Part 4
_The Arabian._—Of all the countries in the world where the horse runs wild, Arabia produces the most beautiful breed—the most generous, swift, and persevering. They are found, though not in great numbers, in the deserts of that country, and the natives use every stratagem to take them. Although they are active and beautiful, yet they are not so large as those bred up tame. They are of a brown colour, their mane and tail very short, and the hair black and tufted. Their swiftness is incredible; the attempt to pursue them in the usual manner of the chace, with dogs, would be entirely fruitless: such is the rapidity of their flight, that they are instantly out of view, and the dogs themselves give up the vain pursuit. The only method, therefore, of taking them is by traps hidden in the sand, which entangling their feet, the hunter at length comes up, and either kills them or carries them home alive. If the horse be young, he is considered among the Arabians as a very great delicacy, and they feast upon him while any part is found remaining; but if from his shape or vigour he promises to be serviceable in his more noble capacity, they take the usual methods of taming him by fatigue and hunger, and he soon becomes a useful domestic animal. But the horses thus caught, or trained in this manner, are at present very few; the value of Arabian horses all over the world has, in a great measure, thinned the deserts of the wild breed, and there are few to be found in those countries, except such as are tame.
The Arabian breed has been diffused into Barbary as well as Egypt, and into Persia also. Those from the former country are usually denominated “Barbs.”
Let the Arab be ever so poor, he has horses: they usually ride on the mares, experience having taught them that they bear fatigue, hunger, and thirst, better than horses; they also are less vicious, more gentle, and will remain, left to themselves, in great numbers, for days together, without doing the least injury to each other. The Turks, on the contrary, do not like mares, and the Arabians sell them the horses which they do not keep for stallions.
The Arabs have no houses, but constantly live in tents, which serve them also for stables, so that the husband, the wife, and the children, lie promiscuously with the mare and foal. The little children are often seen upon the body or the neck of the mare, while these continue inoffensive and harmless, permitting them thus to play with and caress them without injury.
The Arabs never beat their horses; they treat them gently; they speak to them, and seem to hold a discourse; they use them as friends; they never attempt to increase their speed by the whip, nor spur them, but in cases of necessity;—however, when this happens they set off with amazing swiftness, they leap over obstacles with as much agility as a buck, and if the rider happens to fall, they are so manageable that they stand still in the midst of their most rapid career.
The Arabian horses are of a middle size, easy in their motions, and rather inclined to leanness than fat. They are regularly dressed every morning and evening, and with such care, that the smallest roughness is not left upon their skins. They wash the legs, the mane, and the tail; the two latter they never cut, and very seldom comb, lest they should thin the hair.
They give them nothing to eat during the day; they only give them to drink once or twice, and at sunset they hang a bag to their heads, in which there is about half a bushel of clean barley: they continue eating the whole night, and the bag is again taken away the next morning. They are turned out to pasture in the beginning of March, when the grass is pretty high. When the spring is past they take them again from pasture, and then they get neither grass nor hay during the rest of the year; barley is their only food, except now and then a little straw. The mane of the foal is always clipped when about a year or eighteen months old, in order to make it stronger and thicker; they begin to break them at two years old, or two years and a half at farthest; they never saddle or bridle them till at that age, and then they are always kept ready saddled at the door of the tent, from morning till sunset, in order to be prepared against any surprise. They at present seem sensible of the great advantage their horses are to the country; there is a law, therefore, that prohibits the exportation of the mares, and such stallions as are brought into England are generally purchased on the eastern shores of Africa, and come round to us by the Cape of Good Hope.
The Arabs preserve the pedigree of their horses with great care, and for several ages back. They distinguish the races by different names, and divide them into three classes; the first is that of the nobles, the ancient breed, and unadulterated on either side; the second, that of the horses of the ancient race, but adulterated; and the third the common and inferior kind: the last they sell at a low price, but those of the first class, and even of the second, amongst which are found horses of equal value to the former, are sold extremely dear. They know, by long experience, the race of a horse by his appearance; they can tell the name, the surname, the colour, and the marks properly belonging to each. When the mare has produced the foal, witnesses are called, and an attestation signed, in which are described the marks of the foal, and the day noted when it was brought forth. These attestations increase the value of the horse, and are given to the person who buys him. The most ordinary mare of this race sells for five hundred crowns; there are many that sell for a thousand, and some of the very finest kinds for fourteen or fifteen hundred pounds.
