 he might copy the horse who whiles away dull 
 times by keeping a pet cat, or bird, or puppy. 
 It seems odd, too, that the most dangerous 
 human outlaws and man-slaying horses are 
 
88 THE HORSE MUSICAL 
 
 gentle with small animals and children. So 
 long as we punish unoffending horses with im- 
 prisonment in dark cells, we may expect them 
 to show traits of character evolved by the 
 treatment of prisoners in the Middle Ages. 
 
 Horses, dogs, and men are oddly alike, too, 
 in the wa}^ they dream, with twitchings of the 
 limbs to illustrate great exertion, and snort- 
 ings, murmurs and groans, which take the 
 place of speech. 
 
 So horses just like humans are dour or 
 cheery, truculent or cheeky, humorous or 
 stolid, some with a lofty sense of dignity, while 
 others behave like clowns. Some horses are 
 like some children, exacting until they are 
 petted, while other children and horses hate to 
 be pawed. Both will sulk or quarrel, play the 
 fool or grumble, make intimate friendships or 
 bitter enemies. I think, though, that the love 
 of sport, and the desire to excel are much more 
 general with horses than with children. 
 
 In a military camp I asked some women to 
 tea, and turned loose a few Beethoven records 
 on the gramaphone. At the first tune all the 
 horses in pasture assembled at the fence, stood 
 to attention while the nmsic lasted, and when 
 it was over scattered off to grass. They 
 certainly love music. At the same camp, by 
 
SIGNALS 89 
 
 some mysterious means they got wind of the 
 fact that twenty of them were to be sent away. 
 Until the detachment actually marched ofi, 
 their conduct, for twenty-four hours on end, 
 was sulky and mutinous. Afterwards both 
 groups immediately mended their manners. 
 
 Everybody who lives with horses learns that 
 they exchange confidences, arrange for con- 
 certed action and try to tell us their troubles. 
 Nobody knows how they talk, few of us can tell 
 what they are talking about, but so far as the 
 evidence goes they seem to express their feel- 
 ings rather than their thoughts. Here then are 
 a few of their signals : 
 
 (i) When a horse throws his ears to point 
 forward and down, and he makes a short, 
 sharp snort it means " Wheugh ! Look at that 
 now ! " If he throws himself back on his 
 haunches while he points and snorts, it means : 
 " Oh, Hell ! " If he points, snorts and shies a 
 few yards sideways in the air, he is playing 
 at being in a terrible fright. It means : 
 " Bears 1 " He is not really frightened, for 
 when he is tired out he will pass a railway 
 engine blowing off steam without taking the 
 slightest notice. 
 
 (2) One ear lopped forward and the other 
 back, head sideways, gait sidelong, may be 
 
90 HORSE SPEECH 
 
 defined in the words of a learned Hindu : 
 " Sir, the horse with which your Honour 
 entrusted me has been behaving in a highly 
 obstreporous and devil-may-care manner." 
 
 (3) The love call is a Uttle whinney, soft, 
 sweet and low. 
 
 (4) The demand for food is a rumbling 
 neigh. 
 
 (5) A cheery neigh greeting other horses 
 in passing means : " How d'ye do ! " 
 
 (6) A loud trumpet peal of neighing at short 
 intervals is a demand, sometimes a piteous 
 appeal to other horses to join company. 
 
 (7) The groan of great pain is the same as 
 that of a man, and may be attended by crying, 
 when tears run from the nostrils. The sound 
 is heart-rending, beyond endurance. 
 
 (8) The scream is only uttered in sudden and 
 mortal agony as from burning, or from some 
 kinds of wounds received in battle. 
 
 (9) Ears thrown back even ever so shghtly 
 express anger, but thrown back along the neck 
 mean fighting rage. In wild life the fights 
 between stalhons are mainly with the teeth, 
 and horses forced to fight as a sport for men, as 
 in ancient Iceland, rear up against one another, 
 striking as well as biting. The ears are thrown 
 back to save them from being bitten. 
 
SIGNS AND PROTESTS 91 
 
 (10) Rage and pretended anger are expressed 
 by a sudden squeal, the signal of attack. 
 
 (11) Gestures of pain. 
 Stamping is merely impatience. 
 
 Pawing may be due to colic. If also the 
 animal sweats and keeps looking at his flank, 
 there is certainly pain in the abdomen. 
 
 Pointing with a forefoot. When standing, a 
 horse rests his hind legs by changing weight 
 from one to the other at intervals of a minute. 
 As he has no mechanism to do this with the 
 fore Hmbs, he expresses pain in one of them by 
 pointing the foot forward. He rests better 
 facing down a slope then facing up as in a 
 stable, and when in pain may be relieved by 
 tying to the stanchion instead of to the manger. 
 
 Dragging the fore foot means injury to the 
 shoulder. 
 
 Head out, chin up, feet apart, and sweating, 
 mean that the chap is choking. 
 
 Head down and tail tucked in, mean misery 
 or sickness. 
 
 (12) Gestures of joy. 
 
 Bright eyes, a glossy coat, head carried 
 proudly, and tail high, dry nostrils, hard 
 droppings, free movement, and a willing gait 
 are signs most eloquent of health. To pass the 
 time of day with other horses, shy at the 
 
92 THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE 
 
 clouds, paw the moon, and dance, with pig 
 jumping or even a Uttle bucking after break- 
 fast, are signals of youth, joy and good fellow- 
 ship. 
 
 Then one may watch the play of the nostrils 
 making a thousand comments on scents borne 
 in the air, while the ears will point and quiver 
 to all sorts of sounds beyond man's hearing. 
 The mood will change from sober thoughtful- 
 ness in the shadow of clouds or trees, to sheer 
 intoxication of dehght with sparkling frost, 
 dew on the flowers, sunshine in the skies. No 
 creature on earth expresses feeling with sweeter 
 quickness than a happy horse. 
 
 (13) Nuzzling is sometimes an appeal for 
 help, more often an expression of loving 
 sympathy. 
 
 . (14) Nothing so far explains how a couple of 
 horses will put their heads together, touch 
 nostrils, and in a second come to some sort of 
 mutual understanding, which leads to immedi- 
 ate concerted action such as the bolting of a 
 team. In one or two cases I am not sure that 
 the nostrils actually touched. In many cases 
 when I saw^ nostrils rubbed together or the 
 beard bristles in contact, no sound was made 
 within the compass of my hearing. Neither 
 were there such lip movements as would be 
 
THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE 93 
 
 made b}^ speech, nor was there any self- 
 conscious, found-out expression in the faces of 
 conspirators caught plotting against the white 
 men. 
 
 When I have been in company with some 
 very dear friend, and one of us would answer 
 out loud to an unspoken thought of the other, 
 or both of us were moved to say the same 
 thing in the like words, we called that thought- 
 transference. When my horse came to me in 
 camp, and standing behind caressed my neck 
 or ear with his lips or nostril trying by thought- 
 transference to tell me all about his pain or 
 sorrow, he might get his face slapped before I 
 reaUsed exactly what he said. Only as I 
 learned to welcome horses when they came to 
 me, I seemed to sense their feelings. They 
 converse among themselves by thought-trans- 
 ference, and try to speak that way to men they 
 trust. 
 
 The barriers between horse and man are 
 tremendous. Think what it is for a fastidious 
 creature, with powers of scenting which can 
 descry clean standing water at nearly five 
 miles without wind, to come near a meat- 
 eating creature Hke a man, powerfully and 
 offensively scented. Suffering from nausea 
 without obtaining the rehef permitted to a 
 
94 HIS POINT OF VIEW 
 
 man, the horse must overcome an intense dis- 
 Hke before he accepts our friendship. He 
 senses our defects of cowardice, cruelty or 
 selfishness, perhaps drunkenness, vices out- 
 ranging his capacity for evil. He knows that 
 we are physically small, slow, sometimes even 
 lacking in muscular strength. Yet taking us 
 all in good part, he submits his will to an 
 intellectual force, grasp and speed which seem 
 to him supernatural, and to an authority 
 which he venerates as divine. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CONQUEST OF THE HORSE. 
 
 We have now some vague idea of the ancient 
 horse ; so it is well we should know what 
 manner of man was the savage who caught and 
 tamed him. 
 
 Living a great deal, and travelUng much 
 alone among savages I have been more or less 
 tolerated ; and the savage has told me what he 
 thinks of the white man. He looks upon the 
 scientist as an amateurish unpractical sort of 
 person who cannot ride or cook. The mission- 
 ary can be profitably humbugged. The tourist 
 is a source of revenue but apt to be intrusive 
 and ill-mannered. As to the cinema folk, one 
 tribe of savages refused to play any rnore 
 because they were defeated in every film. 
 They were granted one massacre of the whites 
 to cheer them up. 
 
 So the scientific men, the missionary, the 
 cinema people and many others bring home 
 impressions which would amuse the savage. 
 
 93 
 
96 THE SAVAGE 
 
 Our people are so badly informed that they 
 suppose the savage to be dirty, ferocious, 
 immoral and uncouth as the Sydney larrakin, 
 the cockney rough, the New York tough and 
 other poor degenerates of our race. It is true 
 that the Fuegans were dirty, but we should not 
 speak ill of the dead. Some South Sea island 
 tribes are cheerfully ferocious, and make much 
 of the white man at table although he does 
 taste salty. The Pathan, if one calls him a 
 savage, takes a deUght in immoraHty. But 
 uncouth ? The commonality of the English- 
 speaking nations have a deHberate preference 
 for ugly costume and decorations, foul speech 
 is usual among men, vulgarity is a privilege of 
 both sexes, and awkwardness of bearing is 
 almost universal. Who are we to call the 
 savage uncouth ? Compared with a white 
 man, the savage is a gentleman anyway and 
 usually sets us an example in purity of speech, 
 often in cleanliness, chastity, and good faith. 
 He differs from the healthier types of white 
 men in having slightly less energy and vitality, 
 in lack of sustained purpose and in being never 
 quite grown up. Except in Africa, our mi- 
 crobes and not our valour conquered him, and 
 his failure to rival us in material progress was 
 due to lack of material rather than want of 
 
THE SAVAGE 97 
 
 brains. The ferocious savage of fiction could 
 not have tamed the horse. 
 
 It is quite likely that men killed and ate 
 ponies for ages before it occurred to our 
 ancestors that the creatures would be a deal 
 more useful alive. But how was Four-feet 
 overtaken and killed by Two-feet ? Science 
 has nothing to say on that point. We are not 
 told. 
 
 Science has discovered that in Western 
 Europe there were various phases of culture 
 which are called (i), the Eolithic, when men 
 used natural stones for weapons, (2) the old 
 Stone Age, when flints were flaked to make 
 spear and arrow points, (3) and the new Stone 
 Age, when stones for weapon heads were 
 ground and pohshed,(4) the Bronze Age, (5) and 
 the Iron Age. It is true that flaking flints for 
 flint-lock guns continues in England in face of all 
 theories of the NeoUthic, because a flaked flint 
 will make sparks, whereas a ground flint won't. 
 It is also true that Europe is the only part of 
 the world with flints for flaking. The general 
 application of the theory is also a little difficult 
 on the Western American range, where there 
 are fine silicate stones ; but, in defiance of the 
 Neolithic culture, the savages persist in flaking 
 them for spear and arrow points while they 
 
98 THE HUNTER 
 
 deliberately grind stones for club heads, axe 
 heads, and mortars. Still worse, the debauched 
 Eskimo grind and carve stone lamps, but in 
 their heathen blindness use bone and ivory 
 for the heads of harpoons and bird darts. The 
 savages I have known belonged to the Old Bone 
 Age. 
 
 How then with his slow feet and poor 
 weapons was the hunter to surprise the alert 
 sentries of a pony herd, get within range before 
 they fled like the wind, or drive a bone-tipped 
 spear through the shaggy hair ? 
 
 It seems to me that man, like other hunting 
 animals, despairing of getting meat from a 
 pony herd on the range, would lie in ambush 
 near the watering places, and where the ponies 
 had to string out on a narrow trail they were 
 caught at a disadvantage. There spear and 
 arrow could earn abundant meat. Outside 
 the bush, too, the valley or canon walls had 
 caves and defensible places where a tribe could 
 lodge within easy reach of game, water and 
 fuel. 
 
 In the South-western desert of America I 
 have seen hundreds of cave and chff villages, 
 some even occupied by surviving tribes whose 
 methods of hunting and location and defence 
 'would correspond with those of the more 
 
THE HUNTER 99 
 
 primitive pony hunters of prehistoric France. 
 It seems, too, that those hairy aborigines who 
 spHt pony bones for marrow may possibly have 
 known the daintiest dish of Red Indian 
 cookery, Crow entrail, more poHtely known as 
 Absaroka Sausage. 
 
 In savage tribes there is a rule that a man of 
 the Smith sept may not marry among the 
 Smiths, but seeks his bride among the Browns 
 or Robinsons. But the septs are usually 
 called after some animal, so that for Smith we 
 may read Pony, for Brown we may read Eagle, 
 for Robinson say Wolf. Moreover, the chil- 
 dren play a game of two sides in which Master 
 Wolf impersonates a wolf with cries and 
 dances, and if the rival side laughs they pay 
 forfeit. So Miss Pony plays at pony, and 
 Master Eagle plays at being an Eagle. Out of 
 this game perhaps comes a play of the grown- 
 ups ; in which I have seen a candidate for the 
 secret society of the Healers impersonate his 
 tribal Bear or Beaver before the Doctors of the 
 order who admitted him to their circle. This 
 play may be the origin of a mystic rite known 
 as Calling the Game. For certain Doctors can 
 wear a wolf skin, and give so beautiful an 
 imitation of a wolf that all the deer and bison 
 are deceived. His job is to excite their 
 
loo THE TRAP 
 
 curiosity so that, as he draws slowly away, the 
 herds will follow him. The nearer animals 
 draw back with misgiving, but those in the 
 rear press on to get a view until, as the wolf- 
 man gathers speed, the moving herd runs hard. 
 It is then that they find themselves running 
 between converging lines of stone piles, and 
 women jump up from behind these cairns 
 waving their robes and yelHng. The herd 
 stampedes to the edges of a sheer cliff, too late 
 to check their pace after the leaders have seen 
 the peril ahead. The rush of the herd drives 
 onward into space, and hundreds, even thou- 
 sands of great beasts fall headlong to he dead 
 or mangled in heaps on the rocks below. So 
 the tribe assembles for great feasting, and 
 heavy labour. 
 
 The hides were needed for clothing, shields, 
 tents, and rope ; the brains for dressing skins ; 
 the sinews and guts for bow-strings, lashings 
 and thread ; the hoofs and horns for weapon 
 points, hafts, handles, spoons, cups, window 
 lights, and glue, which mixed with oil made a 
 dressing for leather ; the gall for cleansing ; 
 the hair for felting or weaving ; the fat for 
 lamp oil and candles. The meat in large 
 flakes was sun-dried for storage. The dried 
 meat, pounded, mixed with berries and filled 
 
THE TRAP loi 
 
 with melted fat made pemmican, the best of 
 winter foods. 
 
 Where there were no cUffs over which a herd 
 could be driven, the practice of calling the 
 game was just the same, but the narrowing 
 avenue of stone heaps led to the gate of a ring 
 fence into which the big game were penned 
 for slaughter. 
 
 This ring fence has many countries, many 
 names, being the pound or corrall of North 
 America, jaral of Mexico, kraal of Africa, 
 keddah of India, circus of Rome, bull-ring of 
 Spain and old England. With the advancing 
 ages the perching of spectators on the fence 
 became the Auditorium of the circus. Stadium, 
 and Colosseum, and the baiting of beasts and 
 men, the wild beast fights, the mimic battles, 
 and martyrdom of saints, varied the savage 
 programme with racing, tournaments, and 
 athletic sports 
 
 So far as our subject is concerned, however, 
 one need only note that herds of wild animals, 
 the fighting males, the mothers and their young 
 of many species much too swift for men to run 
 down in the open, were captured alive and un- 
 hurt. Among these were ponies with their 
 mares and foals. 
 
 The pity for young animals and the love of 
 
I02 PETS 
 
 pets are native traits in human character, and 
 universal among savages. 
 
 The savage hunter brought kittens and 
 puppies into camp to be the playthings of his 
 wife and children, and from these pets descend 
 the whole of our cats and dogs. And in the 
 tribal captures at the corralls were all sorts of 
 young animals claimed by the women and 
 children because they were not worth killing. 
 These ponies, cattle, deer, sheep, goats and 
 antelope grew up with human kind, glad to get 
 shelter from the wolves at night, allowed to 
 graze in safety outside the camp by day. If 
 they proved useful the men were tolerant. 
 The useful kinds were even protected at grass 
 by boys told off as herders, to run them into 
 camp at the first sign of danger. 
 
 The mother who ran dry of milk, saw foals 
 getting milk from the mares, and would have 
 mare's milk for her child. The mares who 
 gave most milk were preferred to others. 
 From this came the natural idea of breeding 
 from good milch mares to improve the strain, 
 and get a larger yield. And thus the use and 
 value grew of mare's milk with its many prepa- 
 rations as a staple food for children, then of 
 grown-ups, until the practice of herding tame 
 horse stock became general among the hordes 
 
MILCH MARES 103 
 
 of Asia. Since then it has been found that 
 cows gave more and better milk than mares. 
 
 As the wild game migrated between their 
 high summer range and their lowland wintering 
 grounds the savage tribes followed in search of 
 meat. With the beginning of the pastoral age 
 the need was urgent of moving the flocks and 
 herds between the summer and the winter 
 pastures. But as yet there were no beasts of 
 draught or burden to carry the tribal camp. 
 That meant the keeping of two camp equip- 
 ments, or maybe a camp upon the highlands to 
 supplement the village in the lowlands ; and 
 it was doubtful poHcy to leave valuable tents 
 as a prey for marauding rivals. A larger and a 
 bitter need arose when the tribe must move, 
 and old folk who lacked the strength to travel 
 must be left behind. There is nothing so 
 terrible in savage life as the necessity of leaving 
 old men and women exposed upon a hilltop 
 after the tribe has moved. The poor old thing 
 is provided with warm robes, a fire, fuel, water 
 and some food, but as the days pass the last 
 cinders, carefully raked together, sink to dust, 
 and the cautious wolves close in for the final rush. 
 
 Savages love as we do, think as we do, and 
 their life which has for us some glamour of 
 romance is full for them of sordid reaHsm. So 
 
I04 THE TRAVOIS 
 
 we may reckon well that some good matron 
 grudged the loss, at moving time, of tent poles, 
 the cutting of which had cost her heavy labour, 
 done as it was without steel tools like ours. 
 
 She saw the tent poles left behind when the 
 milch-pony herd moved off. She told the 
 herders to lash a pair of her poles, one on 
 either side of each pony's neck with the ends 
 traihng astern. The next idea was to lash a 
 couple of cross bars across the trailing poles 
 behind the pony's hocks, and that was enough 
 to keep them at a proper angle. It was easy 
 then to lash a skin robe in position between the 
 trailing poles and the two cross bars, making a 
 sort of basket, something to carry the old 
 mother, who must otherwise be left behind to 
 perish. Here then was transport which en- 
 abled the tribe to march with its tent poles, old 
 folk and baggage. One can imagine how the 
 medicine men protested against so shocking a 
 violation of the laws of nature, which decree 
 that the aged shall be left as a meal for our 
 hunting companions, the range wolves. But 
 here the priests would find themselves opposed 
 by the common sense of every man and woman ; 
 so they would doubtless yield with an ill 
 grace, after enacting a law that this new means 
 of transport was a special privilege for aged 
 
THE CART 105 
 
 clergymen. The travois came into general 
 use for transport. 
 
 The next step was less obvious, an idea which 
 would appeal to men of inventive minds ; and 
 I have noticed that it is only in civiUsation that 
 the inventor is treated as a pubHc enemy. The 
 savage actually admires a man with new ideas. 
 The travois frame was a heavy drag, and the 
 draught pony was apt to delay the march. 
 Why not have a round log as a roller under the 
 traiHng ends of the poles ? Too heavy. Cut 
 away the bulk of the roller, fining it down to a 
 mere axle bar, with a disc at either end to roll 
 along the ground. The larger the disc the 
 better it rolled, so disc wheels were built, with 
 a hole in the middle into which the ends of the 
 axle bar were bolted. 
 
 As one may see in the many countries where 
 disc wheels are used by farmers, the first idea 
 of lightening the disc was to cut out four large 
 holes, leaving the timber shaped like a rough 
 cross with a rim. But that cross was too weak 
 to carry weight, so its arms had to be strength- 
 ened with four spokes, lashed on with raw-hide ; 
 next the four spokes replaced the arms of the 
 cross, and a rim was built enclosed in a raw-hide 
 tyre. The raw hide, put on wet, and shrinking 
 as it dried, made a quite serviceable tyre. So 
 
io6 THE CHARIOT 
 
 was the wheel invented, and the first four-spoke 
 pattern gave place to the six and eight-spoke 
 methods of strengthening the rim. The whole 
 process from roller to four-spoke wheel would 
 easily occur to one inventor in his experiments. 
 
 Meanwhile the skin basket in the travois 
 frame was changed to a floor of raw-hide lacing, 
 on which a man could stand with bent knees 
 driving. He needed shelter, so a dashboard 
 was made of oiled bull-hide, quite translucent 
 but proof against spears, arrows and pony 
 kicks. As a curved surface made weapons 
 glance when they hit, this dash-board was 
 rounded at the front, and carried along the 
 sides enclosing the driver's stand. 
 
 So far a one-horse vehicle, a sort of sulky, 
 had been invented ; and it may be worth noting 
 that the creaky old Red River cart of Mani- 
 toba, although made with steel tools, contains 
 no trace of metal. Its gait is a walk. But it 
 was obvious that by using a pole instead of a 
 pair of shafts, two ponies could be driven, and 
 trotting became quite possible so far as the 
 grass extended. Still one hesitates to use the 
 stately name of chariot for a vehicle on three- 
 foot wheels, drawn by shaggy ponies from the 
 milch herd. Yet it had use in war because the 
 machine could be driven by a charioteer, leaving 
 
THE CHARIOT 107 
 
 the warrior free to use his weapons. At least 
 it brought the warrior, after a long march, 
 at a decent speed fresh into action ; and, 
 although he fought afoot, he had the chariot to 
 rally upon, for cover and a position when hard 
 pressed. The British warrior ran along the 
 shaft to the attack, retreated behind the dash- 
 board for defence. 
 
 The Ridden Horse. Many a time have I 
 seen the pony herd drift out to pasture, or trail 
 down of an evening to the water hole ; but I do 
 not remember a herder going afoot. For boys 
 to ride on herd was only natural, and I have no 
 doubt that ponies were both ridden and packed 
 from very early times. We may find guidance 
 here from Red Indian practice. 
 
 The Blackfoot nation were a woodland 
 people, and, as first known to the white men, 
 lived on the head waters of the North Sas- 
 katchewan at the southern edge of the Great 
 Northern Forest. In the earliest years of the 
 nineteenth century some Kootenays crossed 
 the Rocky Mountains from the west, and 
 arrived in the Blackfoot hunting grounds with 
 the first ponies ever seen there. They made a 
 good sale to the Blackfeet, which started a 
 steady trade. Moreover, the Blackfeet made 
 no bones about taming and riding these feral 
 
io8 RED INDIANS 
 
 ponies, and holding them on herd. For better 
 hunting and convenience in herding, they 
 moved about three hundred miles to the south- 
 ward out on the open prairies, but well within 
 sight of the Rocky Mountains, which made a 
 stronghold in the event of disaster, a hunting 
 ground in seasons of scarcity. They took to 
 bison hunting for a livelihood. 
 
 The daily bathing, wdnter and summer, in a 
 very brisk cUmate, the sweat baths which 
 preceded all religious rites, the freedom from 
 vermin, the chastity of the women, the valour 
 of the men, the purity and spirituahty of their 
 hfe, their wonderful psychic development, and 
 hypnotic medical practice distinguished the 
 Blackfeet even among the glorious tribes of that 
 region. In grace and endurance as horsemen 
 they have not been equalled in our time. 
 Young warriors were trained in the ordeal of 
 fasting and prayer in soHtude until they had 
 contact with the unseen ; next in the ordeal by 
 torture ; and last in the ordeal of war. A 
 warrior assembled a party of young men, and 
 after they had been purified and blessed, they 
 took the war path, mounted, or more often 
 afoot into the territory of some neighbouring 
 tribe, such as the Gros Ventre, Absaroka, 
 Sioux or Crees. Their mission was to enter 
 
RED INDIANS 109 
 
 the hostile camp at night, loose and drive off 
 the war horses tied at the lodge doors, or 
 stampede the tribal herd, and drive straight 
 for home. These Httle excursions, practised 
 by all the tribes, led to occasional unpleasant- 
 ness between them, and engagements were 
 fought when one side could lure the other into 
 an ambush, cut off a hunting or war party of 
 the enemy, or surprise a hostile camp. Fight- 
 ing mounted with lance or bow and arrows, 
 the Blackfeet developed forty thousand cavalry 
 within twenty-five years from the day they first 
 saw a pony. Shock action was unusual, and 
 the tactics were generally those of cavalry in 
 reconnaissance. A raw-hide string round the 
 pony's lower jaw, and a robe tied on the back 
 with a surcingle completed the equipment ; but 
 the warrior, whose costume was a breech clout, 
 would usually be attended by a pack pony to 
 carry his war kit and face paint for use on oc- 
 casions of high ceremonial, or a full dress battle. 
 It is a superstition of running and jumping 
 horsemanship that a big horse and a httle man 
 are the right combination for travel. The Red 
 Indian of the Plains would average five foot 
 ten, and his pony say thirteen hands, a big 
 man on a very little mount. The United 
 States cavalry were on the average smaller 
 
no BARBARIANS 
 
 men on very much larger horses. They some- 
 times intercepted Indians on the march, but 
 rarely overtook them. Closely pursued, Chief 
 Joseph commanding the Nez Perc^ tribe, 
 marched with his women and children 
 fourteen hundred miles, before the United 
 States forces succeeded in intercepting their 
 flight. In the case of the Blackfoot out- 
 law Charcoal, up to a hundred-and-sixty 
 Mounted Police were engaged for four 
 months catching him. So on the whole the 
 primitive savage, once he had a pony, was not 
 deficient in mobility. And given the pony, 
 he became the Mounted Barbarian whose 
 Hordes played havoc with the elder civiliza- 
 tions. At the very dawn of Histor}^ three 
 hundred thousand head of Turanean chariotry 
 romped down on the Persian Empire. They 
 are said to have been very haughty and op- 
 pressive to the poor Persians. 
 