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Eighty or one hundred piastres are given for an ordinary horse, which is in general less valued than an ass or mule; but a horse of a well known Arabian breed will fetch any price. Abdallah, pacha of Damascus, had just given three thousand piastres for one. The history of a horse is frequently the topic of general conversation. When I was at Jerusalem, the feats of one of these steeds made a great noise. The Bedouin, to whom the animal, a mare, belonged, being pursued by the governor’s guards, rushed with her from the top of the hills that overlooked Jericho. The mare scoured at full gallop an almost perpendicular declivity without stumbling, and left the soldiers lost in admiration and astonishment. The poor creature, however, dropped down dead on entering Jericho, and the Bedouin, who would not quit her, was taken weeping over the body of his companion. This mare has a brother in the desert, who is so famous, that the Arabs always know where he has been, where he is, what he is doing, and how he does. Ali Aga religiously showed me, in the mountains near Jericho, the footsteps of the mare that died in the attempt to save her master,—a Macedonian could not have beheld those of Bucephalus with greater respect.
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The pure Arabians are somewhat smaller than our race horses, seldom exceeding fourteen hands two inches in height. Their heads are very beautiful, clean, and wide between the jaws; the forehead is broad and square; the face flat; the muzzle short and fine; the eyes prominent and brilliant; the ears small and handsome; the nostrils large and open; the skin of the head thin, through which may be distinctly traced the whole of the veins; the neck rather short than otherwise. The body may, as a whole, be considered too light, and the breast rather narrow; but behind the arms, the chest generally swells out greatly, leaving ample room for the lungs to play, and with great depth of ribs. The shoulder is superior to that of any other breed; the scapula, or shoulder-blade, inclines backwards nearly an angle of forty-five degrees; the withers are high and arched; the neck beautifully curved; the mane and tail long, thin, and flowing: the legs are fine, flat, and wiry, with the posteriors placed somewhat oblique, which has led some to suppose that their strength was thereby lessened—but this is by no means the case; the bone is of uncommon density; and the prominent muscles of the fore arms and thigh, prove that the Arabian horse is fully equal to all that has been said of its physical powers. The Arabian is never known, in a tropical climate, to be a roarer, or to have curbs, the shape, from the point of the hock to the fetlock, being very perfect. It is a remarkable fact, that the skin of all the light-coloured Arabians is pure black, or bluish black, which gives to white horses that beautiful silvery gray colour so prevalent among the coursers of noble blood. Bay and chestnut are also common, and considered good colours. It has been remarked in India, that no horse of a dark gray colour was ever known to be a winner on the turf. If an Arabian horse exceed fourteen and a half hands in height, the purity of his blood is always doubted in India.
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Speaking of the docile character of the Arab horse, the late Bishop of Calcutta writes: “My morning rides are very pleasant. My horse is a nice, quiet, good-tempered little Arab, who is so fearless, that he goes, without starting, close to an elephant, and so gentle and docile, that he eats bread out of my hand, and has almost as much attachment and coaxing ways as a dog. This seems the general character of the Arab horses, to judge from what I have seen in this country. It is not the fiery, dashing animal I had supposed, but with more rationality about him, and more apparent confidence in his rider, than the majority of English horses.”—_Le Keux_—_Brown_—_Clarke_—_Heber._
ARBALIST, _s._ A cross-bow.
ARCHER, _s._ He that shoots with a bow.
ARCHERY, _s._ The use of the bow; the act of shooting with the bow; the art of an archer.
Archery is the art or exercise of shooting with a bow and arrow.
In this island, archery was greatly encouraged in former times, and many statutes were made for the regulation thereof; whence the English archers became the best in Europe, and obtained many signal victories. The Artillery Company of London, though they have long disused the weapon, are the remains of the ancient bowmen or archers. Artillery (_artillerie_) is a French term, signifying archery; as the king’s bowyer was in that language styled _artillier du roy_. And from that nation the English seem to have learnt at least the use of the cross-bow. William the Conqueror had a considerable number of bowmen in his army, when no mention is made of such troops on the side of Harold. And it is supposed that these Norman archers shot with the arbalist, or cross-bow, in which formerly the arrow was placed in a groove, termed in French, a quarrel, and in English, a bolt. Of the time when shooting with the long-bow first began among the English, there appears no certain accounts. Their chronicles do not mention the use of archery till the death of Richard I.; who, in 1199, was killed by an arrow at the siege of Limoges, in Guienne, which Hemingford mentions to have issued from a cross-bow. After this, there appears no notice of archery for nearly one hundred and fifty years; when an order was issued by Edward III., in the fifteenth year of his reign, to the sheriffs of most of the English counties, for providing five hundred white bows, and five hundred bundles of arrows, for the then intended war against France. Similar orders were repeated in the following years, with this difference only, that the sheriff of Gloucestershire is directed to furnish five hundred painted bows, as well as the same number of white.
Philip de Comines acknowledges what our own writers assert, that the English archers excelled those of every other nation; and Sir John Fortescue says “the safety of the realme of England standyth upon archers.” And hence the superior dexterity of their archers gave the English a great advantage over their capital enemies, the French and Scots.