 The fact that range men travelling are 
 usually attended by a herd, change ponies at 
 every halt, and so ride fresh mounts two or 
 three times a day, gives them a mobility with 
 even the smallest ponies which has never been 
 matched by one-horse cavalry. It was not the 
 foray, but shock action which had to wait, until 
 the crossing of stocks produced the war horse. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE HORSE IN HISTORY. 
 
 I. THE DAPPLED HORSE OF EUROPE. 
 
 The Baltic People. The Baltic, which 
 once drained through Lapland to the Arctic, 
 became, as the icefields melted, a land-locked 
 lake until a local sinkage of the rocks opened 
 its Danish channels into the Atlantic. At the 
 same period the North Sea was eating its way 
 up the old vale of North River. 
 
 The melting of the icefields had left these 
 Baltic and North-River Provinces of Cloudland 
 an ill-drained country of bare rock wastes, of 
 boulder tracts and clay, cluttered with lakes 
 and swamps. It was long before its damp and 
 frosty soils yielded a scanty crop, eight 
 bushels of wheat, for instance, in Plantaganet 
 England as compared with thirty-six bushels, 
 the present average. The only wealth was that 
 of fisheries in cold and deadly shallows. 
 
 Here, in a rapidly improving climate, was a 
 school of manhood which educated poor 
 savages who lived on shell-fish, driving them 
 
112 THE BALTIC FOLK 
 
 by straits of famine to exercise a varied skill as 
 fishers, hunters and farmers with the changing 
 seasons. As these people always bred more 
 bairns than they could feed, their overcrowd- 
 ing led to bickerings, and mutual recrimina- 
 tion weeded out all but the best fighters, while 
 pestilence swept away those who were not 
 not quite hardy. The blue-eyed, fair-haired 
 ruddy folk of Cloudland grew tenacious of life, 
 and very hard to kill, thrifty, austere, fiercely 
 self-governing. Never has the world known 
 men more formidable, adventurous, abler or 
 more daring than these Vikings of the northern 
 seas, and pioneers by land who set forth out of 
 Cloudland to find homes. They had a strong 
 preference for other people's homes. 
 
 To realise the temper of the Baltic, glance for 
 a moment at the old quest for cod, and the 
 curing stations for stock-fish which formed a 
 series of stepping-stones to bridge the North 
 Atlantic, and so led to the discovery of North 
 America. The founding by blonde adventur- 
 ers of the Hohenstaufen and Romanov dynas- 
 ties, and of the British kingdom, are Baltic 
 roots from whence have grown the German, 
 Russian, British and American world powers 
 holding dominion over half the Earth. All that 
 steam is to the mechanism^of the planet, or to 
 
LIMITATION TO CONQUESTS 113 
 
 our own industrial engineering, the Baltic 
 Force has been in history. 
 
 Long before the dawn of historic times the 
 Baltic region was brewing human storms, which 
 swept outward in all directions, but mainly into 
 regions toward the sun. It is not blind acci- 
 dent which leads the modern Prussians to seize 
 the coal and iron fields of Belgium, the oilfields 
 of Galicia, or the copper mines of Serbia ; for, 
 not only are Baltic storms of overwhelming 
 strength, they are organized by strategists, led 
 by tacticians and concentrate attack upon 
 the most useful countries. 
 
 Yet there is always a limitation to the 
 Baltic conquests. When the blonde conquer- 
 ors seized Greece or Italy, Spain or Asia Minor, 
 districts enclosed by sea and mountain bar- 
 riers they always held their own. When on 
 the other hand they conquered a country open 
 to attack such as Germany or Russia, Hungary 
 or the Balkans the next wave of the Tartar 
 Hordes has overwhelmed them by sheer 
 weight of numbers. So the early Balkan con- 
 quests on the Mediterranean were cut off from 
 the homeland by swarms of Asiatics whose 
 dark haired descendants, known as the Alpine 
 stock still hold large mountain regions from 
 the Black Sea to 'the Rhone. 
 
114 THE BALTIC FORCE 
 
 Wherever the Baltic people hold their con- 
 quests in Asia, Europe, or America, a nation 
 arises of mixed blood from their marriages with 
 black-haired natives or fellow emigrants. A 
 few centuries after the settlement, four hun- 
 dred years or so, the austere repubhc, or 
 monarchy of free men with a king as Leader, 
 blossoms into a grand empire, ablaze with 
 genius, rich, corrupt, decaying. 
 
 But, if the Baltic colonists have settled to 
 sunward of the 49th parallel, the sunlight 
 begins to affect the nerves of the blonde 
 emigrants, to weaken the children, to give a 
 feverish energy to business, to kill off the 
 unsheltered outdoor workers, and emasculate 
 the sheltered aristocracy. A few centuries 
 later the dark-haired natives of the region have 
 time once more to resume their ancient habit 
 of sitting in the sun. They made the statues 
 and portraits of fair gods and saints, blonde 
 kings and heroes. " Once upon a time," they 
 sa}^, " we had Olympic games. Our cavalry 
 were irresistible. We ruled the entire 
 world ! " But the race of the blonde 
 conquerors has perished from among them, 
 gone like last winter's snow save for a 
 few surviving aristocrats, and some poor 
 melting drifts of peasantry up in the moun- 
 
HELLENIC HORSEMEN 115 
 
 tain valleys where there are clouds for 
 shelter. 
 
 The Hellenic Horsemen. While the Baltic 
 region itself was still sub-arctic, perhaps with no 
 horse-stock as yet much better than Celtic 
 ponies, the oak woods of the Danube valley 
 were breeding sturdy Dapples, while the 
 Tartar hordes with each invasion scattered 
 Duns as far as central France. Even the 
 white horse of the Southern steppes, rare and 
 held sacred by the Northern people, was known 
 in Central Europe. So when the fair Achaeans 
 came to Greece they brought not Celtic ponies 
 but Duns, and a few Dapples picked up upon 
 their journeys. 
 
 In the sagas of the Northmen, as in the 
 legends of Achaean Greece the blue-eyed, 
 ruddy, tawny hero makes love or war to wor- 
 ship a fair woman. The vein is epic, but there 
 is a difference of mood ; for in the North its 
 atmosphere is one of gloom and terror shadowed 
 by awful Fate, but in the south of sunny 
 splendour, gallantry, and joy. The theme of 
 the winged horse has its weird Valkyrs riding 
 to find the slain through battlefields at night, 
 and its gay flying Pegasus in the Sahara, who 
 will not be caught save with a golden bridle 
 made by magic. 
 
ii6 ACHAEAN HORSEMEN 
 
 The Ocean God gave Peleus a chariot team 
 " Dapple " and " Dun " by name, both with 
 great flowing manes, " swift as the winds, the 
 horses that the harp}^, Podarge bare to the 
 West Wind as she w^as grazing on the meadow 
 beside the stream of Oceanus " Peleus lent the 
 teami to his son Achilles. Then Achilles' 
 charioteer was killed in battle, and the horses 
 mourned. '* Hot tears," says Homer, " flowed 
 from their eyes to the ground as they mourned 
 for their charioteer." The fellow used to oil 
 their manes, poor dears. They wept from the 
 eyes, and not, as modern horses do, from the 
 nostrils. But then you see they were not 
 ordinary horses, because their mother was a 
 harpy {vide books on Unnatural History), and 
 their sire was the West Wind. They were 
 foaled on the shores of the Western ocean : 
 Dapple of the woods. Dun of the grass lands. 
 And Pegasus was a Bay from Africa. So one 
 finds in the oldest myths of the Hellenes record 
 of the three primary stocks from whom all 
 modern breeds are descended. 
 
 To these Hellenes the hearth, the log cabin 
 and the mother were sacred, the bases of all 
 religion. The hearth became an altar, the 
 cabin a glorious temple of white marble, the 
 mother a goddess whose statue was ivory and 
 
ACHAEAN HORSEMEN 117 
 
 her robes of massive gold. Outside their holy 
 faith nothing was taken very seriously, and the 
 people had special delight in nonsense animals. 
 The centaur or man-horse was a prime favour- 
 ite, and they did not worry over his stable 
 management, a most revolting job. The man 
 mouth would refuse the forage urgently re- 
 quired by the horse-body, and if they compro- 
 mised on oats as porridge, even that would 
 pall. Still centaurs would be gentle, and less 
 likely to butt, than the buck unicorn of our 
 own mythology. The Centaur Cheiron indeed 
 was not only gentle but the eminent headmaster 
 of the earliest public school. Solving the diet 
 question with fish, game, fruit and wine, he 
 lived to a good old age. 
 
 For a people of so lively a mind as the 
 Greeks, progress was rather slow in the use of 
 horses. Supposing the siege of Troy to have 
 happened about 1000 b.c. they were solely 
 dependent on chariotry in war while King 
 Solomon had 12,000 cavalry. 
 
 Three centuries later the Greek colonists of 
 African Cyrene, that " city of fair steeds and 
 goodly chariots," sent home shipments by 
 direct sea trade of desert Bays for breeding. 
 With the improvement of the horse stock four- 
 horse chariots began to compete in the Olympic 
 
ii8 HELLENIC HORSEMEN 
 
 Games of B.C. 680. By b.c. 640 the ridden 
 horse had become of consequence enough to 
 share the great honours of the Olympiad, but 
 still the tactical use of cavalry was delayed. 
 Greece is a small rough country much broken 
 by sea channels, and no more suitable than 
 Scotland for the effective use of the mounted 
 arm in war. So, even as late as the Battle of 
 Marathon, the Persian Horse found the Hellenic 
 army afoot ; not until the fifth century was the 
 Greek Cavalry of any consequence. 
 
 In the Greek statuary of the Great Age we 
 see the Hellenic horses clearly as though they 
 lived. The chariot horse was a noble half-bred 
 carriage animal standing at least sixteen hands. 
 The cavalry remount stood about fourteen 
 hands with a head of unmistakeable breeding 
 from the Bay, and a general chunky comfort- 
 able build which suggests the Dapple, but 
 certainly not the Dun who had served with the 
 heroes of the Achaean age. The Welsh pit 
 pony, used as a yeonianry remount, exactly 
 corresponds with Xenophon's careful descrip- 
 tion of the ideal cavalry horse. " A double 
 back," says he, " that is, when the flesh rises 
 on both sides of the spine, is much softer to sit 
 upon, and more pleasing to the eye than a 
 single one." That was before the days of 
 
ANCIENT HORSEMEN 119 
 
 saddles, and horsemen had tender interest in 
 the double back — the characteristic back of 
 dappled horses. Of the Hellenic seat we will 
 speak in the chapter on straight-leg riding. 
 
 Among all ancient horsemen the great 
 problem was to reserve both hands for the use 
 of weapons. This involved a life training in 
 steering by pressure of the knee or calf, but 
 dressing in military formation was still im- 
 possible without control of the horse's mouth. 
 Many nations used a nose-band, or a twitch 
 round the lower jaw, and a head-rope for steer- 
 ing ; but still in practice the formation would 
 be that of a mob. So Xenophon seems to have 
 borrowed the bitt from the chariot harness, 
 using a rough one for breaking, and a smoother 
 kind for trained horses. His illustrious cavalry 
 owed their prestige and power to a proper 
 formation, and ingenious tactics. 
 
 The Roman Horsemen. The Romans of 
 historic times were descended from a fair race 
 of the Baltic region, and the blonde aristo- 
 cracy still ruled among a dark Mediterranean 
 population. Their culture was adopted, and 
 mainly Greek. Their original Dun and Dapple 
 horse stock was crossed from early ages with 
 African blood, and as time went on they com- 
 manded the use of every decent horse strain in 
 
I20 ROMAN HORSEMEN 
 
 the world. Their officials were Cnrules as a class 
 from the word Currus for chariot, whose seats 
 of office were chariot chairs, and their state 
 allowances included chariot horses. Their gentry 
 were known as equites or horsemen. They 
 developed a mania for chariot racing, and their 
 four factions known from the racing colours 
 blue, green, white and red, outlasted the 
 Western Empire to be a public nuisance in Con- 
 stantinople. And yet a people may have money 
 to bet on racing who in their hearts care nothing 
 more for horses than does the sporting cockney. 
 
 Rich youngsters might swank on horseback 
 to impress the girls, but one does not read very 
 much about a mounted aristocracy like our own, 
 with gallant games like polo or manly pleasures 
 such as modern hunting. At heart the Romans 
 of the Empire were anything but horse-proud. 
 In their militar}^ practice they never aspired to 
 the glories of the old Greek Cavalry, or bred 
 a horseman tactician to compare with grand 
 old Xenophon. 
 
 Some fifty years before the Christian era, 
 Livy described the heavy cavalry only as using 
 bridles. This being interpreted means that 
 the Roman dragoons were able for shock action, 
 while their Hussars steered by the knees and 
 fought in open disorder. 
 
GOTHIC HORSEMEN 121 
 
 On the whole it is difficult to ascribe to the 
 Romans any advance in the art of horseman- 
 ship except in the matter of draught. The 
 heavy engines which correspond to a modern 
 siege train required not only draught beasts — 
 oxen possibly, but also the paved causeway. 
 The Roman road for horse traffic was as big an 
 invention in its effect on civilization as the 
 steam railway of our modern transport. 
 
 The Northern Let us turn back to the 
 Northern Ancesiors of both Greeks and Romans. 
 The Heimskringla shows the ancestral home 
 of the Norse to have been in Russia. By the 
 time they colonized Scandinavia, they were 
 discarding the chariot, were fighting on horse- 
 back, and had waggons as well as sleighs. A 
 Bronze age waggon at Copenhagen differs little 
 in structure from those in use to-day. This 
 waggon confirms the stories of gods heroes and 
 kings riding and driving powerful horses at 
 least as large the big Duns of modern Scandi- 
 navia. The theory of scrawny little ponies 
 appears to the sheer nonsense. The evidence 
 points indeed to a more general and more 
 advanced practice of horse management than 
 than either the Greek or the Roman. 
 
 The Gothic Horsemen. While the Romans 
 made no special advance in horsemanship the 
 
122 THE PACK HORSE IN HISTORY 
 
 fair Barbarians of Germany and Gaul evolved 
 a notable idea. The gentleman rode to war 
 attended by a couple of mounted serfs who had 
 a remount for him if his charger fell, or even 
 replaced his loss in the fighting line. In late 
 times the Gothic gentleman became a knight, 
 and his attendants were esquires in training 
 until they won their spurs. 
 
 See then how the Latin word equus for a 
 horse gives us equites as the rank of the ancient 
 gentry of Europe, and Esquire the rank of our 
 modern gentleman. The French word for 
 horse : cheval gives us Chivalr}^ and Chevalier. 
 The Spanish word caballo gives us Cavalry, 
 Caballero, and Cavalier. The horse has taught 
 us more than ever we taught him. 
 
 The Pack Horse. While chariotr}' and 
 cavalry were mainly engaged in killing civiliza- 
 tion, the unobtrusive pack pony did almost as 
 much as the ship in spreading culture along the 
 channels of commerce. From the port of 
 London for example a pack trail starting at 
 Tower Hill ran w^estward along Newgate, 
 Holborn, Oxford Street, and Bayswater Road, 
 crossed the Thames at Oxenford, then branched 
 to the gold mines of Dolgelly and the tin 
 deposits of Cornwall. Along this artery flowed 
 the Phoenician culture. 
 
PACK TRAILS 123 
 
 A little later the merchants of North- 
 western Europe in search of salt, landed at the 
 Cinque Ports of Kent. Their pack trails con- 
 verged to drop down Blackheath Hill. From 
 thence the one trail coasted the southern 
 edge of the saltings of Southwark by way of 
 Old Kent Road and Bedlam, striking the first 
 firm ground in the river bank at Lamb's 
 Hythe (landing), where the Bishop of Canter- 
 bury afterwards built his town house. From 
 Lambeth at low tide there was a ford to Horse- 
 ferry Road on the Isle of Thorns in mid-river. 
 From the island site of the City of Westmin- 
 ster, there was a broader but very shallow ford 
 across the north arm of the Thames. One 
 may see the north bank of the Island at Great 
 George Street, Westminster ; but the site of 
 the pack trail is lost. It took up the ridge 
 between the Tyburn and Ba3^swater brooks, 
 avoiding the mudholes of both, along Park 
 Lane. At Marble Arch it swung into the 
 Bronze trail, to leave it presently at Tyburn 
 Tree, and strike up Edgeware Road, and so via 
 WatUng Street to the salt wells in Cheshire. 
 It was along the Bronze trail and the Salt trail 
 that civilization found its way into England. 
 
 Were I a merchant I might see in wool the 
 single origin of my country's wealth ; were I a 
 
124 THE DUN HORSE OF ASIA 
 
 broker I might see in stocks and shares the 
 origin of prosperity. Each to his trade ; but 
 as an old packtrain captain I have ridden many 
 a hundred miles, noting the grass-grown bridle 
 paths along dry ridges, the hesitating down-hill 
 curves of ancient roads as they approach wet 
 ground, the outer hedging and the inner hedg- 
 ing as highways narrowed down when they 
 were paved, and public house signs, such as the 
 Packhorse, dating from the recent centuries 
 when still the traffic of old England was done 
 on cargo ponies. It needs but a Httle scouting 
 to show clearly the story of some fifteen hundred 
 years of England's progress down to the time 
 when Caesar's strength was taxed on joining 
 battle with the British tribes. Our people, 
 like the Gauls, had roads and chariots, armour 
 of bronze and gold, old trades, and industries 
 and towns before the Romans came. 
 
 II. THE DUN HORSE OF ASIA. 
 
 As the Earth reels through the Dark, and on 
 her journe}^ spins like a sleeping top, we only 
 notice the changing of the seasons while she 
 swings round her great orbit, and the swift 
 passage of flying nights and days. It is only 
 when one is quite alone in the far wilderness 
 that one begins to feel the Earth in motion, and 
 after sunset to watch her shadow climb the 
 
THE DUN HORSE OF ASIA 125 
 
 eastern sky. To roll one's bed down beside the 
 waning camp fire, to turn in and smoke the 
 evening pipe, to lie looking up at the stars, is to 
 know that one is only a speck of loose dust on a 
 flying sphere, flung eastward at a thousand 
 miles an hour, yet held down by the pull of the 
 Earth's weight safe from being whirled aw^ay 
 into space. Loose adventurers like me, loose 
 air, dust, water, and loose tribes of men are all 
 being flung with the surface, pulled by the 
 centre of the Earth, and drifted about all the 
 time without our knowing why. 
 
 Of course the weaker tribes have been flung 
 eastward so far as there was land, and stay 
 where they were thrown in China, Indo-China, 
 Burma, and Bengal. Only the stronger races 
 have thrust against the motion of the planet. 
 These dark-haired sallow Asiatics, Scythian, 
 Hun, Tartar and the rest were bred in regions 
 of strong sunlight, filling their native steppes 
 until they were overcrowded. They were 
 harmless shepherds and herders who did a little 
 hunting. But for the Dun pony we might not 
 have heard much about them. When they 
 tamed the pony the savages became bar- 
 barians, the Httle scattered tribes were welded 
 into formidable hordes. And then they 
 swarmed like locusts eating up the world under 
 
126 PACK HORSE TRAILS 
 
 some ruthless Caan a Genghis, a Timour, 
 burning all civilization, trampling out the 
 embers of human reason. And in their wake 
 came twilight — the Dark Ages. 
 
 History is a jade. She has a glad e^^e for 
 soldiers and sportsmen whose business is 
 destruction, but turns a sour face from lousy 
 pilgrims to the shrines of Faith, poor crafts- 
 men and scholars burdened with the tools of 
 Progress, drab merchants who carry Culture 
 in their packs, and all the messengers of civili- 
 zation. Of these her annals are curt and 
 neghgent. She has plenty of gossip about 
 Kings more or less human as advertised by 
 scribes more or less venal ; but keeps no 
 chronicle of the pack trails on which the little 
 Dun ponies carried all that made civilization 
 to the camps of the barbarian and the savage. 
 She told us nothing about the hundreds of 
 opulent cities which now lie dead and buried 
 in the Mongolian deserts. One does not like 
 to speak ill of a lady, but her sense of truth is 
 always moderate. 
 
 Adventure is not officially authorized as one 
 of the Muses, but she is as truthful as History, 
 and a deal more amusing as a guide. 
 
 History says that nations who had no horses 
 used to be terrified at the first sight of horse- 
 
DRAGON BEAST 127 
 
 men, and cites the instances of Peru and 
 Mexico when Empires collapsed in super- 
 stitious fear. It seems quite natural then that 
 the first mention of the horse in China should 
 call him Dragon-Beast. He was not really 
 formidable, being only a Dun pony carrying no 
 doubt the good Mongolian pack apparel which 
 consists of a saddle, and a detachable cargo 
 rack, the oldest rigging known. His cargo was 
 a lodestone, a rock of magnetic iron which 
 served the Chinese Emperor as a compass. 
 When the pony wanted to go west, and the 
 magnet insisted on north his celestial majesty 
 probably saw a jolly good bucking match. 
 
 From China to the Atlantic, and from the 
 northern Taiga to the Indian ocean the old 
 world was threaded all across with pack trails 
 snaking from water to water over the deserts 
 and pastures, the forests and the hills. Except 
 in the very dry districts where camels, 
 asses and mules were employed for transport, 
 the Dun ponies did all the carrying over-land. 
 From China to Europe was a three years' 
 journey, not because of the distance but by 
 reason of the robbers who made the trail un- 
 safe. At each market town the packtrain 
 captains waited, perhaps for months, until a 
 caravan assembled sufficiently large to under- 
 
128 THE ADVENTURERS 
 
 take the journey. There were periods when 
 great Tartar Caans controlled the whole of 
 Asia north of the Himalaya, together with the 
 grass land known now as European Russia. 
 These monarchs from Zenghis to Kublai and 
 later had post trails with post horses, and 
 horses in relay for ambassadors and despatch 
 riders bearing a golden tablet of office. Old 
 Kublai for example was busy building Pekin 
 when he sent the Polo brothers as envoys, 
 riding post with the golden tablet, to visit the 
 Pope in Rome and ask for a batch of priests to 
 teach him the Christian faith. For years 
 young Marco Polo, nephew of these merchants, 
 rode past as envoy, visiting every realm in 
 Asia. Very different were the rambUngs on the 
 pack trails of that rare scamp Fernao Mendes 
 Pinto who in the sixteenth century worked as a 
 slave on the Great Wall of China, travelled 
 with marching armies, and as a fugitive tramp 
 found his way by mysterious Lhassa, to the 
 coasts of further India. Another colossal 
 journey was that in the eighteenth century of 
 Vitus Bering the Dane with his Russian 
 trappers, and Stellar the German naturalist 
 trekking on horseback to the sea of Okhotsk. 
 There they built a ship, and sailed in search of 
 the mysterious straits of Anian leading through 
 
THE BAY HORSE OF AFRICA 129 
 
 Meta Incognita to the Atlantic. They found 
 America, but were wrecked at the tail end of 
 the Aleutians. The surviving trappers built 
 a ship and loaded her with sea-otter skins. 
 These they sold in Pekin for wealth beyond 
 dreams of avarice, and so returned riding as 
 rich men home to their native Russia. 
 
 It was in the days of Queen Elizabeth that 
 EngHsh envoys and merchants found their way 
 by water and the trail of the Dun pony from 
 the White Sea to Persia and on even to Goa on 
 the Indian Coast. 
 
 The trail of the Dun horse always led to 
 adventure. Daring traders went to swap gems 
 for silk at the Court of the great Mogul, or sold 
 white ladies of the Caucasus to Haroun al 
 Raschid down in Bagdad, or to Suliman the 
 Magnificent at Stamboul, or offered purple 
 shell-fish dyes of Tyre to tempt the young 
 Prince Siddatha, or came from the East with 
 gold and frankincense and myrrh and laid 
 them at the feet of a Child in Bethlehem, or 
 journeyed from Sweden with swords for the 
 Prophet of Islam. 
 
 III. THE BAY HORSE OF AFRICA. 
 
 Apart from the sacredness of the Old Testa- 
 ment as deahng with the origin of a religion, 
 we may, without offence to fellow Christians^ 
 
I30 ISRAEL 
 
 read this collection of Hebrew books as the 
 secular history of an able but unholy people. 
 
 The collection of stories known as Genesis 
 consisted mainly of heroic ballads, cast in the 
 form of verse which can be easily and accu- 
 rately remembered. These ballads were re- 
 cited until at the time of the Babylonian 
 Captivity in the fourth century b.c. the people 
 learned to write and set down their annals in 
 the form of manuscript. We may find the 
 stories lacking in the salt of humour ; we may 
 doubt that singers and scribes were apt to 
 improve on the original words, piling a deal of 
 exaggeration on the naked facts ; but at the 
 very worst these legends of old Israel are 
 terse, clear, consistent and gloriously true to 
 human life and character. I had read the 
 story of Jacob the Sneak, and Joseph the Prig, 
 of gallant Esau, and gentle Ishmael in camps 
 of live Red Indians, before I reahsed that 
 Genesis is true to primitive life as a whole, and 
 that, after forty centuries, the legend still 
 glows and burns in its immortal truth, beauty, 
 and power. 
 
 The story deals with wealth}?- Arabian stock- 
 men. They and their neighbours bred she 
 camels for milking, rode camels and asses, and 
 used both for pack animals. They seem to 
 
THE BARB 131 
 
 have valued oxen for heavy draught as well 
 as for beef and hides, or they would scarcely 
 have bothered to winter the cattle in stables. 
 As any stockmen sees at a glance the sheep and 
 goats were handled by experienced owners. 
 
 The stock would not have paid without a 
 market, so, as these Arab sheiks had plenty of 
 gold, we may presume that they dealt in wool, 
 beef, hides, and draught animals with the 
 fortified trading towns of the watered farming 
 districts. No doubt they sold pack beasts also 
 to the trading caravans. 
 
 There were no horses in the world as known 
 to these folk. Abraham visited Egypt some- 
 where about the nineteenth century b.c. and 
 found no horses there. 
 
 Beyond the skyHne of the western desert 
 from Egypt to the Atlantic ranged the Bay 
 horse, the Barb of times to com^. He was a 
 delicate, swift creature, very brave and gentle. 
 His arched neck bore a black and streaming 
 mane, his tail was set high and carried clear 
 of the rump. His eyes were set low, wide apart 
 from which the dainty muzzle tapered, to 
 sensitive nostrils and to lips hke velvet. 
 Legends of later times, and other countries 
 made him son of the west wind, while custom 
 gave each of his families a surname. They 
 
132 THE LIBYANS 
 
 have always been exempt from labour, attend- 
 ed by human servants, treated as a nobility. 
 From very early times they were admitted to 
 the private family Hfe of the Libyan people, 
 and driven with the four-spoke wooden chariot 
 until both men and women learned to ride 
 them. 
 
 In much the same spirit as our country folk 
 go to town for shopping, it was the pleasant 
 custom of these Libyans to raid Egypt. 
 Between war and commerce the Egyptians 
 brought Bay horses into their own use at some 
 time later than the visit of Abraham, but prior 
 to that of Joseph. This might be about the 
 eighteenth century B.c.4he era of Stonehenge. 
 
 Shortly afterwards horses and chariots began 
 to appear in the painting and sculpture of 
 Egyptian artists. Horses must still have been 
 scarce when the Pharoah gave to Joseph a 
 signet and royal robes, but only lent him his 
 second best chariot. It is true that the people 
 already owned a few horses, for in the great 
 famine Joseph accepted them in trade for 
 grain. 
 
 It was in that generation that the dying 
 Jacob, speaking from knowledge common 
 among the civilized Egyptians, mentioned both 
 ships and horses. He was frank enough to call 
 
THE RIDDEN HORSE 133 
 
 his son Dan " an adder in the path, that biteth 
 the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall back- 
 ward." Here is the earliest mention of the 
 ridden horse. It was in Jacobus funeral pro- 
 cession to his native stock range east of Jordan 
 that there appeared " both chariot and horse- 
 men, a great company." 
 
 One suspects a trace of swank in the story 
 of that *' great company." Jacob's countrymen 
 were sheep herders, destined to go afoot for 
 centuries to come. The Egyptians used 
 chariots, but never took to riding as a habit. 
 Merchants were trading horses to the Hittites, 
 but that (until Ptolemy Philadelphus made 
 Vv^ater holes, and a highway in the second 
 century b.c.) was done in face of extreme 
 difficulty. The week's passage of the Desert 
 of Sin could be made only in the first two 
 months of each year, and even then the horses 
 must be refreshed from water bags carried by 
 camels. On the whole it is likely that the 
 great company of chariots and horsemen was a 
 poetic device for making the most of Joseph's 
 posthumous importance. 
 
 According to Manetho, the well-known 
 Egyptian historian, somewhere about the 
 twenty-first century b.c. a most objectionable 
 sheep-herding tribe of Arabs began to infest 
 
134 HORSES IN GENESIS 
 
 lower Egypt. Manetho is prejudiced ; but 
 just as in modern Western America where the 
 sheep herder is rated among cattle men as 
 something rather lower than a dog, it is amusing 
 to see how the poet in Genesis admits that 
 shepherds were an abomination in the eyes of 
 the Egyptians. If one dates Abraham's visit 
 to Egypt in the twenty-first instead of the 
 nineteenth century B.C. old Manetho and the 
 Hebrew poet are perfectly agreed as to the 
 Hyksos-Israelite invasion. 
 
 The Genesis narrative shows the insidious 
 way in which the children of Israel drifted 
 down into Eg3^pt, then how they made them- 
 selves agreeable as office holders, and by intro- 
 ducing frogs, flies, lice, cattle sickness and other 
 improvements until at last the Egyptians 
 waxed desperate and ran them out of the 
 country. Manetho says that these Hyksos 
 people occupied lower Egypt east of the Nile 
 from Memphis to the sea, and later on estab- 
 lished a dynasty with six Kings in the succes- 
 sion. After five centuries the Egyptians com- 
 bined under the Thebaid Kings of upper 
 Egypt, and drove the Hyksos across the Desert 
 of Sin into Palestine. It is quite possible that 
 in Genesis, and Manetho 's History we have the 
 two sides of one story, and that it was the 
 
CHARIOTS AND HORSEMEN 135 
 
 possession of the Libyan chariot which made 
 the Egyptians powerful enough to rid them- 
 selves of the artful but not very warlike 
 children of Israel. 
 
 It is amusing to note the ways of the tribal 
 poet in Israel who describes the murrain of 
 cattle as killing off every horse in the length 
 and breadth of Egypt, then out of spite kills 
 them all over again by drowning in the Red Sea. 
 
 Setting the date of the Exodus at B.C. 1580, 
 it would be about b.c. 1540 that the Israelites 
 were afraid to attack the Canaanites w^ho had 
 good iron chariots. In the same way a nation 
 armed with muzzle loading guns might hate to 
 molest an army with quick-firing artillery. 
 Forty years later, about e.g. i 500, horses began 
 to appear in Mesopotamia, a bad lookout for 
 Israel, destined some six centuries afterwards 
 to be trampled under by Babylonian chariotry. 
 
 Some day we shall have a science of compara- 
 tive chronology to guide us in our studies, and 
 so be able to see how little improvements in 
 horse-breeding, or the use of iron in building 
 chariots, affected the rise and fall of nations. 
 In the meantime some known facts of Red 
 Indian history may help us to understand 
 events in ancient Asia. 
 
 In primitive Red Indian life the tribes were 
 
136 THE MOUNTED NATIONS 
 
 seated too far apart to get at each other for 
 serious pitched battles. In lack of horse 
 transport trade was limited to the waterways, 
 and warfare to minor internecine pleasantries 
 which kept young men in training. From the 
 sixteenth century the pressure of white men 
 driving in from the Atlantic began to affect 
 these almost civilised people, forcing them to 
 abandon their farms, fisheries and towns, 
 reducing them to savagery and compeUing 
 them to trespass on occupied hunting grounds. 
 All nations w^ere set by the ears. Then they 
 began to get ponies, and the rest was chaos. 
 
 So perhaps in Asia, the movements of tribes 
 afoot may have been gradual overflows from 
 crowded districts, and warfare a matter of 
 cheery little forays to please the young. The 
 possession of ponies gave a tremendous impetus 
 to war and trade. From that time onward the 
 tribes which were best mounted had a political 
 future, and there was a slight handicap in 
 favour of nations with Libyan Bays of fourteen 
 hands two inches as compared with tribes using 
 the Duns of Asia. 
 
 The Egyptians had horses in the eighteenth 
 century B.C., the Israelites a few in 1580, the 
 Hittites and Canaanites in 1540, the Assyrians 
 not until 1500 b.c. Now Egypt, Canaan, 
 
HEAVY STOCK AND STRONG FOOD 137 
 
 Syria, Mesopotamia and Arabia had no native 
 horses. The Egyptians got horses from the 
 Sahara, the Asiatics mainly through Armenia. 
 I cannot beUeve that the crossing of small 
 Duns with small Bays in any region bred heavy 
 horses for the needs of war. 
 
 A practical nation in the breeding trade 
 would not rely for heavy stock upon the cross- 
 ing of light strains. The way to get heavy 
 stock is with strong food. Such oases of great 
 deserts as Egypt and Mesopotamia had very 
 little pasture, so long as their nations pros- 
 pered. Every acre then was needed for strong 
 grains. The well-mounted conquering nations 
 were not those with splendid pasturage like 
 Northern Africa or Southern Russia, but those 
 which had no pasturage at all, who were com- 
 pelled to feed horses on fodder more potent 
 than any natural grass. The King's people 
 might go without, but one may be perfectly 
 certain that the King's horses lived on corn. 
 What tribe or race of folk inherited Egypt or 
 Mesopotamia mattered nothing, what strain 
 of horses they owned mattered ver}^ little, but 
 the people and the horses, for the time being in 
 possession of irrigated oases walled about by 
 deserts, raised the chariotry or the cavalry 
 which ruled the surrounding world. 
 
138 CHARIOTS AND CAVALRY 
 
 Each nation passed through a phase when 
 chariotry were the only mounted troops of 
 tactical use in war. The importing of the 
 largest and heaviest horses to be had, the 
 feeding of these with grain, and cross-breeding 
 of the Dun types with the Bay produced by 
 slow degrees a remount for use by cavalry. 
 
 Earliest in the running were the Hebrews, 
 for about looo b.c. King Solomon built stables 
 for 40,000 chariots, and as many as 12,000 
 cavalry. As early as 700 b.c. Armenia, being 
 in contact with the Asiatic and Russian horse 
 stocks, became a large horse breeding establish- 
 ment, supplying remounts southward to Asia 
 Minor, where in b.c. 560 King Croesus of Lydia 
 had good cavalry, to Syria and Palestine, to 
 Assyria, and to Persia down to the fourth 
 century. But in the meantime shipping had 
 grown in the Mediterranean, and ships of 
 sufficient burden to carry African Bays began 
 to supply the Greeks. From the pony 
 chariots of the fourteenth century e.g. a 
 steadily improving stock marked the rise of 
 Hellas. The Achaeans of 1000 e.g. had 
 imported Bays. The Greeks of 400 e.g. had 
 cavalry. Then came the breeding of fine 
 horses in Macedonia, and, after the death of 
 PhiUp in E.G. 336, the mounted troops of his 
 
THE CHARIOT 139 
 
 great son Alexander swept like a whirlwind 
 across the Eastward deserts to where the 
 monsoon rains made India populous. By this 
 time cavalry had replaced the chariot. At the 
 era of the Christ a chariot was still used when 
 a victorious general entered a city in triumph. 
 But the use of chariotry in war was limited to 
 remote barbaric tribes such as the British. 
 
 The chariot for practical purposes was 
 extinct before a single horse had found his way 
 over the long dry marches leading out of the 
 world to the remote oases of Arabia. Strabo 
 the geographer, who at the era of our Lord made 
 a survey of the known world, found that the 
 horse had not yet entered Arabia. A land 
 indeed where no water can be had except from 
 wells was not a possible range for pastured 
 horses, and the horse has not sufficient thirst 
 endurance to be of much use for transport 
 between the oases, whereas asses and carnels 
 were to be had much cheaper. 
 
 It was in the earUest Christian centuries that 
 Arabian chiefs began to import Bay horses 
 from Egypt. It seems Hkely that the begin- 
 ning of their sea-trade enabled them to do so. 
 While almost all nations of Europe and Asia 
 were compelled by the need for heavy war 
 horses to feed grain and to cross the imported 
 
I40 THE ARAB HORSE 
 
 Bay with their native stock, the Arabs tried to 
 preserve the purity of the desert breed. Even 
 at this time eighty-five per cent, of high caste 
 Arabian horses are Bays ; and there is only 
 one strain of any importance, the Hamdani so 
 crossed with Russian Tarpans as to be white or 
 grey. It must be remembered, however, that 
 the demand of the Indian and European 
 markets for greys and for heavy cross-breds has 
 led the Arabs to breed extensively from their 
 low caste strains. Moreover, the neighbouring 
 regions of Syria and Mesopotamia sell cross- 
 bred horses as " Arabian " regardless of colour, 
 and of honesty. The Bay mares of the real 
 Arabian aristocracy are never sold, and of the 
 horses very few reach the market as compared 
 with the numbers of low caste animals forming 
 the ruck of the trade. 
 
 Down to the seventh century a.d. the Arabs 
 were busy breeding from a very few imported 
 Bays their meagre supply of horses. So far as 
 the possession of horses went they would not 
 have attracted much attention but for the 
 coming to Arabia of steel weapons. 
 
 From prehistoric times the Swedes had been 
 mining iron, and their trade routes led by 
 "river, to Novgorod, where lived a trading 
 family the Romanovs, from whom descend 
 
A RESULT OF ISLAM 141 
 
 the Emperors of Russia. By river boat and by 
 pack trail the Swedish iron found its way to 
 many markets. Towards the seventh century 
 the iron reached the Arabian oases to be forged 
 into weapons of Islam. When the Arabian 
 horsemen were armed and inspired by Mahomet 
 they set out to conquer the world in the name 
 of Allah. With the Moslem conquests east- 
 ward to Delhi, and westward through Spain to 
 Poictiers, the Bay Horse passed into the com- 
 merce of mankind, adding to the endurance of 
 the Asiatic Dun, and the strength of the 
 European dappled horse that touch of gentle- 
 ness and fire which quickens a dull animal into 
 a living spirit. 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 HORSEMANSHIP. 
 
 I. THE STRAIGHT LEG. 
 
 The Seat. Among the Red Indians I have 
 known, the mounted people were the Blackfeet, 
 Stonies, Crees, Yakimas, Navajos, Moquis, and 
 a few tribes in Mexico. So far as I can learn 
 no Indian was ever taught to ride, or heard of 
 riding as an accomplishment to be learned. 
 The commonest equipment was a blanket and 
 surcingle ; but all the horse apparel used by- 
 white men was eagerly played for in the gam- 
 bhng games. The riding seemed to be natural, 
 with a perfection of grace one rarely sees among 
 white men. 
 
 The man rode down to his crotch, yet the 
 forward slant of the thighs gave rest to the 
 pelvis bones upon the horse's back, while the 
 lower leg hung vertical and loose. 
 
 At halt or walk the whole seat was loose, but 
 as the pace increased at trot or canter the 
 142 
 
THE STRAIGHT LEG 143 
 
 thighs locked with a grip of tremendous power, 
 rigid save for the play of the skin. From the 
 waist upward the poise was quite erect, and 
 supple, with the shoulders slightly eased. 
 
 At a gallop the lower legs wrapped round the 
 horse's barrel, and the movement of the man 
 as seen behind an edge of skyline was like the 
 flight of a bird. 
 
 For pony racing boys rode instead of men. 
 Since the boys' legs were not long enough to 
 wrap round the horse, the thighs were hfted, 
 nearly horizontal, the lower legs bent sharply 
 back, and a surcingle was strapped across the 
 knees. Still the perch was on the animal's 
 back, and not on the withers, as in the negro 
 gait so much admired under the name of the 
 American racing seat. 
 
 Was the Red Indian seat straight leg or bent 
 leg ? With stirrups it was straight leg. For 
 boy jockeys only the racing gait was bent leg. 
 
 A reference to the sculptures of Pheideas, 
 and Praxiteles (fifth century b.c.) shows that 
 the Greeks rode at slow gaits with the same 
 leg as the Red Indian, but Uke him bent the 
 knees very sharply at racing speed. 
 
 At first sight these Greek sculptures from 
 the Parthenon rather remind one of the Red 
 Indian seat. A little closer study shows that 
 
144 THE GREEK SEAT 
 
 the models chosen by the sculptor were not 
 horsemen, but carefully selected athletes. 
 They were no more horsemen for example, than 
 the glorious athlete represented at high tension 
 by Watts in his equestrian statue of Physical 
 Energy. The back is too much curved for that 
 of the Red Indian, who earned a living on 
 horseback from his childhood, and kept a pro- 
 fessional watch on the horizon rather than an 
 amateur's nervous observation of the pony's 
 ears. So one turns away from the misleading 
 splendours of Greek sculpture, to the pro- 
 fessional guidance of General Xenophon, a 
 horseman who knew his business. " Whether 
 he uses a cloth or rides on the bare back we 
 would not have him sit as one who drives a 
 chariot " (bent knees), " but as if he were 
 standing erect with his legs somewhat astride, 
 for thus his thighs will cling closer to his horse, 
 and he will be able to wield his lance and shield 
 with more force." 
 
 This seems to show that for freedom in the 
 use of weapons the Greek cavalry adopted 
 straight leg riding before they had saddle or 
 stirrups. So far as I can learn the Hellenic 
 seat passed on into Roman practice, but 
 through the Dark Ages which followed the fall 
 of Rome there seems to be no guidance as to 
 
THE WAR SADDLE 145 
 
 the conduct of horsemen. Horses were not 
 saddled in England until 631 a.d., and the first 
 pictures we have which reveal the horseman- 
 ship of the Middle Ages are the Bayeux 
 tapestries of the Norman Conquerors. Now for 
 the first time horses were used by farmers to 
 till the land. Chain mail had replaced the 
 scale armour of the Barbarians. A perfectly 
 straight leg locked the horseman aft against 
 the cantle, forward against the stirrup of a 
 weight-distributing saddle. 
 
 The War Saddle. During the five centu- 
 ries in which body armour slowly increased in 
 weight, and horse armour was added to the 
 burden, the dappled woodland horse of Northern 
 Europe was bred from strength to strength to 
 take the growing load. So we came by our 
 Destriers, now known as the cart horse breeds, 
 such as the Percheron, Cleveland Bay, and 
 Suffolk Punch, and the heavy draught such 
 as the Shire and Clydesdale. 
 
 Plate armour is still worn a good deal on the 
 stage, in pageants and in military tourna- 
 ments. Men used to this armour tell me that a 
 horseman who rides less than his weight while 
 his limbs are free^ rides more than his weight 
 when he is cramped in movement. 
 
 Suppose then that a 190 pound man in 90 
 
146 THE WAR SADDLE 
 
 pounds of armour makes a dead weight of 280 
 pounds. Add harness and horse armour, and 
 the total weight is about 400 pounds. At a 
 canter this load would certainly need a 
 draught horse weighing not less than 1,500 
 pounds. Using the Enghsh saddlery one 
 would prefer the heaviest draught animal. 
 
 Now take a load of 350 pounds in mining 
 machinery and add 50 pounds for an apparejo 
 pack equipment. This total dead weight of 
 400 pounds would make a light cargo for a 
 1,000 pound mule or horse, who would carry 
 it without distress a day's march up a range of 
 mountains. 
 
 But note well that the bearing surface of the 
 equipment on the horse's back is about two 
 square feet with the Enghsh saddle, and nearly 
 eight square feet for the usual apparel of horses 
 in heavy packing. As anybody would rather 
 carry two buckets of water than one, because 
 the load is halved by being properly dis- 
 tributed, so will the horse prefer a heavy load 
 distributed over the whole rigid area of the 
 ribs to a light load concentrated on a few square 
 inches. The distribution of the load is of 
 greater importance than its weight. 
 
 In the days of light chain mail a special 
 saddle was evolved with a deep seat wherein 
 
ARMOURED HORSEMEN 147 
 
 the rider was locked against the cantle by the 
 straight thrust of his legs against box stirrups. 
 As chain mail gave way to the heavier plate 
 armour, the saddle bars were more and more 
 widely padded until they covered every avail- 
 able inch of the rigid ribs. 
 
 Nobody seems to have noticed that with 
 every kind of armour a chamois or buckskin 
 lining afforded a rough-grain leather strapping 
 for the unarmoured seat and thighs, and this 
 gave a greasy grip against the oiled saddle. 
 
 As the use of gunpowder advanced, piece by 
 piece the armour was put aside, until now 
 nothing remains but the cuirass ; but the 
 leather lining retained its usefulness, and 
 leather breeches are still in very general use 
 among modern horsemen because they give an 
 excellent grip on the saddle. 
 
 Armour had reached and passed its greatest 
 weight when the Spaniards conquered the new 
 world, and the Conquistadores took to Peru 
 and Mexico their weight-distributing saddle, 
 buckskin grip, high cantle and box stirrups. 
 The strays from their horse and cattle stock 
 bred feral herds which spread into North 
 America. So stock riders were engaged to 
 handle the Spanish cattle on Andalusian 
 ponies. They kept the old war saddle quite 
 
148 THE STOCK SADDLE 
 
 unchanged, with its weight distribution, high 
 cantle, box stirrups and oiled leather seat. 
 
 Next came the American of the North to 
 learn from Texans their art of handling stock, 
 and almost throughout the Western States the 
 Vaquero was replaced by the Cowboy. Both 
 were abstemious and hard-working men. In 
 their valour, gentleness, skill and power as 
 rough-riders they were equals, and hardly sur- 
 passed. The methods of both in horse- 
 breaking were altogether vile, and the horse- 
 mastership almost as bad. But there the 
 equality ends ; for the cowboy had endurance 
 and vitality beyond all comparison in the 
 modern world, was master where the Vaquero 
 of Mexico is servant, had the brains and 
 character, the chivalry and high initiative of a 
 ruUng race. Without the Red Indian grace 
 in horsemanship, the American cow-puncher 
 takes rank with the knight-at-arms and the 
 cavaUer among the greater horsemen of all 
 ages. It is well to give him the credit for 
 experienced and practical good sense in matters 
 of horsemanship and equipment. 
 
 The Ranche hand as Horsemaster. While 
 a pony sold at ten dollars he was not con- 
 sidered worth educating. A professional 
 broncho buster took him in hand for five 
 
HORSE MASTERSHIP 149 
 
 dollars, and smashed him. The pony was a 
 wild animal, timid but ferocious. The broncho 
 buster was not at all timid, but he was fero- 
 cious to an extent which horrified the animal, 
 and intelligent to a degree which reduced the 
 victim to abject obedience. So the horse 
 surrendered and came into the care of a cow- 
 puncher. They started out together on the 
 range, and if they felt fresh of a morning there 
 would be a bucking match which both of them 
 rather enjoyed. There was no ill feeHng, for 
 after all a horse is as good a sportsman as any 
 man. Then came the work of handHng 
 cattle, and the horse enjoyed that sport which 
 taxed all he had of courage and skill and en- 
 durance. It made a partnership between two 
 persons who loved sport, and dealt with cattle 
 as mere lower animals. There was hearty 
 good fellowship between horse and man, which 
 sometimes ripened into a love stronger than 
 death. 
 
 Of horsemastership as understood in civi- 
 lized life there never was a symptom. When 
 the puncher, after long months of abstinent 
 living, happened to ride into a town, he stepped 
 off his horse, threw the rein to the ground and 
 left the animal standing in the street while he 
 got drunk. Afterwards the pony would carry 
 
ISO THE COWBOY 
 
 him homeward unless he became dead drunk 
 and fell off. The pony went to camp anyway, 
 to get himself unsaddled and join the herd. 
 Sometimes the puncher didn't even get drunk, 
 being broke, or in love, but that made no 
 difference to his meticulous neglect of the 
 whole practice of horsemastership as explained 
 in books. 
 
 And the ponies prospered, usually fat as 
 butter because they lived a perfectly natural 
 life. 
 
 The Ranche Hand as Horseman. Nobody 
 taught the budding cowboy any art of riding. 
 It was merely a habit. When the saddle 
 taught him to sit well down and ride straight 
 leg he ceased to tumble off. When he left off 
 interfering with the rein the horse steered clear 
 of holes, and there were neither stumbles nor 
 falls. 
 
 From camp gossip he knew that a horse can- 
 not buck if one keeps his head up. If the 
 novice did amiss the foreman or some elder 
 cowhand advised him. The pride of a great 
 calling made him a stickler for exquisite form 
 in riding, and the emulation to beat rival 
 outfits imposed on each a high standard of 
 efficiency. The work was usually done at a 
 canter to allow of the lightning swiftness in 
 
RANCHE HORSEMANSHIP 151 
 
 turning to head off cattle, wherein the punch- 
 ing of cows closely resembles polo. Travel on 
 the other hand was alternate trotting and walk- 
 ing. The seat at the canter was almost Red 
 Indian in its grace. The seat at the trot thrust 
 the buttocks against the cantle, and raked the 
 body at a slant very stiffly forward, the back 
 forming a straight line, and the head thrown 
 up so that the eyes were level to the horizon. 
 This trotting seat was ungainly, but, hke the 
 more graceful EngHsh trotting, was supposed 
 to ease the horse. Undoubtedly the horse- 
 manship was fine, especially in the deUcate art 
 of roping, and never more so than in the 
 occasional use of a pony as pack animal on 
 journeys. The single-hand diamond hitch in 
 loading a pack horse is a very fair test of a 
 man's all-round skill and deftness with the 
 hands. Other signs of fine horsemanship 
 might be noted in the suppling of leather work, 
 the pride in a clean gun, and a youthful delight 
 in silver ornament of belt and spur and bridle. 
 In the study of American range horseman- 
 ship it is well to remember that the experts who 
 contributed to the practice were not limited to 
 ranche hands, but included scouts, the military, 
 forest, fire, game and other types of rangers, 
 trappers and wolf ers, express riders, prospectors, 
 
152 EQUIPMENT OF HORSEMEN 
 
 traders, the Rocky Mountain outlaws, the 
 sheriffs and marshals and Mounted Police. 
 The equipment is mainly of Spanish origin, and 
 named with Spanish words. 
 
 II. EQUIPMENT OF HORSEMEN. 
 
 The healthfulness of a horseman's life has 
 developed to the fullest extent his natural 
 passions both in love and w^ar, and it is a notable 
 fact that the males of nearly all species who 
 love and defend their mates go very bravely 
 dressed. So in all ages both military and 
 civilian horsemen have w^orn an honest 
 bravery and gallantry of equipment suited for 
 loving and fighting, for quests of bold adven- 
 ture and of conquest. Much that in a clerk or 
 craftsman would be grotesque is seemly for 
 mounted men. 
 
 The Sweat Pad. In Queensland, Argen- 
 tino and pack train practice, it is usual to lay 
 on the horse's back a soft sugar sack, a crash 
 towel or other fabric not Kkely to slip or crinkle. 
 This is called the sweat pad. Its first purpose 
 is to receive the special marks made by any 
 turning or chafing of the horse's hair which may 
 be the beginnings of a gall. Its second purpose 
 is to take the sweat, hair, scurf, grease and dirt 
 which would not be noticed on a dark blanket, 
 but is easily seen and rubbed or washed out of a 
 
THE BLANKET 153 
 
 sweat pad. The third purpose is to keep the 
 blanket perfectty clean for the man's use at 
 night. With saddle and pack horses the 
 horseman gets two blankets, a canvas pack 
 cover and his rain coat, enough material for 
 a luxurious bed. 
 
 The Blanket. Because the numnah makes 
 poor bedding one prefers a blanket. If one 
 cuts a hole in a numnah to ease an incipient 
 blister on the horse, the edges of the felt are 
 apt to cause more blisters. Another advant- 
 age of a blanket is that it can be folded in a 
 great many ways to make the saddle fit more 
 perfectly, or to relieve some part of the back 
 which shows signs of galHng. The usual size of 
 blanket folds once lengthways, then once, or a 
 fold of three crossways. Take care to have a 
 fold, and not edges of blanket to the front, lest 
 it ruck under the saddle. 
 