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The Normans used the bow as a military weapon; and, under their government, the practice of archery was not only much improved, but generally diffused throughout the kingdom.
In the ages of chivalry, the usage of the bow was considered as an essential part of the education of a young man who wished to make a figure in life.
The ladies also were fond of this amusement; and by a curious representation from an original drawing in a manuscript of the fourteenth century, we see it practised by one who has shot at a deer, and wounded it with great adroitness; and in another previous engraving, the hunting equipments of the female archers, about the middle of the fifteenth century, are represented.
It was usual, when the ladies exercised the bow, for the beasts to be confined by large inclosures, surrounded by the hunters, and driven in succession from the covers to the stands, where the fair sportswomen were placed; so that they might readily shoot at them, without the trouble and fatigue of rousing and pursuing them. It is said of Margaret, the daughter of Henry VII., that when she was on her way towards Scotland, a hunting party was made for her amusement in Alnwick Park, where she killed a buck with an arrow. It is not specified whether the long-bow or the cross-bow was used by the princess upon this occasion: we are certain that the ladies occasionally shot with both; for when Queen Elizabeth visited Lord Montacute, at Cowdrey, in Sussex, on Monday, August 17th, 1591, “Her highness tooke horse, and rode into the park, at eight o’clock in the morning, where was a delicate bowre prepared, under the which were her highness’ musicians placed; and a cross-bow, by a nymph, with a sweet song, was delivered into her hands, to shoote at the deere; about some thirty in number were put into a paddock, of which number she killed three or four, and the countess of Kildare one.”
Roger Ascham, in his instructions to the archer, first of all recommends a graceful attitude. He should stand, says this writer, fairly, and upright with his body, his left foot at a convenient distance before his right; holding the bow by the middle, with his left arm stretched out, and with the three first fingers and the thumb of the right hand upon the lower part of the arrow affixed to the string of the bow. In the second place, a proper attention was to be paid to the nocking, that is, the application of the notch at the bottom of the arrow to the bow-string: we are told that the notch of the arrow should rest between the fore-finger and the middle finger of the right hand. Thirdly, our attention is directed to the proper manner of drawing the bow-string: in ancient times, says Ascham, the right hand was brought to the right pap; but at present it is elevated to the right ear, and the latter method he prefers to the former. The shaft of the arrow, below the feathers, ought to be rested upon the knuckle of the fore-finger of the left hand; the arrow was to be drawn to the head, and not held too long in that situation, but neatly and smartly discharged, without any hanging upon the string. Among the requisites necessary to constitute a good archer, are a clear sight, steadily directed to the mark, and proper judgment to determine the distance of the ground; he ought also to know how to take the advantage of a side-wind, and to be well acquainted with what compass his arrows would require in their flight: courage is also an indispensable requisite, for whoever, says our author, shoots with the least trepidation, he is sure to shoot badly. One great fault in particular he complains of, which young archers generally fall into, and that is, the direction of the eye to the end of the arrow, rather than to the mark; to obviate this evil habit, he advises such as were so accustomed, to shoot in the dark, by night, at lights set up at a proper distance for that purpose. He then concludes with observing, that “bad tutorage” was rarely amended in grown-up persons; and therefore he held it essentially necessary that great attention should be paid to the teaching of an archer properly, while he was young; “for children,” says he, “if sufficient pains are taken with them at the onset, may much more easily be taught to shoot well, than men,” because the latter have frequently more trouble to unlearn their bad habits, than was primitively requisite to learn them good ones.
Kings and princes have been celebrated for their skill in archery, and among those of our own country may be placed King Henry VII., who in his youth was partial to this exercise, and therefore it is said of him in an old poem, written in praise of the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen to Henry VII.
See where he shoteth at the butts, And with hym are lordes three; He weareth a gowne of velvette blacke, And it is coted above the knee.
He also amused himself with the bow after he had obtained the crown, as we find from an account of his expenditures, where the following memorandums occur: “Lost to my Lord Morgan at buttes, six shillings and eightpence:” and again, “Paid to Sir Edward Boroughes thirteen shillings and fourpence which the kynge lost at buttes with his cross-bowe.” Both the sons of King Henry followed his example, and were excellent archers.