 The American Stock Saddle. As the 
 Mexican wooden tree was never strong enough, 
 the American has rivetted to the fore ends of 
 the bars a fork of wrought steel which is sur- 
 mounted by the horn which takes the strain 
 in roping. In the twentieth century this arch 
 has widened to make a larger opening clear of the 
 withers, and it gives heavy shoulders to the 
 saddle. To save weight the old square skirts 
 
154 THE STIRRUP 
 
 have been trimmed and rounded. The seat 
 still slopes sharply from front to rear, throwing 
 the rider's weight against the cantle. The 
 horse-hair cincha (girth) is replaced by one of 
 lamp wick, which causes less irritation. The 
 latego or strap to take the purchase in cinching 
 up the saddle has been replaced by the EngUsh 
 strap and buckle to save time. There is a 
 loss, however, in efficiency, because the old 
 double-rig saddle with two cinchas (the second 
 for mountain use and for bucking horses) had 
 two pair of rings, and one was able to sHng 
 a single cincha forward or aft in case the skin 
 showed chafing. A centre-fire rig is never so 
 adaptable for various kinds of use. 
 
 Stirrup. The word means mounting rope, 
 and the ideas of adjusting the rider's balance, 
 and of locking him against the cantle are only 
 after-thoughts. In great cold a steel stirrup 
 would cause dangerous freezing of the feet, 
 and in great heat the metal is apt to burn them. 
 Hence, in Mexican practice, the use of a hard- 
 wood stirrup with a leather floor, and to guard 
 against acacia thorns this is enclosed in a 
 leather box called the tapadero. American 
 practice has dispensed with the leather, and 
 lately reduced the bent-wood stirrup to a 
 mere ring, so large in some cases that the foot 
 
THE AUSTRALIAN SADDLE 15S 
 
 will go through, and thus expose the rider to a 
 risk of being dragged to death. The men of 
 to-day are less practical than those of the old 
 real frontier. 
 
 The Australian Stock Saddle. The 
 Austrahan stockman has done all that was 
 possible to enlarge the bearing surface of the 
 English saddle. He has also added pads, on 
 the same principle as those of a lady's saddle, 
 to retain the knees. The first flight of horse- 
 men have their saddles made with the leather 
 inside out, because the inner surface gives a 
 better grip. By removing the stuffing down 
 the middle of the panel they make a groove to 
 take the leg. Thus by ingenious makeshift 
 they have evolved a practical equipment for 
 their sound, straight-leg horsemanship. As 
 horsemen their best stock-riders are certainly 
 not surpassed by any men of our race, and 
 when one considers that their walers are 
 larger and more powerful than the general 
 stock of North America, Austrahan rough- 
 riding must be rated even above the American. 
 I notice, however, that when they use American 
 equipment they seem to Hke it better than 
 their own. 
 
 The Recado. A careful analysis of the Argen- 
 tine equipment shows that it is the home-made 
 
156 THE BITT 
 
 effort of a first-rate horseman to produce 
 a practical, weight-distributing saddle. The 
 best and most improved forms, however, lack 
 the strength of the Mexican rigging, which the 
 Mexicans themselves reject if they can afford 
 the North American. 
 
 The McClellan Saddle. So far as I 
 remember this model it made no pretence of 
 weight-distribution, while it was coloured 
 black, an excellent device for hiding defects in 
 leather. The saddle was much praised in the 
 United States Army, and may account for the 
 failure of mounted troops to rival the mobility 
 of range horsemen. 
 
 The Bitt. Because our own eyes are in- 
 tended for long sight, we are apt to imagine 
 that the horse has the same habit of studying 
 the horizon. Yet when one lives with a range 
 horse one discovcfrs that he has never seen or 
 imagined any such thing as an horizon. Every- 
 thing beyond a hundred yards is blurred ; but 
 if he were in the habit of reading the newspaper 
 he would hold it about six feet from his eyes, 
 for within that distance his sight is in better 
 focus than our own. 
 
 His eyes differ from ours in having also a 
 much wider angle of vision. One might com- 
 pare our eyes to a brace of guns in the fore 
 
HORSE'S SIGHT 157 
 
 barbette of a warship ; and the horse's eyes to 
 two guns thrown out on sponsons wide of the 
 ship, so that they can be swung round to cover 
 the whole horizon. See how the horse's head 
 is raised so that his own body does not inter- 
 cept his backward sight. See how the head 
 widens to place the eyes as far apart as possible, 
 while the skull tapers upwards to give him a 
 clear view of the sky, and tapers downwards to 
 give a clear view of the ground. There is 
 nothing in the whole sphere of possible vision 
 which the horse cannot see by lifting and 
 lowering his head. 
 
 The intention of the eyes, then, is not to see 
 the distances ahead, but to scrutinize at close 
 range all overhanging branches of the trees, the 
 minutest details of surrounding bush, and most 
 especially with microscopic detail everything 
 underfoot. 
 
 Everybody knows that the horse is clever 
 in avoiding the earth heaps made by burrowing 
 animals, but I think there is also reason to 
 believe that he can distinguish by relative 
 dampness or dryness, and plant growth of the 
 soil those tunnels and chambers of badgers and 
 other ground game which do not reach up to 
 the surface. It is only at full gallop that he 
 fails to see the surface indications of blind 
 
158 THE SLACK REIN 
 
 burrows, and is apt to blunder into them with 
 disastrous results both for himself and for his 
 rider. 
 
 But what has all this got to do with bitts ? 
 We must advance the argument to a further 
 stage. 
 
 In the eighteenth century the EvangeUst, 
 Richard Wesley, rode on his preaching tours 
 some seventy thousand miles on EngHsh high- 
 ways. Because he could buy them cheap he 
 always used stumbling horses. As he rode he 
 would let the rein drop while he read the 
 Bible, and presently would find the stumbler 
 cured. There are some horses, he said, who 
 will stumble over their own shadows, but 
 nearly always a slack rein will cure them. 
 Then one can sell them at a better price, 
 and so make money to pay the expenses of 
 travel. 
 
 To prevent stumbling, the range man trains 
 his horse to slack rein, and in this matter 
 reverts to an old war practice. The steering 
 of horses by the knee is most excellent horse- 
 manship. 
 
 Because I lacked the suppleness for steering 
 by the knee it has been my practice to let the 
 rein lie on the horse's neck. If any steering is 
 needed, it is easy to have the two sides of the 
 
VOILE AND REIN 159 
 
 rein tied in a half hitch, and, holding the knot 
 between thumb and finger, to slap the rein on 
 the side of the neck to show which way one is 
 going. 
 
 Only if the horse needs handhng one rides 
 him on the rein with the utmost possible 
 gentleness of the hand. But if the bitt comes 
 into serious use it is better to have one which 
 will lock on the lower jaw. I find my broken- 
 bar snaffle pulls up a bolting horse in about five 
 jumps, but so far only one or two out of many 
 horses have needed so much severity. The 
 range horse rarely pulls, and I scarcely re- 
 member seeing a double rein in use among 
 range horsemen. 
 
 The greatest disadvantage of the rein is that 
 it serves like a telegraph wire to carry the 
 vibrations of fear. I prefer to use a voice which 
 I can control rather than a hand which is apt 
 to betray me. A low-pitched, quiet voice is 
 very useful if one's hands are rough ; and the 
 training of hands is a grace limited to civifized 
 horsemanship. 
 
 There is a certain pattern of headstall which 
 has the cheek strap coming down to a piece of 
 brass which is best described as a D or squared 
 ring. The nose band ends at the front side of 
 the squared ring. The chin piece ends at the 
 
i6o THE HORSEMAN'S DRESS 
 
 after side of the squared ring, and carries the 
 end of the headrope. From the bottom side 
 of the squared ring hangs a snap to take the 
 ring of a snaffle. So one keeps the headstall on 
 the horse, and snaps the bitt on or off. 
 
 The advantage of curb bitts seems to be 
 mainly in deaUng with dangerous, or very 
 powerful horses, or for an additional delicacy 
 in steering ; but range men prefer to make 
 appliances as simple as possible, and rather 
 dread a complicated gear which may go wrong 
 in sudden emergencies. 
 
 Saddle Wallets. For the general pur- 
 poses of travel I carry in the wallets a tin of 
 gall cure, a medicine case containing chloro- 
 dyne, and tablets of quinine, carbolic acid, 
 cascara, a salicylate and permanganate of 
 potash, with a lancet, forceps, surgical needles 
 and silk, and a dressing ; a mosquito salve 
 such as oil of penn3nroyal, and some nettmg ; a 
 toothbrush in a case, soap in a tobacco pouch, 
 and a towel ; toilet paper ; a Uttle sealed 
 bottle of matches for emergencies ; an emer- 
 gency ration such as cake chocolate ; luncheon ; 
 something to read ; notebook and pencil. 
 
 THE horseman's DRESS. 
 
 Protection from Light. In the history 
 of the North American wilderness there are 
 
THE HORSEMAN'S DRESS i6i 
 
 three very distinct phases. The buckskin 
 period of heroic adventure ; the period of blue 
 shirts and overalls marked by chaotic disorder 
 and the period of yellow khaki and brown 
 clothing with orderly progress. 
 
 The period of blue clothing, however, was 
 one of perfect law and order in the wildest 
 parts of Canada ; of comparative disorder in 
 the North-Western States, and of total chaos 
 in the South- Western deserts. Even in West- 
 ern Canada, suicide was common, and terrific 
 drunks would seize in a moment upon whole 
 communities ; but the Mounted Police, wear- 
 ing scarlet, kept their discipline so that homi- 
 cides were almost invariabl}^ hanged, and 
 robbers imprisoned with prompt efficiency. 
 
 In the North-Western States, the suicides, 
 drunks, lynchings, robberies and homicides 
 were considered as privileges of a free citizen- 
 ship. There were vestiges of government. 
 
 In the South-Western States, the only law 
 was that of the revolver, and duelling took the 
 place of government. 
 
 In the three regions the amount of disorder 
 varied precisely with the intensity of the sun- 
 light, and lawlessness ceased with the intro- 
 duction, at the turn of the twentieth century, 
 of yellow, khaki and brown colours in clothing. 
 
1 62 COLOUR AND MORALS 
 
 All this may be coincidence. The atitudes 
 of the South- Western desert in the Northern 
 hemisphere correspond with those of the South 
 African veldt in the Southern hemisphere. 
 Moreover, the population of the American 
 desert region was about equal to the British 
 Field Force in South Africa. The American 
 frontiersmen wore blue, the British soldiers 
 khaki. Passing from one region to the other, 
 I was astounded by the contrast between the 
 blue-clad frontier supporting four hundred 
 riders by the single industry of robbery-under- 
 arms, and the khaki-clad army which in 
 three-and-a-half years scored only one act of 
 robbery. The peaceful civil population was 
 engaged in blood feuds, promiscuous homicide, 
 and every kind of violent crime ; while the 
 fighting army won the hearty confidence of the 
 Boer field force by its chivalrous protection of 
 the Boer women. In the one case crime was 
 universal, in the other almost unknown. 
 
 And this may still be all coincidence. 
 
 The Great War is fought, mainly in 
 latitude of scant sunlight. The German forces, 
 clad in blue-grey, have made a practice of 
 rape, slaughter of women and children, torture 
 and murder of prisoners, sacking and burning 
 of cities, bombing of unarmed folk, fighting 
 
CLOTHES AND LIGHT 163 
 
 with liquid fire and with poisonous gas. 
 The khaki clad armies have not as yet 
 been charged with military crimes. The 
 blue-clad French army has not fought among 
 a foreign population, has not in fact been 
 tempted or found a motive which makes crime 
 attractive. 
 
 It is beyond the limits of coincidence that 
 where large numbers of white men live an un- 
 sheltered life and wear a single colour, those 
 dressed in blue are guilty — except the French 
 — of violent crime, from which those dressed in 
 compounds of red and yellow are altogether 
 free. 
 
 To the blue, indigo and violet rays of light a 
 white man's body is transparent as so much 
 water. When he lives outdoors his health is 
 normal so long as his body is sheltered by 
 colours which beat back the actinic rays of 
 light. If he wears blue, white, grey or any 
 other colour transparent to these rays, they 
 burn right through him, destroying all germs 
 of disease, and so allowing the body to develop 
 tremendous energy — the keynote of frontier 
 life. After a few years of this, the actinic rays 
 begin to destroy the tissues of the body, and 
 nerves break down. The symptoms of neuras- 
 thenia are : 
 
1 64 DRESS FOR CONCEALMENT 
 
 (i) Hysteria, expressed in wanton crime. 
 
 (2) Dipsomania, expressed in tremendous 
 
 debauches following long spells of 
 abstinence. 
 
 (3) Suicide. 
 
 Every range man will remember how these 
 three forms of nervous disorder have wrecked 
 the lives of his friends, and how the best men 
 were taken, not the weakhngs. If so much 
 disaster is avoided by wearing colours which 
 protect the body from actinic burning, it seems 
 a reasonable conduct to avoid blue clothing, 
 and to copy the hues — such as dun, bay, or 
 brown, which nature provides to guard the 
 animals. 
 
 Protection from Chills. To absorb sweat, 
 all underwear should be woollen. 
 
 Concealment from Enemies. Man is the 
 only animal whose figure is upright, cutting 
 the lines of the landscape, and therefore con- 
 spicuous at a great distance. A single colour 
 is therefore more easily seen than two blobs 
 of colour such as a khaki shirt and brown 
 trousers, or a bay shirt and dun trousers. As 
 armies paint their guns in broken splashes of 
 colour, men's uniforms should not be whole 
 coloured if they are to blend with the landscape 
 
 The Hat. The Red Indian calls the white 
 
THE HAT 165 
 
 men " hat-wearers," and takes notice of our 
 baldness. Savages who wear no hats are never 
 bald. Why then should we wear hats ? I 
 think that on the range, if we began early 
 enough, we should do well to let our hair grow 
 for the protection of the head and the nape of 
 the neck from the sun. On the old American 
 Frontier the pioneers did grow long hair 
 because a man with no scalplock was not worth 
 killing, and therefore barred from councils of 
 the Indians. 
 
 The primitive hat of the range was a disc of 
 bison skin, sodden, and the middle, thrust into 
 a hole in the ground, was filled with stones. 
 A leather string laced round the edge kept the 
 brim from flopping. A leather band fitted the 
 crown to the head. 
 
 Later came a Mr. Stetson of Philadelphia, 
 with a copy of this range hat in beaver-fur felt 
 soaked in shellac, and so felted that the edges 
 did not flop. A bootlace round the front of the 
 hatband passed through an eyelet above each 
 ear, and was tied with a hard knot behind the 
 head. This prevented the hat from blowing 
 away and let in air behind the head to ventilate 
 the crown. Pinching the crown with four 
 dints for the words North West Mounted 
 Pohce, branded the cowboy Stetson as a 
 
1 66 THE MEASURE OF WARMTH 
 
 soldier's hat which was adopted in South 
 Africa by most of the mounted Irregulars of the 
 British Empire, and by the Boy Scouts who 
 copied the design in felt of rabbit fur. 
 
 A rival type of slouch hat which flopped down 
 all round was used by the ancient Greeks. 
 Looped on one side it was worn by the 
 Cavaliers of the British Civil War, looped on 
 three sides it became the cocked hat of the 
 eighteenth century, and on two sides, of the 
 Napoleonic era, surviving in diplomatic uni- 
 form' sand those of naval officers and civic 
 functionaries. Looped on one side again it was 
 worn in the American Civil War, and by British 
 Africanders and Australasians. Softened and 
 not looped it replaced the stifF-brimmed 
 Stetson on the American range. 
 
 Shirt. It was among the Eskimo that I 
 learned the philosophy of the shirt. These 
 very practical folk wear a hooded shirt, close- 
 fitting at the throat, wrists and waist. For 
 summer the material is cotton or serge, for 
 winter the warmest furs ; but in any case it 
 forms a bag of air warmed by the body. The 
 shirt then consists of an outer garment of skin 
 or a textile fabric, and an inner garment of 
 ^-heated air protecting the vital organs. Opened 
 at neck and wrists it is the coolest of garments, 
 
SHIRT AND BREECHES 167 
 
 closed it is the warmest for any given weight. 
 In contrast a coat or jacket is open at the 
 bottom, the front, the neck and the wrists, so 
 that four times the weight is needed to produce 
 the warmth of a shirt. 
 
 Mihtary dress is always a belated copy of 
 the civil costume in each period. 
 
 It is designed by a contractor whose motive 
 is to obtain the handling of pubUc money. 
 It is approved by a military official who has 
 never done a day's labour or a day's fighting 
 with the weapons of the enhsted man. Hence 
 the persistence of the Roman tunic which 
 excels all known garments in cost, weight, the 
 cramping of the lungs, and the disabhng of the 
 arms and shoulders whose perfect freedom is 
 needed for wielding weapons and tools. For 
 working or fighting it has to be removed. 
 
 The mounted civilian rides for pleasure in a 
 coat, the mounted soldier rides for duty in a 
 tunic, the range horseman rides for a living 
 and wears a shirt. By the exercise of human 
 reason the range man protects his vital organs 
 at a fourth part of the cost, weight, and en- 
 cumbrance to which the fashions have sub- 
 jected the sportsmen and the soldiers. 
 
 Breeches. The dress of a gentleman has 
 always been that of the mounted warrior. 
 
i68 PHILOSOPHY OF TROUSERS 
 
 When plate armour had to be given up because 
 it was no longer bullet proof its lining survived 
 in the form of leather breeches. These 
 leathers are usually whitewashed, but they are 
 still worn by the British Household Cavalry, 
 who are " Gentlemen of the King's guard " ; 
 by hunting men ; by the mounted servants 
 who used to be armed retainers and still wear 
 livery as such ; and in the charro dress of 
 Mexico. They belong to the tradition of 
 aristocracy. 
 
 The principle of breeches is a close fit for the 
 inner surface of the knee and thigh, because 
 with heavy material such as leather or cloth 
 any wrinkles against the saddle will tear off 
 one's skin and cause a deal of pain. With bent 
 leg riding, the outer surface of the thighs had 
 to be loosened, and this loosening has developed 
 into monstrous puffed sleeves which expose the 
 Englishman to ridicule on an irreverent stock- 
 range. 
 
 Trousers. During the French Revolution, 
 gentlemen in the town dress of the period, 
 with knee breeches and silk stockings, had 
 their heads chopped off, and all who valued 
 their health took to trousers as an expression 
 of Hberal opinions. Trousers to the heels as 
 distinguished from trousers tucked into boots 
 
TROUSERS AND BOOTS 169 
 
 are still worn in Russia to indicate liberal 
 views. An ultra-royalist is not content with 
 long boots, but must add rubber overshoes to 
 make his feet look large. 
 
 Away from the influence of EngHsh fashions, 
 the horsemen of the world wear trousers ; of 
 cloth in the Russian Empire and South 
 Africa, of moleskin in Australasia, of duck in 
 North America. Any kind of tight clothing 
 which cramps the limbs is looked upon as an 
 abomination. 
 
 Boots. Long boots were recommended by 
 Xenophon to the Greeks, low shoes are older 
 still. Both save the natural strength and 
 spring of the ankle which is needed in mount- 
 ing a horse, useful in riding him. 
 
 Towards the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury the increase of town life and improved 
 paving made boot-tops worn under trousers 
 appear superfluous in weight, cost and dis- 
 comfort. Thus came the ankle boot as an 
 economy and a comfort, but coupled with it 
 was a lacing to " support " the ankle. To 
 lace a man's ankle or a woman's waist is to 
 replace with a merely stiff material the strong 
 elastic muscles of the natural body, and sap the 
 necessary health and strength which God has 
 given. 
 
I70 THE LOGIC OF BOOTS 
 
 In all outdoor life long boots ensure dry feet, 
 and the top should reach the knee-cap to be of 
 real use in wet ground, or when one kneels 
 cooking beside the camp fire. The boot legs 
 guard one against venomous reptiles and 
 insects, and protect the shin bone which, for 
 lack of any muscle, is hable to be broken by 
 many kinds of accident. Lacing either a long 
 or an ankle boot puts an end to free ventilation 
 of the foot, making the skin to sweat, to soften, 
 and in many cases to become offensive. 
 
 For horsemen the boot leg is a useful pro- 
 tection from the chafing of stirrup leathers. 
 
 In war the soldier who wears laced boots is 
 obliged to sleep in them, whereas long boots, 
 kept properly greased, are so quickly put on 
 that it is safe to remove them at night. For 
 infantry, the world's marching record was 
 made by Colorado miners as volunteers for the 
 New Mexico campaign. They wore long boots, 
 as do the Russian and Germanic armies whose 
 marching is said to be better than that of the 
 French and British who have laced the ankle. 
 
 The boot leg should not be shaped like a 
 bucket to catch rain as with the United States 
 Cavalry, or like a stovepipe to cripple a man 
 afoot as with British horsemen. Without 
 being tight like the puttee for the production 
 
THE BOOT-LEG 171 
 
 of varicocele, the boot leg should fit close. The 
 ankle should be supple as a stocking, and 
 " bellowsed " to make sure of suppleness. 
 The counter should be of the hardest possible 
 leather, thick, but fining upwards to an edge, 
 and so made that when the man's foot spreads 
 the foot of the boot, this fine upper edge, 
 closes over the ball of the heel to prevent 
 chafing. For the horseman the heel should be 
 broad and flat, or high and tapering to prevent 
 it from getting through the stirrups. 
 
 The boot-top of the seventeenth century 
 came well up the thigh, but was turned down 
 in summer for coolness, showing the brown 
 inside of the leather. Later on this turned 
 down top was replaced for smartness by a use- 
 less detachable cuff. For smartness also, the 
 English leg was made rigid, disabling the 
 wearer. Lately I went to a smart London 
 maker for boots to suit my need of a supple 
 ankle, flat heel, and modelled counter. The 
 sales gentleman made me feel acutely that I 
 was a cad, the workmen struck, and the pro- 
 prietor corrected my design, revenging himself 
 in his bill for the delay he caused me. It is in 
 details such as this that one feels that the 
 whole art of horsemanship in England has 
 become a frozen convention, and is dying. 
 
172 SPURS 
 
 Spurs. The spur was a prick or goad, from 
 Roman times down to the thirteenth century. 
 With plate armour came a rowel on a long 
 shank. This rowel has shrunk in Europe to a 
 small sharp weapon which draws blood, but on 
 the American stock range it has increased in 
 size to an average of three inches. The larger 
 the points are the more they can be blunted, 
 and the less they hurt a horse. On the old 
 American range an Englishman removed the 
 rowels from his spurs or adopted the blunt 
 rowel before he was considered fit for human 
 society. 
 
 The rowel should be loose enough to rattle, 
 so that at night one may go to one's horse in 
 pasture, and, knowing the sound of his master, 
 he will not run away. 
 
 A gentle spur is used to encourage and not to 
 hurt a horse, to bring him to attention, to aid 
 in fine steering. It may be locked in the 
 girth so that, holding on by one leg one may He 
 behind the horse's neck when under fire, or 
 pick up a rope from the ground. 
 
 Neck Cloth. A kerchief loose round the 
 neck saves the top of the spine from sunstroke. 
 It should be of any colour not containing blue, 
 of the lightest silk for use as mosquito bar at 
 night, and twenty-six inches square for use as a 
 
SHAPS 173 
 
 sling, bandage, or tourniquet in case of acci- 
 dent. 
 
 Shaps (from Chapareras — protection from 
 chapparal or thorns of acacia). These are 
 leggings reaching from waist to heel of heavy 
 oiled leather. They differ from trousers in 
 having no seat or fly, but consist of two trunks 
 each laced or buckled down the outer seam of 
 the leg, and attached at the waist to a half belt. 
 The two half belts are tied together in front 
 with one turn of a leather string, ready to 
 break apart if they get caught on the horn of 
 the saddle in bucking, and fastened again with 
 buckle and strap behind. 
 
 The woolly or hairy fronted shaps made for 
 snowy or wet districts are more plentiful among 
 tenderfeet, showmen and cinema actors than 
 they ever were upon the modest stock range. 
 The usual pattern is of plain brown leather, 
 nearly black with use. It is sometimes fringed, 
 or ornamented with silver dollars or even 
 twenty dollar golden pieces down the outer 
 seam. 
 
 The uses of shaps are to give a grip in the 
 saddle, to shelter the legs from heat, cold, rain, 
 snow, to serve as armour agamst kicking, 
 biting, scraping, backfalls, rolling and other 
 diversions of horses, the horns of cattle, rocks, 
 
174 ARMS AND MORALS 
 
 thorns, snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, rope 
 abrasions, grass fires and other Httle dis- 
 comforts. Their excellent comfort in the 
 saddle, and in lieu of blankets at night, would be 
 enough to justify their use, but without them 
 one would be hurt or even seriously killed in 
 course of the day's work. As they make walk- 
 ing difficult they are useless for all the purposes 
 of war. 
 
 Arms. On the great ranges Romance is 
 just as prevalent as sunshine, and Emotion 
 blows as freely as the wind, but in this study 
 we have to do with Reason. In cold blood we 
 are trying to study equipment and methods of 
 men whose lives depend upon sound, practical, 
 unbiassed common sense. 
 
 When a fellow takes to the range what are 
 his motives ? If he goes out to hunt for 
 trouble he will do well to buy a large, well- 
 balanced, accurately-sighted, blued revolver of 
 a simple pattern not readily clogged or dam- 
 aged. He will devote his leisure for many 
 months to practice at all ranges, in all sorts of 
 weather, in light and darkness, afoot and 
 mounted until he can fire a double-roll fusillade. 
 If he gets killed at practice, so much the better 
 for the public. If not he has only to take to 
 the range and make himself a general nuisance 
 
SELF-RELIANCE 175 
 
 until he meets a better shot than himself. I 
 never met a man with more than twenty- 
 seven notches on his gun-stock, but have 
 known plenty who took an honest pleasure in 
 blotting out unnecessary gun-fools. 
 
 If a fellow takes to the range, who is not in 
 search of trouble, but merely intends to earn 
 an honest living and make a decent home, he is 
 better without a weapon. When I was a 
 younger fool than I am now, and took a delight 
 in revolvers, and bluffed with a gun, it nearly 
 always got me into trouble. I found that it was 
 a poor thing to shirk the first obligation of 
 manhood, which is self-reliance, and sink to 
 mere dependence on a weapon. 
 
 Nobody who can possibly run away is fool 
 enough to encounter single-handed a homicidal 
 maniac on the war path, a gang of vigilantes or 
 desperadoes in a nasty temper, or a hostile 
 tribe of savages. Against such odds the use of 
 a weapon in the open is merely suicide. The 
 first thing needed is an inward prayer which 
 makes one's nerve quite steady. A serene 
 manner fills the enemy with misgivings that 
 one has unseen support. To throw one's 
 weapon to the enemy as a gift is to surprise him 
 into talking. Once he begins, the more 
 vociferous he is, the sooner he talks himself out. 
 