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In a curious manuscript of the time of Queen Elizabeth, is this account of an archer and all his necessary appendages:—“Captains and officers should be skilful of that most noble weapon, and see that their soldiers, according to their draft and strength, have good bows, well notched, well strynged, and every strynge whippe in their noche; and in the myddes rubbed with wax, braser, and shooting glove; some spare strynges trymed as aforesaid; every man one shefe of arrows, with a case of leather defensible against the rayne; and in the same fower and twentie arrows, whereof eight of them should be lighter than the residue; to gall or astonye the enemye with the hail-shot of light arrows, before they shall come within the danger of the harquebuss shot. Let every man have a brigandine or a little cote of plate, a skull or huskyn, a mawle of leade of five foote in lengthe, and a fusee, and the same hanging by his girdle with a hooke and a dagger; being thus furnished, teach them by musters to marche, shoote, and retire, keeping their faces upon the enemy’s. Sum tyme put them into great nowmbers, as to battle appertayneth; and thus use them oftentimes practised, till they be perfecte; for those men in battel or skirmish cannot be spared. No other weapon maye compare with the same noble weapon.”
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The Royal Company of Scotland, one of the most ancient associations in the empire, is said to owe its origin to the commissioners who were originally appointed by James I., to superintend and regulate the exercise of archery throughout the kingdom. These commissioners, who were generally people of character and respectability, picked out among the number of men under their superintendence, the most expert archers; and, in cases of emergency, made a present of their services to the government, in order that they might form the king’s bodyguard. While in this situation, they gave repeated instances of their courage and dexterity. Within seven miles of Edinburgh, the royal company still claims the rank of the King’s Chief Body Guards. In the year 1677, this company was known under the name and title of His Majesty’s Company of Archers; and in the same year, and by the same act of the privy council, a piece of plate of the value of twenty pounds was shot for at the annual parades of the company, called Weapon-shawings; this plate was denominated the “King’s Prize.” At the period to which we are at present alluding, the Royal Company consisted of the principal nobility of Scotland. But the revolutionary principles to which they so tenaciously adhered, almost annihilated their consequence, and withheld the continuance of the King’s prize. Their original magnificence was, however, revived on the accession of Queen Anne to the throne; but their attachment to the unfortunate and ill-fated house of Stuart, again proved the declension of their splendour. But these differences, by the annihilation of the family to whom they are attached, have now subsided, and they are now reinstated in all their former consequence. In 1788 the annual prize was revived and shot for, in the presence of a numerous body of spectators. We may here observe, that the three principal bodies of archers in England and Scotland, are now incorporated in one; by the union of the Woodmen of Arden, the Toxopholites, and the Royal Society of Archers. The prizes, which properly belong to the latter, and which are annually shot for, are, first, a silver arrow, which was presented by the town of Musselburgh, which seems to have been shot for as far back as the year 1603. Whoever gains this may take charge of it for a year; at the expiration of which period it is returned with any device that his imagination may suggest. Second, a silver arrow, which, in A. D. 1626, was granted by the town of Peebles. Third, a silver arrow, given by the town of Edinburgh, A. D. 1709. Fourth, a silver punch-bowl, about the value of fifty pounds, made at the expense of the company of Scotch silversmiths. Fifth, the king’s prize, which is the entire property of the winner. These prizes are shot for at what is called rovers: the marks are placed at the distance of one hundred and eighty-five yards. The uniform of the Royal Company of Archers is tartan, lined with white, and trimmed with green and white fringes; a white sash with green tassels, and a blue bonnet with St. Andrew’s feather and cross. They have also two standards; on one of which is inscribed, “Nemo me impune lacessit;” on the other, “Dulce pro patria periculum.”—_Ascham_—_Strutt_—_Ency. Lon._
ARCUBALISTER, _s. obs._ A cross-bow man.
ARM, _s._ The limb which reaches from the hand to the shoulder; the large bough of a tree; an inlet of water from the sea; in sporting parlance, that portion of the horse’s fore-leg comprised between the shoulder and the knee.
AROMATIC, _a._ Spicy; fragrant, strong-scented.
AROMATICS, _s._ Spices; stimulants, as cinnamon, cloves, &c.
ARQUEBUSE, _s. obs._ A hand gun.
ARRACK, _s._ A spirituous liquor.
ARROW, _s._ The pointed weapon which is shot from a bow.
“There are three essential parts in the composition of the arrow,” says Ascham, “the stele or wand, the feathers, and the head. The stele was not always made with the same species of wood, but varied as occasion required, to suit the different manners of shooting practised by the archers;” he commends sound ash for military arrows, and preferred it to asp, which in his day was generally used for arrows belonging to the army; but for pastime, he thought that none were better than those made of oak, hardbeam, or birch; “but after all,” says he, “in this point I hold it best to trust to the recommendation of an honest fletcher.” The feathers from the wing of a goose, and especially of a grey goose, he thought were preferable to any others for the pluming of an arrow.
English arrows then had forked heads and broad heads, but round pointed heads resembling a bodkin were reckoned better. The notch, or small hollow part at the bottom of the arrow, made for the reception of the bow-string, was varied as occasion required, or at the will of the archer, being sometimes deep and narrow, and sometimes broad and not deep.
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