176 RANGE WEAPONS 
 
 A maniac temper will evaporate in talk in 
 about forty-five minutes, but savages will 
 sometimes last two hours or more before they 
 are quite run down. After the first laugh one 
 may walk away in safety. It is not safe to be 
 seen in the state of collapse which follows the 
 overstrain. 
 
 The killing of live creatures or even men has 
 always been abhorrent to me. I am not 
 sure of having murdered anything bigger than 
 a crow with a broken leg, who had to be knocked 
 out with a stone as an act of mercy. Not being 
 a sportsman I ma}' not advise on the use of 
 weapons for sport. 
 
 Weapons. There are three weapons used 
 only by range horsemen. The lasso, known on 
 the range as The Rope, consists of a noose 
 which is spun by a delicate play of the thumb, 
 throw^n to its length, and the strain taken by 
 saddle and horse as it catches a running beast. 
 We share this practice with the ancient Peruv- 
 ians, Sarmatians, Sagartians, and Scythians, 
 and the modern Tartars of the Asiatic steppe. 
 
 The bolas are three egg-shaped weights 
 connected by as many plaited strings with a 
 rawhide rope, and thrown Hke the riata to 
 catch wild animals. This instrument belongs 
 to Patagonia and the Argentine pampas. 
 
THE STOCK-WHIP 177 
 
 The stock whip . This is an Australian develop- 
 ment of the switch. It consists of an 18-inch 
 wooden tapering handle, a keeper of kangaroo 
 hide, a lo-foot thong of kangaroo hide in a 
 tapering 12 or 16 plait, an 18-inch tail of green 
 hide, and a plaited cracker of sewing cotton. 
 At a range of twenty feet one flick knocked a 
 revolver out of my hand and lashed my wrist 
 to the thigh, making me a disarmed prisoner, 
 yet causing no more pain than the brush of a 
 fly's wing. It convinced me as to the useful- 
 ness of this weapon. 
 
 III. THE WAYS OF RANGE HORSEMEN. 
 
 On one occasion it was my privilege to 
 assemble seventy horsemen whose united ex- 
 perience of the stock-range covered the grass 
 lands of Asia from Mongoha to Hungary, 
 Eastern and Southern Africa, all states of 
 Australasia, Patagonia, the Argentine, the 
 Llano, and every state and province of the open 
 pasture in Mexico, the United States and 
 Canada. Among us we compiled a brief text 
 defining our ideas of range as distinguished from 
 civiUsed horsemanship. The text was printed 
 as a chapter on '* The Horse " in " The 
 Frontiersman's Pocket Book " (John Murray), 
 which I compiled and edited on behalf of the 
 Legion of Frontiersmen. The present volume 
 
178 PLEASURE HORSEMANSHIP 
 
 is merely an application of these range prin- 
 ciples to the study of horses and horseman- 
 ship. 
 
 The pretension of range horsemen as a class 
 is to earn a living by the use of cheap working 
 horses, riding with a weight-distributing equip- 
 ment and pack transport, while we base our 
 mobility upon a herd of remounts. 
 
 For pleasure horsemanship our feeling is one 
 of admiring envy. No men are better able to 
 appreciate the incomparable gallantry and elan 
 of the hunting field, especially in Ireland, the 
 beautiful spectacles afforded by racing, horse 
 shows, and tournaments, the grand pageantry 
 of state functions in European capitals. Even 
 such pretty futilities as Portuguese bull-baiting 
 and the Haut Ecole of France appeal to us as 
 horsemen. As to military horsemansliip we 
 have an unbounded admiration for the fine 
 driving of the Royal Horse Artillery, and the 
 obstacle riding of the Mexican Regular Cavalry. 
 On the other hand we are not stricken with awe 
 at the circus tricks of the Cossack,, although we 
 may be surprised to see a luggage strap used for 
 girth. Nor are we emulous of the horse- 
 killing man-endurance rides which used to 
 be considered good sport by European cavalry. 
 We can do the Httle circus tricks ourselves, 
 
HORSEMANSHIP 179 
 
 and make our endurance rides without killing 
 our horses. 
 
 Among ourselves we are more critical. The 
 Mexican ranchero for example wears a revolver 
 on the belt, a sword on the saddle, a silver 
 bridle, a suit of leather beautifully laced with 
 gold or silver, and a most prodigious hat. But 
 do these fine feathers make him a fine bird ? 
 Or is the prancing arch-necked horse made 
 sprightly by pinched shoes and a spade bitt ? 
 
 By contrast the Boer is the most slovenly 
 of horsemen, both in his old slop suit and in his 
 flapping gait, but in scouting and fighting by 
 far the best instructor we ever met, and either 
 as enemy or friend we love his manhood. If 
 horsemanship is an expression of manhood, we 
 do not mind the form if we can get the fact. 
 More manhood goes to the making of one Boer 
 than to a hundred Mexicans. 
 
 Searching for the elements distinctive of 
 range horsemanship, as contrasted with the 
 pleasure, the military and the working horse- 
 manship of civilization, a few essential things 
 come clearly into view. 
 
 Rough Riding. When a range man is asked 
 if he can ride, as a matter of course he says 
 " No." But if he really wants to come up 
 against the champion outlaw horse of the 
 
i8o ROUGH-DRIVING 
 
 neighbourhood his denial is not emphatic. 
 Like a professional singer asked for a song, he 
 excuses himself, and pleads to a certain dry- 
 ness in the throat, but, when the money induce- 
 ments are sufficient, owns up that he thinks he 
 can ride. 
 
 The rough riding of the range is incompar- 
 able, but as the broncho buster is usually 
 smashed internally if not killed outright within 
 three years of practice, this worst possible 
 method of breaking a horse is lacking in 
 practical value. 
 
 Rough-Driving. Our rough-drivers are 
 perhaps the greatest horsemen living, and 
 their feats are the more glorious because there 
 are no spectators to give the stimulus of their 
 applause. A single example may be per- 
 mitted here : 
 
 Constable Harty, of D Division in the Royal 
 North-West Mounted PoHce, was driving a 
 four-horse team with a waggonette, his pas- 
 sengers being the Earl and Countess of Aber- 
 deen, Viceroy and Vicereine of Canada. Ford- 
 ing one of the fiendish Alberta rivers the near 
 wheeler lay down and drowned herself, while 
 the waggonette, half afloat, was being tilted 
 in danger of capsizal. The teamster swam 
 under and with his knife attempted to cut the 
 
ROUGH RIDING i8i 
 
 dead mare out of harness. Failing in this he 
 dimbed up, stood astride with bent knees on 
 the waggon seat, and Hfted the team up the 
 river bank to safety while the dead mare 
 dragged under the wheels. 
 
 So varied are the styles in horsemanship that 
 nobody pretends to leadership, and every man 
 of real experience counts himself a student 
 rather than a master. Only the other day an 
 Instructor in Equitation showed me how to 
 trot a horse straight down a steep slope of 
 grass, explaining it was so good to supple the 
 animal's shoulders. Of course I always knew 
 I was a fool, but never before had I reaUzed the 
 abysmal depths of my own ignorance. 
 
 So far then as an old fool may be permitted, 
 I venture to submit some gossip on the average 
 range practice of a day's march in the wilder- 
 ness. The equipment for horse and man is 
 already dealt with, except in regard to packing, 
 a subject which would need a special volume. 
 
 In Mounted Police regiments there is a rule 
 that no constable may travel alone on journeys 
 exceeding a day's march. It is a good rule, 
 because a chap may get hurt or be left afoot, 
 and so perish for lack of a helping hand. 
 
 It is easy enough to warn a fellow not to 
 travel alone in wilderness, but quite impossible 
 
1 82 THE ART OF TRAVEL 
 
 to take even one's own advice. Most likely 
 nobody else is going in that direction, or the 
 fellow who offers his company would make a 
 first-rate stranger. But in any case three 
 horses will travel better than one, and by 
 changing about one gets a longer march. That 
 is why one generally travels with ride, pack 
 and spare mounts. As to the pack, the load 
 at which an average animal can keep pace 
 with the mounted man is one hundred-and- 
 twenty pounds, and with such a cargo should 
 not be stopped either by swamps or rivers, bush 
 or mountains. The weight may seem exces- 
 sive for one man's supplies, but it is always 
 worth while to carry a ration or two of grain. 
 
 An advantage of the three-horse method is 
 in the encouragement it gives them on the 
 trail. They are quick to scratch up friendship 
 among themselves, are never happy except in 
 company, and running together may take their 
 man into fellowship. 
 
 Buying. So long as the American range 
 was really wild an unsound horse was palmed 
 off on the nearest townsman, or shot, or turned 
 loose as worthless. To-day the proposal to buy 
 a horse in any western town brings forth 
 are amazing collection of relics, cripples, colts, 
 curios, and criminals. The old timers will 
 
THE ART OF BUYING 183 
 
 not sell except to horsemen, but when they 
 offer a horse one may buy blindfold. Except 
 in dealing with real frontiersmen one takes a 
 horse on approval or not at all. 
 
 After the main essentials of a pure heart and 
 four legs, I look for large eyes with no 
 white showing, and a broad forehead. If a 
 horse is nervous when approached, he cannot 
 be relied upon in emergencies. If he is less 
 than seven years of age he is not fully matured 
 for work which needs endurance. I prefer a 
 gelding as being less flighty, less apt to break 
 back than a mare. I will add dollars to get a 
 glutton, close quickly with the offer of a horse 
 in really hard condition, refuse a rough-gaited 
 trotter as a gift, and cannot be paid to ride a 
 beast who bucks. As to the ' points ' by 
 which a civilised horseman judges horseflesh, 
 they are all very nice if one has plenty of 
 money. The prices have trebled since the turn 
 of the century. 
 
 Making Friends. There are many little 
 kindnesses which help to ease the labour of a 
 horse. He has just as much pride as a man in 
 smart equipment, has vanity enough to relish 
 a glossy coat, to show off in company, chal- 
 lenge for admiration with gallant carriage of 
 his neck and tail, and prove himself much 
 
1 84 SADDLING AND MOUNTING 
 
 swifter than his fellows. Pet him a Httle and 
 he will insist upon being fussed with. Give 
 such dainties as sugar, apples or carrots, and 
 he will ever be nuzzling at your pockets. His 
 low, soft love call for greeting of a morning is 
 well worth while for any man to earn. This is 
 not given to the man who thinks of a horse as 
 '* it." 
 
 The Saddling. After throwing the saddle 
 on, pass the hands all over the blanket under 
 the flaps to see there is no rucking. Lift the 
 blanket into the arch of the saddle to be sure 
 that no pressure will rest upon the withers. 
 Shift the saddle aft until quite sure it is free of 
 the shoulder blades. Girth up, and be sure 
 the horse is not holding his wind. If there is 
 doubt the off knee in his stomach will make 
 him relax his lungs. 
 
 Mounting. The weapon, be it spear or 
 rifle, must be wielded with the right arm, so 
 the rein is held by the left hand. To secure 
 the rein with the left hand involves mounting 
 on the near side of the horse. There is an 
 advantage, however, in departing from uni- 
 versal practice and training the horse to be 
 mounted from either side. One may be hurt 
 and unable to mount on the near side when 
 there is peril in being left afoot. 
 
PUNISHMENT 185 
 
 The First Mile. Walking the first mile 
 supples the horse and eases the harness. A 
 horse who holds his wind can then be butted 
 with the knee in his stomach while the girth 
 is pulled up to the proper notch for safety. 
 
 Punishment. If one thinks of a horse as a 
 little child one cannot be far wrong. One 
 does not flog a child. DiscipHne there must be 
 with horses as with children, or both grow 
 worthless, but punishment is the surest possible 
 sign of the man's incompetence, for the horse 
 rarely understands the motive, or understand- 
 ing becomes mutinous. Nine times out of ten 
 after punishing my horse I have found out that 
 I had been myself in the wrong by saddhng 
 too far forward and cramping the shoulder- 
 blades, by some defect in putting on the 
 blanket, knotting the headrope badly, or fail- 
 ing to watch the farrier's work in shoeing. The 
 seeming misconduct was due perhaps to agoniz- 
 ing pain, as in one instance from a hidden 
 ulcer. So when my horse forgets his manners, 
 loses his temper, or goes badly, I examine 
 my conduct to find where I am to blame. 
 
 It is an outrage and disastrous to the horse's 
 morals to strike him in front of the saddle. 
 The exceptions to that rule are for great 
 experts only. 
 
1 86 THE PACE THAT SAVES 
 
 Paces. Whether the wild horse trots, is not 
 a subject in which the range horse has given 
 me any guidance. In handHng stock he 
 usually goes on grass and prefers to canter. In 
 travel he usually goes on a road, and dis- 
 tinctly prefers to trot. From careful watch- 
 ing I doubt if he Hkes trotting on grass, as the 
 hoofs are apt to brush and may stumble 
 against the turf. A canter on road or very 
 hard ground jars him, and is likely to cause 
 injury to feet and legs. 
 
 There are certain artificial gaits most vari- 
 ously named such as the tripple, rack, pace, 
 and side pace adopted I think under compul- 
 sion of lazy horsemen who find them comfort- 
 able. I have known horses using such gaits to 
 lag miserably until I persuaded them that 
 trotting was permitted, after which they 
 cheered up and gained in speed. 
 
 As a slow walk tires both man and horse 
 much more than the trot or canter, it is easy, 
 by riding on the rein and using a little persua- 
 sion, to train an average animal in fast walking. 
 
 On the whole then a steady alternation of trot 
 and walk, making the day's gait about five 
 miles an hour, is the best economy for journeys. 
 
 On marches exceeding fifty-five miles a day 
 the canter, trot and walk become alternate 
 
SEAT 187 
 
 gaits, but journeys must then be broken with 
 days for rest. 
 
 Hills. Trotting or running a horse down 
 hill is a matter for high-powered animals. 
 With ordinary horses the down slopes must be 
 reserved for walking, the level and upward 
 slopes for trotting. The longer and steeper 
 hills involve walking, but even in them there 
 are dips and levels which permit one to vary 
 the pace, nursing the horse through the march 
 in the least possible number of hours. It is 
 the flagging, not the brisk day's work, which 
 causes most fatigue. 
 
 Seat. I have seen horses prosper under all 
 the different and possible methods of decent 
 horsemen, and do not believe that form makes 
 any difference. From the Red Indians of the 
 plains I learned to sit skin tight and upright 
 at the trot and canter. 
 
 Having no voice to boast of, I test my seat 
 at the various gaits by singing, and if there is 
 any sign of quivering in the notes, look well to 
 my grip and balance, lest I jar the horse. His 
 ears express horror, but his kidneys seem at 
 peace ; and I have usually fattened thin 
 horses on my journeys. The skin-tight seat 
 is that which is practised and recommended 
 by all range horsemen. 
 
1 88 EASE 
 
 Ease. General Sir Robert Baden-Powell 
 kindly advised me as follows : — 
 
 '' Letting men sit side-saddle on a tired 
 horse is the easiest way of giving it a sore back. 
 At walking gait it is far better for the rider to 
 dismount and walk. The loup or lobbing 
 canter is the easiest pace for man and horse. 
 Except a continuous walk, the round trot is 
 the most tiring. Frequent cantering and 
 walking alternately — the rider then going on 
 foot — is the way to get over the ground in 
 going a long distance." 
 
 The above note is one of high authority as 
 applying to English equipment ; but I found 
 it received with a certain lack of respect by 
 men using a weight-distributing saddle. We 
 all sit side-saddle when we please, or more often 
 ride on one thigh or the other. None of us 
 have seen sore back except with lean or ex- 
 hausted horses, worn out saddlery, or in cases 
 of gross neglect. 
 
 The range man does not look upon riding as 
 a formal parade, but Ukes to practise circus 
 tricks, or lounge at ease while he smokes, reads 
 a book, sings, or pla3^s some musical instru- 
 ment. I have seen the cowhand wile away 
 the time by eating a quart of pickles. For my 
 part, a luncheon from the wallets is part of the 
 
EASE 189 
 
 procedure of every pack drive, followed by 
 a comfortable nap in the saddle. Horses often 
 doze at a walk, even, I suspect, at the trot, and 
 a nap for man and horse adds a great deal to 
 the endurance of both. 
 
 As to going afoot, it takes a very steep down 
 hill track to enforce such a thing upon me. 
 Rumour says that we will walk half a mile to 
 get a pony from pasture in order to ride a 
 hundred yards on an errand. But to be afoot 
 is for the range horseman the last depth of 
 calamity and degradation. 
 
 My last experience of this was a traverse of 
 the Canadian Rockies, when my partner and I 
 rode along the bed and bars of a river until we 
 were washed away. After that we took to the 
 bush, a wonderful labyrinth of deadfall, beaver 
 swamp and snowsHdes, which we managed to 
 cUmb through by following the tracks of some 
 wapiti. We had to work about twenty hours 
 a day, and the four days reduced our clothes 
 and boots to rags, but our luck was better than 
 that of another party of four men who tried 
 the same pass that season and were not heard 
 of afterwards. I will not tempt young travel- 
 lers by giving them the name of that pass. 
 
 Guidance. While the range man never 
 walks, but makes the saddle his home, and 
 
I90 SCOUTING 
 
 lives at ease, it would be an error to suppose 
 him unobservant. In wild countries one's life 
 depends on alertness. 
 
 Few range men trust a compass, which may 
 be lost or broken, is hard to read at night, 
 difficult to steady at any time, and apt to 
 point at one's gun. Point the hour hand of 
 your watch at the sun, and half way to XII is 
 south (for the northern hemisphere). If the 
 sky is overcast poHsh a coin or finger nail and 
 hold a match or a pin upon it vertically. 
 The upright match will cast a shadow made by 
 the unseen sun. 
 
 So much for the rule of thumb, but one's 
 real reliance is on the indications of the land- 
 scape : the reading of trees and bushes as 
 shaped by the prevalent wind ; the reading 
 of rocks or tree trunks for any mosses or 
 lichens which grow on the side (north for 
 northern hemisphere) on which the sun does 
 not shine ; and sundry other signs local to 
 different regions. 
 
 The constant habit of locating north grows 
 to an instinct. In Petrograd, as a stranger 
 unable to ask questions or read signs in 
 Russian, on level alluvial land, in a thick winter 
 night, without having seen one inch of the 
 route before, I was able to walk by the shortest 
 
TRAIL APPEARANCES 191 
 
 cut three and a half miles directly to my 
 hotel. 
 
 If it is vital to know north, it is equally 
 important to read country ; to see by the 
 slopes of the ground the direction of streams 
 and watersheds, and to observe the phenomena 
 of crossing or converging routes. One learns 
 in time to forecast the nature of the country 
 beyond the horizon. 
 
 Most important of all is the difficult reading 
 of tracks and the glints on grass, also the move- 
 ments of birds and animals which in an arid 
 country are signs for finding water. 
 
 For the rest, it is useful to note the tracks on 
 the trail showing who passed and when. 
 
 It is wise, on meeting a man, to observe his 
 horse brands, equipment, and all the many 
 clues which show who and what he is as dis- 
 tinguished from what he says. It is a gross 
 breach of taste to ask him a personal question ; 
 but by knowing all about him one may guage 
 the value of his trail directions. There is 
 indeed a need for cautiousness, for not one 
 man in a hundred gives accurate directions 
 which can be safely followed. In central 
 Colorado there used to be a lady rancher 
 whose copious trail directions had endangered 
 so many travellers that, for a radius of two 
 
192 SCENT, SIGHT AND SOUND 
 
 hundKed miles, approaching horsemen were 
 always warned by the neighbours to be deaf 
 to her siren voice. 
 
 Guides. Much as I Hke the savage as a 
 man, I am cautious in engaging him as guide. 
 On two occasions I arranged that my guide 
 was to be shot if he showed up at home without 
 my written release. Knowing that detail, my 
 first guide was a success, but the second left 
 me to die, and went home without my certifi- 
 cate. 
 
 Rather than put one's trust in guides, maps, 
 trail directions, the compass or any other form 
 of vanity and vexation, it is wiser to rely on 
 common sense in scouting. And there the 
 indications given by one's horse are always 
 valuable. 
 
 Scent. It is doubtful if man or horse is ever 
 perfectly healthy in civiUzation. Both suffer 
 from chronic catarrh, so that the smaller 
 animal has to carry and use a handkerchief. 
 Under range conditions the kerchief is more 
 useful round one's neck, for the nostrils are 
 dry, and, both in horse and man, the senses 
 are more active. At half a mile I have smelt 
 a mountain river — hke a wet knife. Once, at 
 about five miles on a windless day my two 
 horses snuffed a fresh pool and bolted for it at 
 
SCENT AND SIGHT 193 
 
 full gallop despite my frantic protests at their 
 apparent madness. Considering that we were 
 lost in sand-rock desert, all three of us owed 
 our Hves to that small distant smell. 
 
 The more vivid perfume of cattle I have 
 caught up easily at four-and-a-half miles on 
 the wind, but by their conduct I think my 
 horses had that savour some miles before it 
 reached my duller senses. I think the scenting 
 powers of a horse are about ten times as strong 
 as mine. 
 
 Sight. Although short-sighted, I have, 
 with the aid of eyeglasses, bringing my vision 
 up to normal, seen waggon dust at sixteen 
 miles, a colliery smoke at twenty-three miles, 
 and detail of a mountain scarp at seventy 
 miles in the clear prairie air. So far as I could 
 get any direct evidence, I never knew a horse 
 to see anything at much more than a couple 
 of hundred yards. It seems to be only in 
 civilization where the smells and sounds are 
 bewildering, that the horse becomes long- 
 sighted up to perhaps a mile. 
 
 Hearing. The value of a horse's sense of 
 hearing as compared with that of a man is very 
 difficult to judge. On a still night I have heard 
 men's calls from behind double windows at 
 one and a half miles ; and am not at all sure 
 
194 THE FEAR OF SHADOWS 
 
 that an average horse beats that. And yet, 
 judging by the constant signalHng of a horse's 
 ears which point at every sound, I think his 
 sense of hearing catches vibrations above the 
 register of human ears, and many notes at 
 close range too faint to impress our senses. 
 
 Whatever a horse may smell, hear or see, he 
 points out with nice gestures of the ears and 
 nostrils which are of infinite value for a man to 
 read and understand. They convey to the prac- 
 tised eye all sorts of warnings and useful little 
 hints. It is the training in peace of the habit 
 of observation which makes the scout for war. 
 
 The Fear of Shadows. Once I took a 
 range horse into a forest where there were 
 flocks of sheep, herded a good deal of nights 
 by cougars {Felix concolor) who prospered 
 on their mutton. These cougars used to come 
 round my camp, liked it, I think, because there 
 was no gun-smell, and sang most wonderfully, 
 sitting so near that I could see the gleam of 
 firelight on their eyes. I hked them, but my 
 horse would stand astride the fire trembHng. 
 I tried to explain to him that this was vanity, 
 because he was really far too thin to be edible. 
 While the cougars had nice fat sheep for the 
 asking, why should they care for horse bones I 
 But all the signs he gave of loneUness and fear 
 
HALTS 195 
 
 I have seen many a time since then when I 
 have taken range horses far into the woods. 
 
 Halts. If only to give my horses a chance 
 to stale and, with a gelding, to make sure that 
 the sheath is clean, I make a short halt after 
 each two hours. .At every halt the genuine 
 horseman throws his rein to the ground so that 
 a horse will be tripped if he attempts to break 
 away. Range horses are trained to stand to a 
 thrown rein, and if necessary are given a sack 
 of earth to drag until they learn the wisdom in 
 obedience. If one has to tie the horse to any- 
 thing, a supple bush is better than a rigid tree, 
 lest he pull back with his whole weight for the 
 purpose of breaking the rein or rope by which 
 he has been fastened. 
 
 In my short halts I always hold the rein 
 while the horse gets a bite of grass or a little 
 water. The reason for this is that he may be 
 suddenly frightened by a snake or a bustling 
 squirrel, and if he breaks away it might be 
 awkward to be left afoot : so many men have 
 been left afoot and perished. 
 
 In the greatest heat one may water horses 
 fully if they stand knee deep in pool or stream ; 
 but if they drink their fill they go sluggishly 
 afterwards and need to drink the more. For 
 a man a sip of cold tea allays thirst better than 
 
196 THE NIGHT HALT 
 
 a pint of water, and for neither the horse nor 
 the rider is it wise to drink to repletion until 
 after the day's work. 
 
 In lone travelling with a pack horse I always 
 make the day's work in a single drive rathei^ 
 than waste time unloading and loading the 
 pack in a day which may prove too brief for the 
 finding of a camp before dark. The earliest 
 rising, the most urgent driving are needed to 
 make sure against a dry camp, or being caught 
 in bad ground by the fall of night. 
 
 The Night Halt. In country where the 
 grass is eaten for miles surrounding watering 
 places, or where there is danger from hostile 
 savages, I always drive on from the evening 
 water until I can camp in safety on good 
 pasture. Also one needs a margin of time to 
 walk the last mile or two, bringing the horses 
 in cool at the end of the day's work. 
 
 Rather than let horses stand shivering in a 
 wet or cold gale, it is better to march, and keep 
 travelling until shelter can be found. 
 
 In great heat it is better to travel at night, 
 but one should be in camp from about 12.30 
 to 3.30 a.m., the usual sleeping hours. 
 
 As to horses in camp, one must throw them 
 to pasture beyond the camping place, so as to 
 hear them passing if they attempt to break 
 
FOR HORSE-COMFORT 197 
 
 back. It may be necessary to hobble or even 
 picket one of them as a precaution, or if they 
 lack water to hobble all who cannot be 
 picketed. If any animal is to be hobbled or 
 tied up, the mare comes first. 
 
 In forest, where horses are ill at ease, 
 especially if pasture is scanty, I hang a bell to 
 the neck of every horse, and camp at some spot 
 where the back trail can be fenced, then sleep 
 against the gate. On some occasions I have 
 watched all night. 
 
 Where flies are bad, it is kindly to bank a fire 
 with damp herbage which makes a smoke in 
 which the horses can shelter. It is in forest 
 and fly country that one has greatest need of a 
 few feeds of oats in the pack, or even slung to 
 the saddles. 
 
 If a horse is sweating and exhausted, I rub 
 him down with whiskey or any other form of 
 alcohol, because its rapid evaporation cools 
 and refreshes him. A httle alcohol rubbed on 
 the part heated by the saddle enables one to 
 feed grain even in short halts. 
 
 For cold and exhaustion I give sugar, if 
 possible in the water. The carbon is fuel 
 which enters the blood, and so becomes ex- 
 posed to oxygen in the lungs, where its burning 
 produces the heat which warms the body. 
 
198 SORES 
 
 In hot weather, oatmeal and sugar in water 
 make a refreshing drink useful to horses as to 
 working humans. 
 
 If a horse is leg-weary and stiff, a rub down 
 or massage with hniment slacks the strung 
 tendons. 
 
 Sores. I never unsaddle without making a 
 careful search for water blisters or any sign of 
 chafing. These found in time can be marked 
 with axle grease, which registers a black spot 
 on the sweat pad or the blanket. The blanket 
 can then be folded in such a way as to relieve 
 the pressure, or a bit of sacking shaped into a 
 ring to enclose the threatened spot beneath 
 or between the foldings of the blanket. The 
 same kind of padding can be made under the 
 girth for the relief of girth galls. 
 
 Despite the utmost care, horses in soft condi- 
 tion or when underfed, or wearing harness 
 which has hardened or warped after long spells 
 of wet, are Hable to sores. I have cured most 
 terrible cases by a daily practice of riding the 
 patient to sweating heat, then suddenly 
 unsaddling, and lashing on cold salt water. 
 The various copper ointments known as gall 
 cures are worth their weight in gold so long as 
 one works the horse, but have the defect of 
 forming a hard scab which breaks away before 
 
CRACKED HEELS 199 
 
 the wound is ready. One abscess caused by 
 a warped saddle tree defeated me altogether 
 and put the animal out of action for four 
 months. As to sores in the starvation of the 
 northern forest, the story would be too terrible 
 to tell. 
 
 Cracked Heels. In cold weather, if we 
 do not dry our hands before a fire after we 
 have washed them, we are liable to chapped 
 skin. Wet followed by cold, especially from 
 muddy ground, causes cracked heels. The 
 prevention by thorough drying after every 
 wetting may be impossible and this form of 
 lameness is difficult to cure. A washing with 
 soft soap, and a thorough drying, followed by 
 packing in grease is the best range practice I 
 know of, but does not always succeed. 
 
 Feeding. In making the feed as varied as 
 possible I have fallen into error more than 
 once. A bran mash, for example, is best when 
 there is no march on the following day. I 
 made a horse dangerously ill with scouring by 
 turning him into an abandoned field of green 
 and standing maize. On another occasion, 
 turning hot, wet, exhausted horses into a shed 
 for shelter from a storm, I found out too late 
 that a sack of oats had been spilt upon the 
 floor. The result was coHc. 
 
200 FEEDING 
 
 Feeding horses to perfection needs a touch 
 of artistry. Small feeds of grain, for instance, 
 by making the animal ravenous for more, 
 enable one to double his allowance without 
 stalling him. Salt, sugar, carrots, apples, help 
 to keep up his interest in life, as rewards to be 
 earned, and tokens that one really cares for him. 
 If a horse is scoured a dose of salt water will help 
 him. For colic one has to lead him about while 
 the pain lasts, and above all things prevent 
 him from rolling, which is sometimes fatal. 
 
 It is long now since I had to dispense with a 
 fire for fear of advertising my camp to hostile 
 savages, and the old glorious range in North 
 America is woefully shrinking before the 
 advance of settlement . The rancher who made 
 the traveller welcome as a guest is replaced by 
 a surly farmer who takes money for rental of 
 his barn-yard. The range horseman who 
 used to own the town when he rolled in from 
 the plains is now considered, as Europe views 
 the gypsy, with suspicion. 
 
 One trait of the range rider recalls the past. 
 No man lays a hand on our horses unless he 
 wants a fight. It is a rule that the horseman 
 tends his own stock so long as he is able to 
 stand. He must be very ill or badly hurt 
 before he surrenders that. 
 
RECORDS 20I 
 
 At range stables where there is a dust bath 
 one unsaddles on arrival to let the horses roll. 
 At town stables where there is no dust bath one 
 slacks the girths, removes the bitts, gives half 
 a drink, and some hay. An hour later when 
 the rider is fed he comes back to cool horses 
 who can be unsaddled without fear of any 
 blisters which might turn into sores. Then 
 comes full watering, and grain. While the 
 horse is busy eating, pick out his feet, dry 
 out wet heels, scrape off mud, and wisp down. 
 After the stall is cleaned, and bedded, and the 
 manger filled with hay for the night, the horse- 
 man is off duty ; but a range man prefers to 
 sleep in the barn loft in order to save his 
 horses in the event of fire, and be up early with 
 the morning grain. 
 
 IV. RECORDS. 
 
 Writing without notes or books, it is difiicult 
 to recall the records of long distance riding 
 which form the best tests of endurance, and so 
 give one a standard of value for man, equip- 
 ment and horse. Driven to rely on memory I 
 note first that the historic records are vague, 
 giving but scanty data. Everybody knows 
 for example that Bucephalus (Ox-head) the 
 ThessaHan charger of Alexander the Great was 
 a horse of notable endurance, but the question 
 
202 RECORDS IN CIVILIZATION 
 
 is — what could he do on continuous journeys ? 
 Charles XII. of Sweden rode in a hurry from 
 Constantinople to Dantzic, but what was the 
 time for that distance, and was it done by one 
 horse or by reliefs ? Dick King a despatch 
 rider, made good time on one horse from Port 
 Elizabeth to Port Natal, but I do not remember 
 his gait for the six hundred miles. Somebody 
 who was not Dick Turpin, but possibly 
 another rogue of the same name, made a single 
 march from London to York on a mare called 
 Black Bess, but that was a horse-killing 
 feat, as much disqualified by decent men as 
 the Inter-Army horse-killing rides which dis- 
 gusted the horsemen of Europe not many 
 years ago. 
 
 In the nineties Lieutenant Peschkov, a 
 Cossack ofiicer, rode a Dun pony from Vladi- 
 vostock to Petrograd. This at any decent gait 
 is a world record for a road ride, on a route with 
 hotels at every stage. But legend makes the 
 gait thirty-eight miles a day for six thousand 
 miles, and on that I have my doubts. Work- 
 ing across country I found that my best horse 
 did one thousand three hundred and seventy 
 miles at twenty-one miles a day ; and the next 
 best one thousand and forty at the samiC pace ; 
 but on the whole trip, made with four successive 
 
ONE DAY RIDES 203 
 
 mounts, the three thousand six hundred miles 
 took two hundred days. This works out at 
 the very poor average of eighteen miles a day 
 But for delays in buying horses the average 
 would have been twenty-one miles, and I 
 doubt if any horse outside of fairy tales can 
 do much more on a six thousand mile journey. 
 
 Apart from the vagueness and doubtfulness 
 of the stories, the standard which they set up 
 for comparison seems to be very low as com- 
 pared with the annals of range horsemanship. 
 The following records were made for the most 
 part with half or three-quarter bred range 
 raised horses, and all with weight-distributing 
 saddles. 
 
 One Day Rides. A friend of mine, 
 an Australian stockman, with a weight- 
 distributing saddle, and leading a pack 
 animal, crossed the state of Victoria from the 
 Murray to Melbourne, one hundred and forty- 
 three miles by the route taken, covered in 
 twenty-six hours. 
 
 A constable of the Royal North-West 
 Mounted Police of Canada with a forty-two 
 pound stock-saddle on a buckskin gelding, 
 rode from Regina to Wood Mountain Post, one 
 hundred and thirty-two miles by sunlight, and 
 the horse bucked him off at the finish. 
 
204 RECORDS ON THE RANGE 
 
 On enquiry I found that the trail between 
 Forts Macleod and Calgary, Alberta, one 
 hundred and eight miles, had been ridden in a 
 day by most of the Mounted Police and cow- 
 boys who happened to go that way. 
 
 Six-Day Rides. Kit Carson carried mili- 
 tary despatches from Omaha to Los Angeles 
 and back (circa 1841), a lone ride through 
 hostile tribes of four thousand four hundred 
 miles. When he was resting at Los Angeles 
 he joined a party of Mexican gentlemen each 
 taking one saddle horse. The six men rode 
 along the California coast from Los Angeles to 
 San Francisco, six hundred miles in six days. 
 Only two of the party changed horses. 
 
 Among the Robbers' Roost, and affiUated 
 gangs of Rocky Mountain outlaws, I found that 
 it was their custom to plant little bunches of 
 ponies here and there in pasture. When they 
 happened to be in a hurry they would travel 
 from pasture to pasture, and at each of these 
 take a fresh mount. Six hundred miles in six 
 days was not unusual they told me, and, from 
 what the sheriffs said who tried to catch them, 
 I think that the robbers spoke in moderation. 
 They were much the most truthful men I have 
 met on the stock range. 
 
 Marches Without Remounts. In the 
 
LONG MARCHES 205 
 
 North-West Mounted Police we reckoned a 
 day's march at forty-two miles for saddle 
 horses. On Colonel Irvine's three hundred 
 mile march to prevent the North- West Rebel- 
 lion of 1885 we carried all fuel, forage and 
 supplies in sleighs so that the speed was re- 
 duced to that of a convoy, but it worked out 
 at forty-two miles average, ending with sixty- 
 two miles on the last day. 
 
 A two thousand two hundred mile Viceregal 
 tour is said to have worked out at forty miles a 
 day ; but one patrol I rode in of seven hundred 
 miles only gave thirty-four miles a day for 
 average, even with occasional change of horses. 
 It was bad, shocking bad, but has it been 
 equalled by any mounted troops of Europe ? 
 
 Marches With Remounts. On the cattle 
 industry a Roundup Outfit is commanded by 
 the owner or by his foreman. Under him 
 are three separate departments : ( i ) The cook, 
 who drives a waggon which carries the men's 
 bedding and is fitted up as a kitchen. The 
 waggon forms a moving base to the expedition, 
 and travels about ten miles a day. (2) The 
 horse wrangler is a herder in charge of the herd 
 of ponies used as remounts. (3) The working 
 force of cowboys. 
 
 Each rider has his own string of ponies 
 
2o6 MOBILITY OF STOCKMEN 
 
 usually seven in number running with the 
 herd. 
 
 Routine. Long before dawn the wrangler 
 drives the herd home to the camp, where two 
 men hold ropes outward from the waggon, 
 making a rough enclosure in which the ponies 
 are handled. Each rider selects from his own 
 string the pony he needs for the morning's 
 work. At noon the herd is run in and he picks 
 out his afternoon horse. At supper time the 
 herd is run in and he selects his horse for night 
 duty. 
 
 The rider uses his first three horses and his 
 second three horses on alternate days, keeping 
 the seventh in reserve. These animals are not 
 fed with grain, but live entirely on the range 
 grass. By changing his mount six times in 
 each two days he is able to ride on grass-fed 
 ponies at an average rate of fifty miles a day 
 for a period of eight months. The distance 
 ridden in this season is i i;i 50 miles. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE PLEASURE HORSE. 
 
 I. THE BENT LEG. 
 
 The human mind may be Hkened unto a 
 stable with horses all in a row. That strong 
 team Tradition and Custom are overworked. 
 Bias and Prejudice have plenty to do. Passion 
 and Vice get an occasional airing, and Vanity 
 has daily exercise. But Reason is kept in his 
 stall, the master's own mount, stale for want 
 of use. He is not popular with the other 
 horses, he is not easily ridden, is heavy to 
 handle, and goes painfully lame from having 
 been kicked too much. 
 
 Let us try him : 
 
 The Bent Leg. So far we have traced the 
 straight leg method of riding from savage life 
 through the Greek practice and that of the 
 Ages of Armour. We have seen the European 
 war seat and war saddle adapt themselves to 
 range practice in wild countries, and so become 
 the basis of outdoor horsemastership. 
 
 ao; 
 
2o8 ORIENTAL HORSEMEN 
 
 In sharp contrast to the straight leg and 
 weight distributing saddle which has always 
 attended the use of the European horse, is the 
 universal practice associated in all ages with 
 the Bay horse of Africa, and the Dun horse of 
 Asia. My bits and scraps of reading present 
 a general picture of the Oriental horseman as 
 highly perched, w^ith a bent leg and a long 
 reach, preferring light scale or chain mail to 
 heavy armour, prone to a swift onset, a brisk 
 melee, and speedy disengagement since the 
 days of the Parthian cavalry down to the 
 Moslem conquests, and on to the chivalry of 
 India, the cossacks of Russia, and the hapless 
 Dervishes of the Soudan. From Mongolia to 
 Morocco across the whole breadth of the 
 Oriental World this high perch, bent leg and 
 long reach seem to be universal in all ages. 
 
 In arid countries the ass and the camel were 
 ridden long before the pony, and it seems quite 
 possible that their pad saddles were trans- 
 ferred to the horse without much alteration. 
 My first impression of this was during a donkey 
 race in Portugal. Our mounts stood well over 
 fifteen hands, magnificent animals. The 
 saddle was a broad flat pad like that of women 
 athletes in a circus, and, gripping its sides with 
 one's calves, the seat was fairly secure. 
 
EASTERN STOCK 209 
 
 Anyway a galloping ass is a deal better ride 
 than a bullock. I was winning the race when 
 my moke, being of the Moslem faith, knelt 
 down to say his prayers, and I went on alone. 
 
 From watching Moors, Cossacks, Jockeys 
 and other bent-leg horsemen I have an im- 
 pression that a similar halt of the steed for a 
 moments' prayer would have the same effect ; 
 but that the Spanish Picador, meanest of the 
 straight-leg riders, would manage to stay in the 
 saddle. 
 
 In the days of armour the gentleman-at- 
 arms wore doublet and trunk hose, riding 
 light horses for hunting, hawking, or even 
 travel. Ladies rode also, and there was 
 cantering where the ground permitted. But 
 I cannot recall any mention of jumping in 
 England until the time of the Civil War. Prince 
 Rupert escaped a pursuit of heavy cavalry 
 by jumping. A fugitive cavaUer pursued by 
 Roundheads, leapt from Wenlock Edge. 
 
 By this time a few Barbs, and Eastern 
 horses alleged to be Arabian, had added a 
 new strain to the EngHsh stock. Oliver 
 Cromwell, for instance, a notable breeder 
 before he went into politics, had an imported 
 sire. The thoroughbred, who is 7/8 Arabian 
 by blood, made jumping possible. 
 
2IO FOX HUNTING 
 
 In the days of Queen Elizabeth England 
 was still a sheep range, producing wool as the 
 staple industry, and supporting five milHon 
 people. Sufficient grain was raised for feeding 
 the small population ; and to keep the sheep 
 off their crops the people had invented a fence 
 peculiar to Britain. This fence consisted of an 
 earthwork of ridge and ditch called a hedge- 
 row. The ridge carries, and the ditch waters, 
 a row of bushes, trimmed yearly to make it 
 strong and dense, and known as a hedge. 
 Unlike rigid fences the hedge may be safely 
 jumped by horses who have the courage. 
 
 As the population increased the swamps were 
 drained and forests cleared for farming and, 
 outside the sheep down, the whole country was 
 meshed with an intricate small skein of 
 hedges. 
 
 At a period when guns were very short of 
 range, and poison was still dear, the foxes 
 became abundant and destructive, so that a 
 special hound had to be bred able to run them 
 down. This was a matter of business until 
 foxes made it a sport, and from about 1740 
 survived as sportsmen rather than be extinct as 
 merely vermin. There was no detriment to 
 the land from hunting on winter fallows ; and, 
 but for the fox, our people would have been 
 
LEADERSHIP 211 
 
 driven to invent some other way of breaking 
 their necks to let off surplus energy. 
 
 For rich people there is no cleaner or healthier 
 form of pleasure, no better training in nerve 
 and all that makes a man. 
 
 The training for leadership among the 
 Germans is a matter of beer and fencing, 
 among the Americans of office work, among the 
 British of field sports. Which method is best 
 to save leaders of men from corruption, and 
 decadence ? The mettle of our pastures gives 
 cool judgment in administration, leadership in 
 affairs, and in times of peril a sterUng worth of 
 manhood proof against disaster. 
 
 Far be it from me then to deride the British 
 horsemanship. Any horseman who can tole- 
 rate so slippery and unreliable a contraption as 
 the EngUsh saddle is greatly to be envied and 
 admired. 
 
 Always a timid horseman but emulous, I 
 made two attempts to ride the damned thing, 
 and came to grief without the least delay. The 
 third try was quite a success, the occasion 
 being a cavalry charge into a converging fire at 
 point-blank range. I was much too scared to 
 fall off, and so came to the conclusion that any 
 fool could ride anything if his attention were 
 sufficiently distracted by a hail of bullets. 
 
212 THE PLEASURE SADDLE 
 
 After that I went to the best horseman I could 
 find in England and asked him to explain the 
 merits of his saddle. " The EngHsh saddle," 
 said Lord Lonsdale, " is made for falling off. 
 You see it throws the rider clear of a falHng 
 horse." 
 
 This really explained the English saddle in 
 terms of sport, which any fellow ought to 
 understand. So I tried the saddle again, and 
 found that one could ride straight leg at any 
 gait quite easily by merely dispensing with the 
 stirrups. It was almost as good as bareback. 
 But with the leathers shortened, riding bent- 
 leg, one could actually use the stirrups. Since 
 then I have put my stock saddles away, and 
 taken recruit lessons in the riding school. A 
 little powdered resin on the leather straps of 
 one's breeches makes them look quite smart 
 and deceives the Instructor in Equitation. 
 Still, I am a novice, trying in vain to rise at 
 the trot with that poke forward of the head 
 which so beautifully imitates the movement of 
 a hen as she enquires for worms. 
 
 It is only by practical testing that I learned 
 the qualities of the English saddle, and so 
 brought it into comparison with that of the 
 stock range. It is not easy to free one's mind 
 from bias, to realise that perfectly sane men 
 
THE TWO SADDLES 213 
 
 have reasonable methods other than one's own, 
 and that the mere fact that one's critic is an 
 obnoxious bounder does not dispose of all his 
 arguments. I venture to claim that the range 
 horseman has intelligence equal to that which 
 guides British horsemanship, and added to that 
 the deeper intimacy of one who allows no hired 
 hand to touch his horses, who cares for them as 
 a hireling never can, and whose life depends 
 upon his competence. It is from the range 
 point of view that I venture now into the field 
 of criticism. 
 
 To teach a novice to ride with the stock 
 saddle I lead him on to talk about his girl. By 
 the time he forgets that he is exaggerating on 
 horseback he rides quite decently. 
 
 To teach a novice to ride with the English 
 saddle is a matter of long and severe training. 
 In the end he rides in spite of a saddle, which is 
 by no means an aid to horsemanship. 
 
 The difference between straight leg and bent 
 leg riding is not of the slightest consequence 
 to the horse. To ride the stock saddle with 
 comfort the leg must be straight. To ride the 
 English saddle safely the leg must be bent. 
 The total difference then is one between two 
 saddles, the English model being excellent for 
 sport, but otherwise quite useless ; while the 
 
214 THE INDOOR HORSE 
 
 stock saddle, which cannot possibly be used 
 for flat racing or jumping, is of value to a man 
 earning a living on horseback. 
 
 II. THE INDOOR HORSE. 
 
 His House. Because we love horses we 
 have been seeking guidance from nature as to 
 their management. " Nature " is only a sort 
 of nickname for God, who bids us love our 
 horse neighbours as all other neighbours. If 
 our religion is not a sham it consists of love, 
 and these our neighbours need a love which 
 must be filled with live intelligence. 
 
 I doubt if God believes in the church I belong 
 to, but I am sure He approves of our poor 
 attempts to do our loving duty as horsemasters, 
 as soldiers, or in any trade to which we have 
 been called. This is the spirit in which I dare 
 to adventure upon criticism, approaching 
 civilized horsemastership from the singular 
 point of view of the range horseman. 
 
 I do not presume to criticise the manage- 
 ment of thoroughbreds, but wish to speak 
 merely for common horses with whom I may 
 claim friendship. 
 
 In buying a range-bred horse one takes the 
 legs and feet almost for granted, but in 
 civiUzation one deals with doubt and misgiving 
 because the animal for sale is presumably a 
 
FOOD 215 
 
 wrong 'un. The one thing that amazes the 
 range man is the astounding number of ail- 
 ments contracted by civiHzed horses on only 
 four legs in a Hmited span of years. It is a 
 strong presumption that there must be some- 
 thing in civilized horsemastership to account 
 for the general unsoundness of the stock, the 
 lack of endurance, the total failure in mobility. 
 
 The vital needs without which a horse will 
 perish are water and grass. It is considered 
 that the water flowing from limestone rocks, 
 which carries carbonate of lime, is best for 
 building bone. It seems quite possible that 
 other mineral bearing waters have their use- 
 fulness in supplying elements needed for 
 blood, muscle, or nerves. 
 
 The natural food of a horse is sun-cured tuft 
 grass growing in arid regions, but a perfect 
 imitation is the usual mixed feed of oats, chaff 
 and bran, with the common equivalents used 
 for varying diet. Next in value is the upland 
 pasture of damp chmates, worst is the meadow 
 grass. The conditioning of horses in any green 
 pasturage depends upon grain, but one should 
 not in any feeding neglect rock salt. 
 
 If sunshine and fresh air were vital needs pit 
 ponies would not live. Sun and air are no more 
 necessities to a grown horse than eyesight is to 
 
2i6 THE STABLE 
 
 a man. So one needs to examine carefully and 
 to reason closely as to the actual value even 
 of air and sunshine. 
 
 The range is dry, parched, and above all 
 things hard ; and from the hardest ground 
 come the breeds of especial value by reason of 
 sound limbs and steel-like hoofs. The hard- 
 ness of ground is due to the fierce light and heat 
 of desert climates. 
 
 Again it is known that sunlight kills the 
 germs of nearly all diseases, provided the air 
 can reach them. 
 
 Unless they are robbed of their coats horses 
 are almost indifferent to the greatest known 
 extremes of dry heat and dry cold ; yet, if 
 exposed to wind they lose weight rapidly, and 
 are intensely susceptible to draughts. The 
 horse's natural shelter is a wind break. 
 
 To meet all these conditions the stable in 
 rainy chmates must have a roof to keep the 
 standings dr}^, and yet should be roofed with 
 glass to let in sufficient light to kill all germs of 
 disease. 
 
 ,^ Yet any stable, warmed by the heat of 
 horses, however carefully cleaned, is fouled by 
 their dung and water, and so becomes a forcing 
 house to breed disease unless one removes the 
 walls. There should be no walls, but the 
 
PAVED FLOOR 217 
 
 stable should be built like a Japanese house 
 with transparent and portable screens, close 
 fitting against draughts^ which can be set up 
 on two windward sides with every shift of the 
 weather. By no other means can the diseases 
 be swept away which make the stabled horse 
 a byword for unsoundness. 
 
 If regions of hardest ground produce the 
 best legs and hoofs, it does not follow that 
 stables ought to be paved. Natural ground 
 however hard is springy, but pavement is dead 
 hard and slippery at that. The EngHsh 
 horseman explains " It haint the 'unting as 
 'urts the 'orses 'oofs, but the 'ammer, 'ammer, 
 'ammer, on the 'ard 'igh road." All who have 
 seen the strains and tensions of cowpunching 
 and noted the perfect soundness of cow ponies 
 will agree that it haint the 'unting. But any- 
 body who watches EngHsh horsemen with 
 pleasure horses has noted the exceeding care 
 with which they are ridden on the dirt rather 
 than on the crown of a road, on the grass by the 
 road rather than on the highways, and on any 
 open route across country, rather than on the 
 roadside. They get very much less hard going 
 than the average range horse. The draught 
 horse may suffer from the highway, but 
 certainly not the hunter who is equally unsound. 
 
21 8 THE STABLE FLOOR 
 
 Yet both have standings as a rule on a paved 
 floor for not less than eighteen hours out of the 
 average twenty-four. 
 
 A notable difference between the sound 
 outdoor horse and the unsound indoor horse is 
 in this matter of standing, for the range animal 
 visits but does not live in a stable, while the 
 unsound animal spends three fourths of his 
 time on a hard pavement. I have noticed also 
 in travel that when I brought weary horses to 
 a stable with a wooden floor their pasterns 
 always swelled over night. On a metalled or 
 paved floor the swelling was almost as bad as 
 on wood, whereas on earthern standings there 
 was never the slightest trace of inflammation. 
 
 In recent handling of some sixty army 
 horses I took them from pasture to horse lines 
 without noting much unsoundness on either 
 ground. Unsoundness developed when I took 
 them to paved stalls, but was much diminished 
 when I moved them to earth-floored sheds. I 
 find too that notable horsemasters have 
 removed the pavements from their stables in 
 favour of clean, dry, well-drained earth stand- 
 ings ; or, failing that, lay bedding a foot deep. 
 
 But my experiment has gone further. My 
 horses have not only earth standings, but 
 sheds so built that they are walled only to 
 
WORK 219 
 
 windward. The gain in general health is 
 beyond all question. Both in theory and in 
 practice I have reason to beheve that earth- 
 floored sheds walled to windward only will cure 
 the chronic unsoundness of stabled horses, 
 provided that the strongest light possible is 
 brought to bear for the killing out of disease 
 germs. On the same principle which imports 
 cats to look after our rats and mice, one might 
 introduce some benevolent microbe whose duty 
 it would be to eat disease germs in a stable 
 floor. 
 
 III. THE INDOOR HORSE. 
 
 His Work. So far analysis has shown two 
 types of equipment : the weight-distributing 
 saddle for war work, ridden straight-leg by 
 soldiers, stockmen and others earning a living ; 
 and the hght slippery saddle for running and 
 jumping adapted to the bent-leg riding of 
 pleasure horses for sport. 
 
 The saddle is but one of several factors in 
 horsemanship, so we must isolate these factors 
 one by one before we can reach conclusions 
 from our study. 
 
 For the purpose of isolating the several 
 factors in horsemanship. The Legion of Fron- 
 tiersmen managed to organize a series of tests 
 on English highways. In each test two groups 
 
220 INDOOR HORSES AT WORK 
 
 of three or four horsemen apiece, working in 
 rivalry, rode fifty to fifty-five miles on a 
 Saturday, then back again on the Sunday. 
 Afterwards a veterinary surgeon reported on 
 the condition of the horses. 
 
 The first test was made under conditions of 
 unusual heat, and after one serious case of heat 
 prostration the homeward run had to be made 
 at night. The riders were veterans to the age 
 of seventy- two, with an average of two old 
 wounds, and more than two war decorations 
 per man. Our cab and 'bus horses finished 
 like the riders, in good time and condition, but 
 did not equal the usual gait of the annual 
 Stock Exchange competition of men afoot on 
 the same London and Brighton road. 
 
 Saddles. We never had the rival types of 
 saddles tested by teams, but each man rode 
 his own, and for short marches like ours the 
 difference was slight. The men with stock 
 saddles were less weary, and their horses 
 fresher, but not to any notable degree. 
 
 Seat. In one test a competitor failed us, 
 and was replaced by a sailor who had not 
 ridden before. At first he butted his horse 
 backwards into shops, so we had to change 
 about for ten miles until we found the best 
 mount for his pecuHar needs. After that there 
 
HORSES AT WORK 221 
 
 remained one hundred miles, and his horse got 
 the best report. A sailor has balance, and 
 given that mere form is not important. 
 
 Type of Horse. We hired 'bus and cab 
 horses because they were cheap ; but in one of 
 the competitions were opposed by a group of 
 horsemen riding their private hunters. Our 
 working horses finished fresh and on time, but 
 the pleasure horses broke down and had to 
 come home by train. 
 
 I might enter into the details of a dozen 
 other exercises which tested the indoor horse 
 and the English equipment, but all may be 
 summed up in a single broad generalization. 
 The pleasure horse and his equipment are so 
 highly specialized for runnmg and jumping 
 that they have ceased to possess the slightest 
 value for civil and military working horse- 
 manship. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SOLDIER HORSE. 
 
 A habit of enlisting for campaigns has 
 given me some desultory training with British 
 irregular and auxiliary forces — Horse, Foot 
 and Guns. Without the slightest pretensions 
 as a soldier I have enjoyed, on active service, 
 watching the mihtary practice in horsemaster- 
 ship in its amusing contrasts with the methods 
 of frontier life. 
 
 It seems to me that the British and especially 
 the Irish horse-breeding, and the national 
 amusements for mounted men — hawking, stag- 
 hunting, fox-hunting, steeplechases, flat races, 
 and polo — for example, have given to British 
 mounted troops the basis of a horsemastership 
 which has been gratefully copied by civilized 
 armies and disabled the mobihty of all alike. 
 The cult of the pleasure horse has ousted 
 the old sober methods of war horsemanship. 
 This may in part account for the chasing of the 
 Spaniards and Portuguese by their hvely 
 American colonists, of the British by the 
 
REGULAR CAVALRY 223 
 
 Argentinos, Americans and Afghans, of the 
 French by the Mexicans, of the Germans by 
 the Damaras, of the Itahans by the peoples of 
 Erythrea and Cyrenaica, and of the Russians 
 by the Japanese. Three hundred thousand 
 of my countrymen spent three-and-a-half 
 years in persuading fifty-five thousand Boers 
 to accept full compensation for their losses. 
 This episode filled with unholy joy the nations 
 which had not lately been whipped by mere 
 outsiders because they had prudently abstained 
 from war. One does not recall, however, so 
 very many recent campaigns in which bar- 
 baric horsemanship has been put to shame and 
 flight by any regular cavalry. 
 
 So, if my adventure in uncouth criticism 
 bears incidentally upon British methods, its 
 motive is merely to discover why civilized 
 mounted troops are not quite a success in 
 dealing with irregulars of the open range. If 
 Army methods are really the best, they should 
 have an unbroken chronicle of victory. If 
 range methods are really the best, the military 
 art of horsemanship needs thinking over by 
 every civilized horseman who loves his country. 
 
 If the defeat of civiHzed armies is not ex- 
 plained by their horsemastership, it is not less 
 in need of explanation. 
 
224 ARMIES 
 
 I hold it as an article of faith that the 
 British Army is not excelled, man for man, by 
 any in Europe, but does greatly surpass all 
 others in its power of adapting itself to new 
 conditions, maintaining its powers at great 
 distances from its base, and perfecting in its 
 troops the highest ideals of manhood. And 
 yet in all armies men are taught to obey before 
 they think, and, thought being secondary to 
 discipline, is rather apt to lag. The discipline 
 which creates a mob into a weapon tends to 
 disable men in army trades other than that of 
 fighting, so that the departmental or thinking 
 departments are less efficient than the execu- 
 tive. Character is trained to a supreme degree, 
 and the military courts are cleaner, quicker and 
 more direct than the civil in doing justice. 
 Yet intellect takes its chance of surviving 
 discipline. In a world which is managed by 
 men too old to be receptive of new thought, 
 the person with original ideas is looked upon as 
 a public enemy, and the Arm}^ is always 
 certain he must be an awful bounder. The 
 aeroplane, for example, was more important 
 as a military idea than anything since the 
 invention of gunpowder, but the inventors and 
 manufacturers in several countries went bank- 
 rupt while they waited in vain for orders from 
 
THE HUNTING-SEAT 225 
 
 the armies. The German War Office was the 
 first to come to their rescue. 
 
 It IS only by such reasoning as this that one 
 understands why mounted soldiers are given 
 breeches with buckskin straps to help them to 
 grip a saddle specially treated with beeswax to 
 make it slippery. Constructive thought would 
 remove the strapping to make the breeches 
 slippery as the saddle ; or, if a grip is wanted 
 would retain the strapping, and roughen the 
 saddle seat and panels by using the leather in- 
 side out, or replacing the surface with buck- 
 skin. 
 
 Early in the eighteenth century British 
 racing and fox-hunting became fully organized 
 sports which needed bent-leg riding and a 
 slippery, light saddle. The British Army was 
 not officered by professional soldiers, but by 
 sportsmen who bought commissions. The 
 training of officers was in the hunting field, and 
 the old straight leg, weight-distributing war 
 saddle gave place to something really up-to- 
 date. This was the military saddle, too 
 cumbersome for running or jumping, too small 
 for weight-distribution, and therefore useless 
 either for sport or war. 
 
 Meanwhile the Riding Masters who were 
 professional soldiers, and ceased to learn when 
 
226 HORSEMANSHIP FOR WAR 
 
 they began to teach, wrought with fanatical 
 zeal to compel straight-leg riding on a bent- 
 leg saddle, and so got a magnificent tally of 
 ruptures and sore tails. In 1805 Prussian 
 instructors were brought to England to enforce 
 the straight-leg seat on the bent-leg saddle. It 
 is only in the twentieth century that this 
 wonderful kidney-crusher mihtary seat has 
 been mercifully abandoned. The army has 
 adopted the hunting seat, and one reads the 
 last word in Major Birch's book on " Modern 
 Riding. '* 
 
 " The rough-riders from the Royal Artillery 
 Riding Establishment, using the hunting seat, 
 sat perfectly without either reins or stirrups 
 over a five-foot six-inch rail — one horse jump- 
 ing six feet — besides other formidable obstacles, 
 which proves that no better seat could be 
 wanted for practical work." 
 
 The practical work, one notes, for a 
 civilized Army, is jumping ! 
 
 What is the horse to be used for ? Pleasure ? 
 
 By all means let the high-strung, highly-fed, 
 massaged, hospital-bred, courageous, and 
 powerful but exceedingly delicate blooded horse 
 be used for pleasure, and for pleasure only. 
 One does not use a racing yacht for cruising, 
 because she is too fragile, or for cargo because 
 
MOBILITY 227 
 
 she has no stowage. Use the blooded horse for 
 running and jumping, with a day's rest follow- 
 ing each day's sport. It does not matter if the 
 rider's weight is concentrated on the space of a 
 postage stamp. It only matters that the 
 equipment be light for high speed, and slippery 
 to throw the rider in case he is not wanted on 
 the saddle. 
 
 What is the horse to be used for ? War ? 
 Then if we love our country let us forget 
 tradition, take a rest from filling up returns, 
 and set ourselves to the exercise of human 
 reason until we find out what we really want. 
 Why do we use the horse in war ? To carry 
 men, to haul guns, and draw supplies. Why 
 do we use the horse for transport ? To 
 quicken the pace, and ease the labour of men. 
 Why do we need this mobility ? In order to 
 concentrate troops at distant points where they 
 w^ere not expected. Mobility is not jumping 
 on Germans, but the long, swift march that 
 covers and supplies the advance or the retreat 
 which shall decide the issue. Mobility may 
 include the getting and rendering of vital 
 news, the sudden seizure of a strong position, 
 or even the special privilege and glory of shock 
 action. 
 
 Those of us who indulged ourselves in the 
 
228 HORSEMANSHIP FOR WAR 
 
 habit of thinking, knew many years ago that 
 mechanical transport would carry and haul 
 men and supplies much quicker than horses 
 could upon a highway. But we also observed 
 that war destroys the road, and that campaign- 
 ing is a cross-country exercise wherein the 
 horse can hold his own against the car. 
 
 In the same way we knew as far back as 
 1 896 that aerial warfare would evolve in three 
 phases : reconnaissance, fleet engagements, 
 and occupations in force with aerial transport. 
 
 Yet, while the car and the aircraft have been 
 foreseen by everybody who took the trouble to 
 think, we have to deal in fact with present 
 needs for troops transported by horses, for 
 whom the word mobility means rapid and 
 sustained haulage and carriage of weight. 
 It is not the art of jumping hedges, because 
 they do not exist in any probable terrain of war. 
 
 What then, are the factors for mobility ? 
 
 Breeding. In the throes of war for our 
 existence, while every luxury must be dis- 
 pensed with and ever}^ available man called to 
 the colours, the British Government is solicit- 
 ous to preserve hunting and racing. The 
 authorities would preserve the trade of horse- 
 breeding lest there be scarcity of army re- 
 mounts. Let us breed pleasure-horses, they 
 
THE PLEASURE HORSE 229 
 
 tell us, in order to secure a stock of working 
 horses. So let us encourage yachting to give 
 us ships for cargo. Let us breed guinea-pigs 
 as material to coin guineas. " If a yard of 
 soap will make a flannel waistcoat for a pig, 
 how far is it from the dome of St. Paul's to 
 Christmas Day ? " So mental confusion verge 
 upon madness. 
 
 The mettle of our pastures, and perfect 
 artistry in selective breeding, have given to the 
 British Isles the leadership of nations with 
 almost every type of domestic livestock. But 
 the high specialization of each type for a single 
 function disables it for every other use. We 
 have never bred a horse specialized for that 
 single purpose of rapid and sustained marching, 
 which is mobility. Our pleasure horses, excel, 
 lent for sport, are expensive, delicate, unsound- 
 lacking in endurance when we put them to 
 serious work. As yeast is to dough, blood is to 
 any livestock, and there must be thoroughbred 
 blood in any working horse who has to face the 
 terrors of modern war ; but if there is any 
 guidance in the origin and natural history of 
 horses, the one type to give mobility to an 
 army must be bred away from all green 
 grasses and soft ground, on those arid plains 
 which alone can make sound limbs, hard hoofs, 
 
230 BREEDING THE WAR HORSE 
 
 strong teeth and high endurance. It would 
 be most reasonable to breed from Duns. 
 
 As the Royal North- West Mounted PoHce of 
 Canada have double the mobility of any 
 regular troops in the world, their system of 
 getting horses may be worth considering. 
 Certain ranches of Western Canada have im- 
 ported British thoroughbred studs, and bred 
 from range mares a strain known as the 
 Broncho. Averaging fifteen hands two inches, 
 and 1,025 pounds in weight, these gelded 
 horses and mares are raised on range grass 
 under range conditions, broken at the ranches 
 and bought for the Mounted Police at contract 
 rates. 
 
 Ranches in any arid lands of the Empire such 
 as Southern Alberta, South Central British 
 Columbia, Western South Africa, or Australia, 
 would supply a stock for the army much 
 sounder, and more enduring than any horses 
 which can possibly be bred on soft ground or 
 green grass. 
 
 Management. Our analysis of the stable 
 showed the closed shed as a forcing house for 
 disease germs, and the metalled floor as pre- 
 venting a horse from resting on his feet. To 
 copy the natural conditions of healthy range 
 life the building needs the dry floor which 
 
MANAGEMENT 231 
 
 involves a roof, earth standings on which a 
 horse can rest, and a wind screen to keep out 
 bad weather. In practice this open earth- 
 floored shed kills out the germs of disease, rests 
 the horse, and so prevents or cures the mala- 
 dies of the feet and legs which disable indoor 
 stock. But, while the horse is fairly sound 
 so soon as one adapts his home to the condi- 
 tions required for his health ; no indoor life 
 trains either horses or horsemen for th9 
 mobihty needed in campaigns. 
 
 The civihzed stable management with 
 grooming and massage, cHpping and singeing, 
 docking and trimming of tails, hogging the 
 manes, and all the practice which involves the 
 use of clothing is excellent with the indoor 
 horse. In the same way a hospital is good for 
 the sick, but not the sort of gymnasiui;n which 
 makes men strong and hardy. The treatment 
 makes a horse glossy and beautiful, but sensi- 
 tive rather than robust. It does not make the 
 horse an outdoor person able to face bad 
 weather, rough feeding and long marches. For 
 that we must consider outdoor management as 
 applied to an outdoor horse. 
 
 The British South African Field Force lost 
 340,000 horses, some of them civihzed, others 
 from wild ranges. I was serving in an irregular 
 
232 INDOOR MANAGEMENT OUTDOORS 
 
 unit when a bunch of Argentine remounts 
 arrived in camp. They showed signs of 
 exhaustion from their voyage, but had not 
 been pastured after their landing in Africa. 
 The grass surrounding our camp was fairly 
 good, free from disease, and secure from attack 
 by day. So the officer commanding shackled 
 the remounts in our Hues, and I was punished 
 for feeding mine with grass. There was no 
 hay, so the horses had straight oats. As the 
 sky cleared or clouded the weather was frosty 
 or snowy, so the horses were blanketed. The 
 blankets were always sodden except when they 
 stiffened with ice. On the fourteenth day the 
 last of these horses died. The whole was a 
 beautiful exhibition of stable management 
 applied to outdoor horses without a stable. I 
 do not remember an instance of army authori- 
 ties consulting range horsemen as to the 
 management of range horses on any range. 
 Neither has it occurred to any army that the 
 outdoor horseman may have useful knowledge 
 concerning the outdoor horse. And yet the 
 sacrifice of 340,000 horses might have aroused 
 misgivings as to the Army system of manage- 
 ment. 
 
 I am writing from practical experience in 
 stating that in the British Army authority 
 
PASTURED HORSES 233 
 
 exists for billeting horses in pasture with half 
 rations of forage at the discretion of the 
 officer commanding the unit. Pastured 
 horses condition very rapidly, but soften a 
 good deal in a wet season, so that one needs as 
 usual to supple the harness with oil, and also 
 to provide some sheepskin for padding of parts 
 which cause chafing. To meet the need of 
 having horses instantly available, I used two 
 fields, the richer for night pasture, the poorer 
 for my horse lines and drill ground. As horses 
 in pasture grow wild and difficult to catch if 
 chased about by recruits, I had a rope tied to a 
 tree near the corner of the field, and held out- 
 ward by two men, forming an enclosure into 
 which the herd was drifted for catching after 
 the night's rest. Drifting and catching needed 
 no more time than the work of unshackling on 
 the lines. 
 
 The system of pasturing by night ensures a 
 clean bed for horses to lie down, whereas the 
 lines, however carefully cleared of manure, are 
 very soon fouled by staling, while the ground 
 is trampled into mud or dust. Old horse lines 
 make most dangerous ground for camps long 
 after the visible dirt has been grassed over. 
 The insects and germs from the horse lines are 
 liable to affect the health of troops. 
 
234 MANAGEMENT OUTDOORS 
 
 Except under management of most unusual 
 skill, any assemblage of horses is liable to 
 stampede. I note this in a camp which has 
 lost two men killed and one wounded, with 
 two horses killed and two wounded within the 
 week, fair evidence that stampedes are danger- 
 ous. But the danger is greatest where horse 
 lines and camp lines are set close abreast, so 
 that, if the horses stampede, the men are 
 trampled to death. A stampede from herd or 
 pasture is seldom the cause of serious accidents. 
 
 Docking or trimming tails, and hogging 
 manes are hardly wise outdoors, considering 
 that the mane and tail are special devices of 
 nature to keep off flies. As horse lines are an 
 excellent breeding ground for flies, it is pre- 
 cisely on these lines that manes and tails are 
 needed. 
 
 Further, it seems unwise to remove with a 
 brush that natural oil in hair and skin which 
 preserves a horse from being left stark naked to 
 the rain. The grease which merely clogs the 
 brush, was needed by the horse, and if it is 
 taken away it should be replaced. Horses if 
 groomed outdoors should be groomed and 
 oiled so that the hair may shed rain and keep 
 the skin dry. 
 
 It is argued that the massage action of good 
 
EQUIPMENT 235 
 
 grooming stimulates the supply of oil to the skin 
 and hair ; but from careful observation I think 
 this applies rather to the long and severe 
 grooming of stabled thoroughbreds than to 
 that Hck and a promise which horses in the 
 lines actually get in bad weather. Just 
 enough grooming is done to remove the oil, 
 but not enough to stimulate the supply. 
 
 I note that the more disastrous practices 
 are those of tradition and custom, and are 
 difficult to trace if one is seeking authority 
 from the Regulations and authorized manuals. 
 These are framed in a most reasonable spirit, 
 and allow wide discretion to the Commanding 
 Officer. So far as my experience goes, experi- 
 ence and research has not only been tolerated 
 by the Authorities, but actively encouraged 
 and helped. 
 
 Equipment. The appHcation to Army use 
 of a saddle made for falHng off seems a Httle 
 eccentric until one begins to reason. The idea 
 is not without value, because an Army in 
 time of peace is really a school of manhood, 
 which needs extending until every youth has 
 been made into a man before he gets a vote as 
 a citizen. At a cost of life not greatly exceed- 
 ing the death-rate from closed windows 
 (phthisis) we have under stress of war an 
 
236 EQUIPMENT FOR MOBILITY 
 
 actual national training in manhood which has 
 averted the fall of the British Empire. More- 
 over, the British military training manu- 
 factures a gentleman who can be trusted by 
 the enemy with the care of his wife and 
 daughters. If it is useful in the making of his 
 manhood we should not grudge him a saddle 
 for the prevention of riding. Morally, such a 
 saddle is as good for Tommy as it is for the rich 
 folk of the hunting field. 
 
 It is when one begins to consider mobihty 
 in the field that the pleasure saddle seems an 
 odd selection. Why not a skipping rope ? 
 Troops using the EngHsh equipment have 
 rarely averaged twenty-one miles a day. 
 Troops using the stock saddle have rarely gone 
 so slow. The old war saddle has a record of 
 nine hundred years in every kind of warfare ; 
 and has survived the extreme test of the stock 
 range in replacing the EngHsh saddle with the 
 Mounted Pohce, and mounted troops of Canada. 
 Only the mistaken energies of sportsmen in 
 the British Army displaced the practical 
 equipment designed by soldiers. A return to 
 the old saddle would increase the mobility of 
 all mounted troops. 
 
 Horsemanship. A hundred years ago the 
 recruit came from a farm and had been raised 
 
MILITARY METHODS 237 
 
 on horseback. Even the riding masters of the 
 period could not quite spoil his natural horse- 
 manship. To-day the recruit comes from a 
 town, looks on the horse as dangerous, and 
 lacks the muscles of hip and thigh which must 
 be developed before a man rides well. 
 
 For civil purposes, the stock saddle, and a 
 little guidance from horsemen will teach a man 
 to ride, and the riding school would merely 
 delay his progress. But Army purposes require 
 a firm seat, a gentle hand to control the horse 
 for military formations, and a perfect supple- 
 ness from the waist upwards for the use of 
 weapons. These three vital needs involve a 
 riding school. So the rookie is introduced to 
 the riding school horse. Outside the school 
 that horse is an iron-mouthed brute, who 
 joggles, and cannot be induced to work apart 
 from his comrades. Inside the school he 
 understands the riding master's talk, goes 
 through the drill with or without a rider, and 
 tries to have some fun out of his rookie to pass 
 away the boring hours until he gets home to 
 stables and a meal 
 
 The first job is to give the rookie confidence 
 in the horse. To inspire the rookie with confi- 
 dence, the riding master flicks the horse's heels 
 with a long whip. The rookie's confidence 
 
238 THE RIDING SCHOOL 
 
 that he will tumble off is nearly always justi- 
 fied, and in many instances his nerve is broken. 
 Then the bully calls his victim a coward, and 
 the rookie, made unfit for mounted work, 
 drifts to some staff employment or transfers to 
 a unit of foot. The use of dummy horse for 
 beginners would develop the riding muscles 
 without risk of spoiling the man. It would be 
 reasonable also to tell the recruit that a 
 little fuller's earth to absorb the moisture 
 on his chafed skin will avert most agonizing 
 pain. 
 
 It is a curious streak in mihtary character 
 that there is a tremendous fuss over a horse 
 gall the size of a sixpence, but that a man 
 skinned from crotch to knee is blamed as a 
 maUngerer if he applies to the doctor for 
 help. 
 
 The saddle being worse than useless, the 
 rookie is glad to be quit of such an obstacle to 
 his progress in riding. Moreover, his puttees 
 being worn with edges up, they catch in the 
 horse's turned down hair, and so give him a 
 chance to grip bareback. Leave out the 
 saddle altogether and the plucky and intelli- 
 gent recruits of the new armies are quick to 
 gain confidence as horsemen. They learn 
 by sensible methods taught to the Greek 
 
RIDING ESTABLISHMENTS 239 
 
 rookies of Xenopohon's ever-glorious Ten 
 Thousand. 
 
 There are three types of Riding EstabHsh- 
 ment : the closed building, so hot that it 
 stupefies the man just when he needs his 
 brains ; the ring in a field which has at least the 
 blessings of fresh air ; and the open field of the 
 up-to-date instructors. A cheery and sympa- 
 thetic Riding Master will do better under a 
 roof than a bully can even in the open field, 
 but the best and most rapid training I have 
 ever seen was given in open field by a Regular 
 soldier who abstained from losing his temper. 
 In civil life I had seen a range horseman teach- 
 ing English pupils with equal success, and the 
 methods of the two masters were identical. 
 Men who had never mounted before were 
 taught within a week such circus tricks as 
 jumping, wrestling bareback, tug-of-war 
 mounted, and making horses climb over ugly 
 ground. It was a punishment to be excluded 
 from the lessons. From the civilian school 
 pupils passed out after six months' training 
 and earned a Hving as stock riders. From the 
 military school the men were transferred to a 
 station with the old ring menage and never 
 recovered the resulting leeway. Given equally 
 good instructors, I should say that one month's 
 
240 THE OUTDOOR TRAINING 
 
 training in open field is equal in value to four 
 months in the outdoor menage or five months 
 in an indoor riding school. 
 
 In training men my first measure was to 
 select sympathetic instructors, and reheve for 
 other duties any N.C.O. who showed the 
 slightest infirmity of temper. Released from 
 all bullying, nagging or fear of punishment, 
 my rookies w^ere sportsmen who would greet 
 me with a cheery grin. The second measure 
 was to cut out the element of monotony in 
 routine, so that the riding field became a place 
 of surprises, of varied sports and competitions 
 w^here each man tried to excel. From the first 
 I would take the whole class away from the 
 schooling for an occasional joy-ride along the 
 grassy roadsides, slowly increasing the pace 
 from walk to joggle, and finally to long trot on 
 the home stretch. When we came to be tested 
 against other units we had no reason to regret 
 our unorthodox methods of training. 
 
 My second month's riding school would 
 involve a very serious schooHng for officers 
 and Non. Coms. in teaching them how to 
 handle a unit training for field mobility. It 
 would be Hmited to three exercises all of which 
 I have tested with success in England during 
 the past decade 
 
FACTORS OF MOBILITY 241 
 
 First Exercise. Taking a feed and haver- 
 sack rations to make a day's march and 
 practise the noon halt. 
 
 Second Exercise. Taking vehicles or pack 
 animals according to size of unit, to make a 
 two days' march with a night bivouac. In- 
 struction is needed in the use of natural wind 
 breaks and slopes of ground, also to adapt the 
 sweat pad, blanket, overcoat and saddle, into 
 a dry camp regardless of the weather. 
 
 Third Exercise. After extensive practice 
 at the home camp, in cooking without any 
 utensils except the pots and cups for the tea or 
 coffee, to make a night bivouac without any 
 kitchen transport. 
 
 So far one could dispense with the camp 
 equipment, and almost the whole kitchen ; but 
 concurrently with this training to drop needless 
 baggage, there would be first exercises for 
 scouting and road reports, vedettes, flankers 
 and despatch riders. 
 
 Mobility. The factors for mobility may 
 now be added up : The breeding of horses on 
 pasture natural to the species ; sheds to secure 
 dry earth standings and a wind break ; outdoor 
 management ; a weight-distributing saddle ; 
 an actual training of men and horses to rapid 
 and sustained marching with reduced transport. 
 
242 THE WINGS OF AN ARMY 
 
 With these few measures the mobihty of 
 mounted troops could be doubled. 
 
 To quadruple the mobility of mounted forces 
 one has merely to add the stock-range system 
 of a pony herd supplying two mounts per man. 
 In an enemy's country each horseman would 
 ride, and lead his spare mount, changing over 
 at halts. A march would be continuous with 
 short halts, up to the limits of endurance for 
 the men and horses available, and this after 
 proper training would not be far short of one 
 hundred miles a day. From the moment when 
 a war of positions culminates in advance or in 
 retreat, flying brigades or even divisions could 
 play havoc with enemy's plans by threatening 
 his lines of communication. The raid, as 
 practised by the Confederate, General Morgan, 
 in the American Civil War, is no longer healthy 
 because there are aircraft about. Detached 
 units cannot, as in past times, be left in the air 
 to forage for themselves ; and yet mobility of 
 the screen and wings may prove as useful an 
 aid to a marching army as claws are to a crab. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 This book has been written in spare hours 
 off duty while the air throbbed all round me. 
 The crackling rifle fire at the butts, the uproar 
 of the batteries at practice and frequent bursts 
 of bombs, the buzzing aeroplanes as they pass 
 overhead, rumble of transport trains, and 
 tramp of marching troops, bands on a Sunday, 
 and choirs of trumpets sounding the evening 
 calls are echoes, all of them, from the great 
 thunders of the Armageddon. 
 
 The sounds will die away into the distance 
 to a last muttering beyond the skyline. Then 
 those who are left of us will put away our 
 weapons and our saddles, and go back to civil 
 life. But we shall all be changed. 
 
 No man returning from a journey, has ever 
 come back with the same self into his former 
 Hfe. From this travail we shall come changed 
 into a different world. A new and realized 
 manhood will meet a tried and bettered woman- 
 hood. We shall not any more be able to live 
 content in the old world of selfishness and 
 243 
 
244 THE MAKINGS OF MANHOOD 
 
 slackness. We shall demand for men a train- 
 ing of their manhood, for women a training of 
 their womanhood. 
 
 We shall value manliness more than scholar- 
 ship, ease or wealth, or even the freedom we 
 fought so hard to save. Food has no flavour 
 until we have been hungry, rest has no value 
 unless we have been weary, life has no zest 
 save that from fierce endeavour, it is the work 
 we do which builds our strength. The man- 
 hood of our fathers came by use of arms, and 
 of horses, by going down to the sea in ships, 
 by hard, rough hving, taking risks and endur- 
 ing pain, by generous giving and honest loving. 
 
 The manhood of our sons will not be made by 
 indoor life, by ease, by softness, by selfishness 
 or vice. The body as well as the mind and the 
 spirit must have daily training, renewal and 
 growth, if we would avert disease, corruption 
 and decay. The future has nothing to add to 
 the past save in the hazards of the air, the 
 fierce delight of handling aircraft, and the 
 hardening of all our fibres in the conquest of 
 the skies. It will be long, however, before the 
 aeroplane can alight in forests, on mountains, 
 rough ground or stormy water, or venture very 
 far from the bases of supply. Till then our 
 industry and our wars will still need horses, and 
 
CONCLUSION 245 
 
 even afterwards we shall hardly be able to 
 spare them from our pleasures. 
 
 In the past, the horses carried our ancestors 
 out of savagery through barbarism into civiliza- 
 tion. They saved us from the barren labour 
 of Chinese, Egyptian and Indian cultivators, 
 and gave us the large opportunities of our 
 country Hfe. Horses and shipping added all 
 the continents to our estate, the conquest of 
 the world to our arms, the glamour of adven- 
 ture to our history. If only we can learn to 
 understand horses with a quicker sympathy, a 
 bolder reasoning, the training which our 
 fathers had as horsemen, will be bettered in the 
 training of our sons. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Acacia, 57. 
 
 Action of Light, theory ^^^of. 
 
 Chap. II. and p. 160. 
 Afghans, 223. 
 Africa, 29, 31, 56, 177, 
 
 230. 
 Agriculture, horses in, 145. 
 Alaska, 21. 
 Alberta, 230. 
 Alcohol, 197. 
 Alexander the Great, 138, 
 
 201, 
 Alkali, 59. 
 America : 
 
 Central, 16. 
 
 North, Chps. I. and II., 
 horsemen of, 148. 
 
 South, 20. 
 Ancestors of horse, 2. 
 Apples, 200. 
 Argentine, 152, 177, 223 ; 
 
 Remounts, 232. 
 Arabia, 28, 70, 139, 209. 
 Armenia, 137-8. 
 Armies, 224. 
 Armour, 145. 
 Arms, 174. 
 
 Ass, 9, 29, 30, 35, 130, 208. 
 Assyria, 14, 136, 138. 
 Atlantic, 2 ; Continent, 5. 
 Austraha, 152, 155, 169, 177, 
 
 203, 230. 
 
 Babylonia, 135. 
 Backfalls, 79. 
 Baffin's Bay, 19. 
 Balance in riding, 221. 
 Baltic, 19, 42, 43, III. 
 Barb, 28, 131, 209. 
 Bathing, 6. 
 
 Bay, 14, 31, 32, 46, 1 1 7-8, 
 
 129 et seq. 
 
 Bearded horses, 23, 36. 
 
 Bells, 197. 
 
 Bent leg riding, 143, 207. 
 
 Bering Land, 21, 24. 
 
 Bering Sea, 16, 21, 24. 
 
 Biblical record, 129. 
 
 Billets for horses, 233. 
 
 Birch, Major, " Modern Rid- 
 ing," 226 
 
 Biting, 74. 
 
 Bitt, 109, 119, 156. 
 
 Bivouac, 241. 
 
 Blackfeet, 107, 116. 
 
 Blanket, 153, 198. 
 
 Black horses, 47. 
 
 Blisters, 153, 198. 
 
 Bolas, 176. 
 
 Bolting, 75. 
 
 Bone, 39. 
 
 Boers, 29, 179, 223. 
 
 Boots, 169. 
 
 Branding, 70. 
 
 Brazil, 5, 48. 
 
 Breaking back, 58. 
 
 Breeches, 167. 
 
 Breeding horses, 137, 228. 
 
 Bridges, 62. 
 
 Bridle, 115, 120. 
 
 British Columbia, 24, 230. 
 
 British Isles, 19, 43, 107, 139, 
 211, 
 
 Broncho, 148, 180. 
 
 Brown horses, 31, 47. 
 
 Buckskin horses, see Dun. 
 
 Bucking, 28, 61, 78, 150. 
 
 Build of horses, 10. 
 
 Bulk of horses, 10. 
 
 Bushes as reserve of food, 63. 
 
 Buying, 182. 
 
 246 
 
INDEX 
 
 247 
 
 Cactus, 57. 
 Camels, 22, 208. 
 Camps, 196. 
 Canaan, 135-6, 
 Canter, 186. 
 Capture, loi et seq. 
 Carbon in food, 197. 
 Carrots, 200. 
 Carson, Kit, 204. 
 Cart, 105. 
 Cart horse, 40. 
 Cavalry : 
 
 Assyrian, 138. 
 
 British, 211. 
 
 charges, 79, 178. 
 
 European, 178. 
 
 Greek, 11 7-8-9. 
 
 Hebrew, 131. 
 
 Lydian, 138. 
 
 Mexican, 178. 
 
 Moslem, 141. 
 
 Regular, 223. 
 
 Roman, 120. 
 Celtic pony (Ewart), 36, 39, 
 Centaur, 117. [43, 44. 
 
 Chapareras, 173. 
 Character, 71, 81.3 
 Chargers : 
 
 of Angels, 83. ^ 
 
 Black Bess, 202. 
 
 Bucephalus (Alexander's), 
 201. 
 
 of Charles XII., 202. 
 
 Juhus Caesar's, 8. 
 
 Odin's, 36. 
 
 Pegasus, 1 15-6. 
 
 Peschkov's, 202. 
 Chariots, 106, no, 117, 121, 
 
 133. 139. 
 Chestnut horses, 31, 46. 
 China, 127-8. 
 Choking, 91. 
 Cincha, see girth. 
 Circus, 1 01. 
 Civil War : 
 
 English, 209. 
 
 American, 242. 
 
 Clay, influence of, 39. 
 
 Cleveland Bay, 145. 
 
 Cliffs, 60-1-2. 
 
 CUmate, Chaps. I., II. 
 
 Climbing, 60-1-2. 
 
 Clipping, 203. 
 
 Clothing, 231-2. 
 
 Cloudland, 33, 34, 51, 52, 
 III. 
 
 Clydesdales, 145. 
 
 Coat, thickness of, 11 ; pro- 
 tection, 26. 
 
 Cold, 196. 
 
 Colic, 91, 199, 200. 
 
 Colorado, 61. 
 
 Colosseum, loi. 
 
 Colour of horses, 4, 14 et seq., 
 46 to 53. 
 
 Colts, 70. 
 
 Columbia Basin, 23. 
 
 Communication among hor- 
 ses, 89 et seq. 
 
 Compass, 190. 
 
 Constantinople, 120. 
 
 Cooling a horse, 196-7. 
 
 Copper ointments, 198. 
 
 Corduroy roads, 62. 
 
 Cornering, 77. 
 
 Corrall, loi. 
 
 Cossack, 178, 208. 
 
 Cowboys, 148, 205. 
 
 Cracked heels, 199. 
 
 Cree Indians, 142. 
 
 Croll theory, 16. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 209. 
 
 Crowding, 77. 
 
 Curb bitt, 160. 
 
 Cyrene, 117, 223. 
 
 Damaraland, 223. 
 Danube, 115. 
 Dapples. 50. 53. 
 Dappled horses, in to 141. 
 Darwin, 25. 
 Dashboard, 106. 
 Defence, methods of, 28, 66, 
 68, 71. 
 
248 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Denmark, 45. 
 
 Dervishes, 208. 
 Deserts, 7, 8, 14, 57, 133. 
 Destriers, 145. 
 Diamond hitch, 151. 
 Diluvial horse, 40. 
 Directions, trail, 191. 
 Disease, 216. 
 Docking tails, 2, 70. 
 Double back, the, 118. 
 Dragging the forefoot, 91. 
 Dragons, age of, 2. 
 Draught horses, 41, 121. 
 Dreams of horses, 88. 
 Dress of horsemen, 161. 
 Drinking, habits in, 65. 
 Driving, 106, 180. 
 Dun horse, 14, 31-2, 51, 115- 
 
 6, 121, 124 et seq. 
 Dung, special places for, 68 ; 
 
 indications of health, 91. 
 Dust bath, 201. 
 
 Ears, movements of, 89, 90, 
 
 91, 92. 
 Eating horse flesh, 97, 99. 
 Egypt, 131 to 137. 
 Ehzabeth, Queen, 210. 
 English methods, 151. 
 Equatorial regions, 18, 19. 
 Equites 122. 
 Equipment, 152. 
 Erythrea, 223. 
 Europe, Chap. II. 
 Ewart, Prof. J, Cosser, F.R.S 
 
 vii.-x., 40. 
 Exhaustion, 197. 
 Eyesight, 156. 
 
 Family life of horses, 66-7. 
 Feeding, 199, 200 ; when 
 groomed, 73 ; by breeders, 
 
 137. 215. 
 Fighting methods of, 68, 90. 
 Fires, Camp, 200. 
 Foals, 69. 
 Foot of horse, 4, 8, 87. 
 
 Forage, 11, 215. 
 
 Forelock, 14. 
 
 Forest horses, 7, 40, 41. 
 
 Forest, Horses in, 194, 197. 
 
 Formations in defence, 28, 
 
 68. 
 Fox hunting, 210 et seq. 225. 
 France, 36, 41, 122, 178, 223. 
 Friends, Making, 183. 
 Frontiersmen's Pocket Book, 
 
 177. 
 Frontiersmen, Legion of, see 
 
 Legion. 
 
 Gait, 186. 
 
 Gall cures, 198. 
 
 GaU?, 153, 198, 233. 
 
 Gaul, 122. 
 
 Geldings, 68. 
 
 Genesis, 129 ct seq. 
 
 Germany, 122, 211, 223, 225. 
 
 Germs, 15, 216. 
 
 Gestures, 9, 194. 
 
 Ghosts seen by horses, 85. 
 
 Girth, 80, 154, 198. 
 
 Gothic horsemen, 121. 
 
 Grain, Feeding, 137, 197. 
 
 Gramma grass, 56. 
 
 Granite, Influence of, 38. 
 
 Grasses, 27, 55-6. 
 
 Grazing, 7, 59. 
 
 Greasewood, 57. 
 
 Greeks, 115, et seq., 138, 143. 
 
 Greenland, 16, 17, 19. 
 
 Grey horses, 47, 140. 
 
 Grimaldi grottoes, 40. 
 
 Groaning, 90. 
 
 Grooming, 73, 74, 231, 234. 
 
 Grooms, 78. 
 
 Guidance in travel, 189. 
 
 Gulf Stream, 16, 19. 
 
 Habits, 72. 
 
 Halts, 195. 
 
 Hands, Training of, 159. 
 
 Harem, The, 66. 
 
 Harty, Constable, 180. 
 
INDEX 
 
 249 
 
 Hats, 165, 
 
 Haut Ecole, 178. 
 
 Headstall, 159. 
 
 Hearing, 193. 
 
 Heat, 198. 
 
 Hedges, 210. 
 
 Heels, 198, 201. 
 
 Hellenes, 115. 
 
 HiUs, 187. 
 
 Herd, 68, 107. 
 
 Hitch, 151. 
 
 Hittites, 133, 136. 
 
 Hobbles, 197. 
 
 Hogging mares, 15, 231. 
 
 Holland, 45. 
 
 Hoofs, 8, 28. 
 
 Horse-fights, 90. 
 
 Horse-flesh, 97. 
 
 Horse sickness, 48. 
 
 Humour in horses, 85 et seq. 
 
 Hungary, 177. 
 
 Hunting, fox, 210, 225. 
 
 Hyksos, 134. 
 
 Hyraco therium, 5. 
 
 Ice age, 15-6-7, 33- 
 Ice, Horses on, 63, 72. 
 Icelandic horse fights, 90. 
 Immortality of horses, 83. 
 India, 47, 139, 208. 
 Indians, Red, 68, 107-8-9-10, 
 
 135. 142- 
 Instincts, 81, 83. 
 Intelligence, 63, 69, 87. 
 Ireland, 23, 39, 70, 178. 
 Israel, 129 et seq, 
 Italy, 223. 
 
 Japan current, 21. 
 Japanese, 217, 223. 
 Jaral, loi. 
 Jockeys, 207. 
 Joggling, 78. 
 Joseph, Chief, no. 
 Jumping, 70, 209, 221, 226. 
 
 Kangaroo-jumping, 75. 
 
 Katywar, 48. 
 
 Keddah, loi, 
 
 Kentucky, 70. 
 
 Kiang {see ass), 36. 
 
 Kicking, 68, 73. 74. 
 
 King, Dick, 202. 
 
 Knights, 122. 
 
 Kraal, loi. 
 
 Kruger, a horse comedian, 85. 
 
 Labrador, 20. 
 
 Lasso, 176. 
 
 Legion of Frontiersmen, 177 
 
 221. 
 Libya (Cyrene, 117), 132, 135 
 Light, Action of. Chap. II., 
 
 in stables, 218. 
 Limestone, Influence of, 39, 
 
 215. 
 Lincolnshire, 45. 
 Liniment, 198. 
 Llanos, 177. 
 Longtails, 3. 
 Lonsdale, Earl of, 212. 
 Low's Domesticated Animals 
 
 45- 
 
 Macedonia, 138. 
 
 Malaya, 5. 
 
 Mammoth, 24. 
 
 Management, 230. 
 
 Mares, i, 3, 14, 66, 116, 234. 
 
 Manetho, 134. 
 
 Markings, 10. 
 
 Massage, 231, 234. 
 
 Meadows, 55, 58, 215. 
 
 Memory, 65, 71. 
 
 Mesopotamia, 135. 
 
 Mexico, 5, 55, 147, I53» I77. 
 
 178, T79, 223. 
 Microbes, 12, 15, 216. 
 Migration, 49. 
 Milk of Mares, 102. 
 Missouri, 21. 
 Mobility, no, 227 et seq.'. 
 
 Summary, 241. 
 
2SO 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Modern Riding, by Major 
 
 Birch, 226. 
 Moisture, 11. 
 
 Mongolia, 31, 127, 177, 208. 
 Moqui Indians, 
 Morgan, Gen., 242. 
 Morocco, 208. 
 Moslem, 141, 208. 
 Moss holes, 63. 
 Mounted Police, see PoHce. 
 Music, Enjoyment of, 70, 88. 
 Muzzle, 6, 58. 
 
 Navajo Indians, 142. 
 Neck, 58. 
 Neckcloth, 172. 
 Nez Perce Indians, no. 
 Normans, 145. 
 Norsemen, in, 115, 121. 
 North Sea, 42, 44. 
 Norway, 16, 45. 
 Numbers, Sense of, 70. 
 
 Oatmeal, 198. 
 
 Oiling harness, 233 ; horses, 
 
 116, 234. 
 Olympic games, 114, 117. 
 Oriental riding, 208. 
 Outdoor management, 231. 
 Outlaw horses, 71, 87. 
 
 Paces, 186. 
 Pachynolophus, ix. 
 Pacific Ocean, 21, 22, 24. 
 Pack horses, 67, 122, 127, 
 
 146, 152, 182, 196. 
 Pack trails, 122, 124, 127. 
 Pad saddle, 208. 
 Pain, 90, 91. 
 Panic, 75. 
 Parker, Sergt., Adventure of, 
 
 82. 
 Parthians, 208. 
 Pasture, 6, 33, 37, 74, 196, 
 
 215. 
 Patagonia, 177. 
 Pawing, 66, 72, 
 
 Pegasus, 115, 116. 
 Percherons, 145. 
 Persians, no. 
 Personality in horses, 84 et 
 
 seq. 
 Peruvians, 176. 
 Photographic colour, 50, 
 Pick, Hoof, 201. 
 Piebald horses, 47. 
 Pig, Colour of, 4. 
 Pig-jumping, 75. 
 Pit ponies, 215. 
 Pleasure horses, Chaps. VII., 
 
 VIII. 
 Pointing ears, 87 ; forefeet, 
 
 91. 
 Police, Royal N.-W. Mounted 
 
 82, 86, 180, 181, 203, 230. 
 Polo, 151. 
 Polo, Marco, 128, 
 Portugal, 178, 208, 222. 
 Posting, 128. 
 Pound for catching stock, 
 
 lOI. 
 
 Practical jokes by horses, 85, 
 
 86, 87. 
 Prairie, 7. 
 
 Psychology, 84 et seq. 
 Prejevalski horse, 9, 31, 36, 
 
 4i> 51- 
 Propping, 77. 
 Protective colour, 14, 30. 
 Punishment of horses, 76, 
 
 185. 
 
 Quagga, 9, 29, 31. 
 Quartering slopes, 62. 
 Queensland, 152. 
 Quicksands, 62. 
 
 Race-memories, 71 
 
 Racing, 120, 225 ; seat, 143. 
 
 Raids, 242. 
 
 Range, The Stock range, 54 
 
 et seq., 216, 242. 
 Rearing, 75. 
 Red Indian, see Indian, 
 
INDEX 
 
 251 
 
 Recado saddle, 155. 
 Records, 201. 
 Rein, 62, 76, 195. 
 Re-muda, 68. 
 Reptile, 2, 3. 
 Resting, 59, 64, 189. 
 Riding, 118, 143 et seq., 220, 
 
 226, 
 Riding school, see School. 
 Rhine, 42. 
 
 Ridgeway, Prof., x., 51. 
 Riviera horse, 40. 
 Roan horses, 47. 
 Roads, 52, 121. 
 Rocky Mountains, 16, 54, 
 
 108, 189, 204. 
 Romans, 119, 144. 
 Rope, Use of the, 62, 176. 
 Rough - riding, 179, 180 ; 
 
 driving, 180. 
 Royal Artillery, 178, 226. 
 Russia, 31, 35, 121, 137, 140, 
 
 208, 223. 
 
 Saddle : 
 
 American, 153, 213. 
 
 Argentine, 155. 
 
 Australian, 155. 
 
 English, 146 et seq., 211 et 
 seq., 235. 
 
 McClellan, 156. 
 Saddling, 184. 
 Saddle tree, 199. 
 Saddle, weight distributing, 
 
 219. 
 Sagebrush, 57. 
 S. Elias, Alps of, 16, 24. 
 Sagartians, 176. 
 Salt, 59, 198, 200. 
 Sarmatians, 176. 
 Savaging, 80. 
 Savannahs, 7. 
 Scent, 4, 93, 192. 
 Scandinavia, 48, 121. 
 Schleswig, 45. 
 School, Riding, 212, 237 to 
 
 240. 
 
 Scotland, 45. 
 
 Scouring, 200. 
 
 Scouting, 190. 
 
 Scraping, 79. 
 
 Screaming, 90. 
 
 Screens for stable walls, 217. 
 
 Scythians, 176. 
 
 Self defence, 66. 
 
 Sense of touch, 6. 
 
 Shadows, Fear of, 194. 
 
 Shaps, 173. 
 
 Shire horses, 145. 
 
 Shirts. 166. 
 
 Shoulder, Injury to, 91. 
 
 Shying, 89. 
 
 Signals made by horses, 8g. 
 
 Sight. 156, 193. 
 
 Singeing, 231. 
 
 Singing, Uses of, 75. 
 
 Siwalik horse, 41. 
 
 Size of horses, 37. 
 
 Skewbalds, 23, 47. 
 
 Slack rein, 62. 
 
 Sleep, 27, 64, 189. 
 
 Sleighs, 121. 
 
 Smudge, 197. 
 
 SnafiQe. 156. 
 
 Snake-kilhng, 72. 
 
 Soap, Soft, 199. 
 
 Solomon's Cavalry, 117; 
 
 Chariotry, 138. 
 Solutr6 horse. 41. 
 Sores. 153. 188. 198. 
 Soudan, 208. 
 South Africa, 29. 31, 56, 177, 
 
 230-1. 
 Speed, 28. 
 Spine, 14. 
 
 Spirit of the horse, 81. 
 Sport, Sense of, 70, 88. 
 Spurs. 172. 
 Squealing, 91. 
 Stables, 201. 214 «/ seq. 
 Stadium, loi. 
 Stallions, 28, 66, 67, 68, 75. 
 Stampedes, 75, 234. 
 Stamping, 72. 91. 
 
252 
 
 INDEX 
 
 standing, Manner of, 91. 
 
 Standings for horses, 217-218 
 
 Steppes, 7, 14, 41. 
 
 Stockrange, see Eange. 
 
 Stockwhip, 177. 
 
 Stomach, 36. 
 
 Strabo, 139. 
 
 Strength, 11. 
 
 Straight leg riding, 143, 207. 
 
 Stirrup, 154. 
 
 Stony Indians, 142. 
 
 Striking a horse, 26, 27, 29. 
 
 Stumbhng, 158. 
 
 Suffolk Punch, 145. 
 
 Sugar, 198, 200. 
 
 Sunfishing, 78. 
 
 Sunhght, Coloration by, 11. 
 
 Suppling a horse, 185. 
 
 Surcingle, 109. 
 
 Swamps, 63. 
 
 Sweating, 91. 
 
 Sweat-pad, 152. 
 
 Sweden, 140. 
 
 Swimming, 6, 63. 
 
 Syria, 140. 
 
 Tail, 6, 28. 
 Tapir, 5, 22. 
 Tarpan, 9, 31, 36, 41. 
 Tartars, 115, 176. 
 Tears, 90, 116. 
 Teeth, 59. 
 Temper, 73, 
 Thames, 42. 
 
 Thirst, Endurance of, 64. 
 Thoroughbred, x., 214. 
 Thought transference, 92. 
 Throwing a horse, 75. 
 Touch, Sense of, 6. 
 Tracking, 191. 
 Training, 70. 
 Travel, 181 et seq. 
 Travois, 104, 105. 
 Treading, 77, 79. 
 Tropical hght, x. 
 
 Trotting, 66, 186. 
 Trousers, 168. 
 Tunic, 167. 
 Turpin, Dick, 202. 
 Tying a horse, 195. 
 Turled pasture, 33. 
 Tussock grass, 26. 
 
 Unsaddling, 201. 
 Unsoundness of horses, 214 
 
 et seq. 
 Utah, 61. 
 
 Valkyrs, 115. 
 Vaquero, 149. 
 Vice, 71, 81. 
 
 Waggon, 105, 121. 
 
 Water, 58 ; horses in, 62. 
 
 Watering, 64, 65, 72, 98, 195. 
 
 Wallets, 160. 
 
 War, viii., 70. 
 
 Warming a horse, 197. 
 
 Weapons, 176, 184. 
 
 Welsh pit pony 118. 
 
 Wesley, Richard, 158. 
 
 Whicker, 90. 
 
 Whinney, 90. 
 
 Whip, 76, 177. 
 
 Whiskey, 197. 
 
 Wheels, 105. 
 
 White horses, 35. 
 
 Wind, Holding the, 80, 184. 
 
 Winds, 18 e^ seq., 25, 26, 196. 
 
 Winged horses, 115. 
 
 Wolves, 58, 68. 
 
 Women, 132, 209. 
 
 Woodruff, Surgeon-Gen., x. 
 
 Working horses. Chap. VII. 
 
 Yakima Indians, 142. 
 Yukon, 24, 45. 
 
 Zebra, 9, 29, 31. 
 
 Zenophon, 118, 120, 144, 169. 
 
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 of humour, coupled with expert information and 
 charm of style, which lend attraction to all Mr. 
 Aitken's works. Illustrated by J. A. Shepherd. 6/- net 
 
BY J. C. TREGARTHEN 
 
 The Story of a Hare 
 
 With Illustrations. Large crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net 
 
 This is a drama of the wilds, portraying the life of a hare in 
 a country infested by her enemies, fox, otter, marten, polecat, stoat, 
 etc., from each of which she has narrow escapes. 
 
 The narrative, which is placed a hundred years ago, describes 
 the ruses, shifts, and wiles the hare employs in order to avoid dis- 
 covery, and to escape from pursuers. The scene is laid near Land's 
 End, a district of upland, moor, and cliff, as wild as it is varied, 
 affording an admirable setting for the life of a hare, which is now for 
 the first time told at length by one who is an authority. 
 
 " Has the rare gift of seeing life from the point of view of the 
 animal he is describing. Altogether it is a fascinating book, and 
 it will add considerably to a reputation which already stands deservedly 
 high."— Globe. 
 
 The Life Story of an Otter 
 
 With Illustrations. Large crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. ntt 
 
 " It would be difficult to present nature study in a more attractive 
 form than that which has been adopted by Mr. Tregarthen. All who 
 are interested in wild life will enjoy the freshnesr of a narrative which 
 is as exhilarating as any Otter hunt can be." — Scotsman. 
 
 "... The book is one in which naturalists will especially rejoice 
 because they will find what cannot be found elsewhere ; but there is 
 no class of reader above the age of twelve who would not find satisfac- 
 tion in this speaking description of Western scenery and graphic tale of 
 the most mysterious of its denizens." — Times. 
 
 •*. . . A very fascinating life-story of the Otter. . . . The author 
 describes in detail many interesting habits which are not dealt with in 
 the majority of text-books." — Birmingham Post. 
 
 "... A very excellent addition to the animal biographies in which 
 lovers of wild nature delight. . . . The book is capitally written, full 
 of the right open-air feeling and of suggestive descriptions of the wild 
 moorland and coast of the West country."— Z>az7)/ Telegraph. 
 
 LONDON: JOHN MURRAY 
 
Webster Family Library of Veterinary Mediciiie 
 
 Cummings Schocl of Veterinary Medicine sl^ 
 
 Tufts University 
 
 200 Westboro Road 
 
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