CHAPTER IV

SPEED AND ENDURANCE—CARNIVOROUS HORSES—HORSE FLESH AS FOOD—HORSE BAITING.

THE maximum speed of the racehorse appears to be at the rate of a mile in a minute; for few, if any, horses can retain the full velocity of this rate for even that time. A mile has, however, been run at Newmarket by a stop-watch in one minute and four and a half seconds. It is said, but was never proved, that Flying Childers did run at Newmarket one mile in the minute; certain it is that this celebrated horse, when carrying nine stone two pounds ran over the round course, which is three miles six furlongs and ninety-three yards, in six minutes and forty seconds. Bay Melton ran four miles at York, in 1763, in seven minutes forty-three seconds and a half. Eclipse also ran the same distance, on the same course, in eight minutes with twelve stone. The most extraordinary instance on record of the stoutness as well as speed of the racehorse was displayed in 1786, when Mr. Huell’s Quibbler ran twenty-three miles round the flat at Newmarket in fifty-seven minutes and ten seconds. The speed of the greyhound, and that of the hare, is but little inferior to that of the racehorse, but their powers of endurance at their utmost velocity are not equal to his.

The racing gallop is evidently but a succession of leaps, in which the forelegs and the hind-legs start in pairs, each pair acting simultaneously. The hand-gallop is not so rapid a movement, in it the right legs are a little in advance of their fellows. It is well ascertained that a horse can never pass at once from a state of rest into the gallop of full speed, but must begin with the hand-gallop; and cunning jockeys sometimes derive profit from this circumstance by wagering with the unwary, that no horse shall be found to gallop one hundred yards while a man runs fifty, the two starting together. In this case the man is sure to win the race, for the horse has not time enough to acquire the necessary momentum, as he would do if the race were for a hundred and fifty yards.

The following account of a fearful race between a steam engine and a mare is extracted from a number of the Ipswich Express, for January, 1846:—“An occurrence, approaching the wonderful in its nature, took place on the Colchester end of the Eastern Counties Railway, early on the morning of Sunday the 4th instant. A mare, the property of Mr. Garrad, whose farm adjoins the railway and its Colchester terminus, had obtained access to the line in the course of the night, and ran off in front of the engine when the mail train started from Colchester at a quarter before three o’clock. It being quite dark, the animal was not at first observed by the engine-driver; but after the train had proceeded a short distance, and a smart speed was attained, the mare was seen ahead of the engine, between the up-line of rails, going along at a rate which seemed likely to test the power of the locomotive. The driver sounded the whistle, in the hope of frightening the mare from the line; but this only served to quicken her speed without diverting her course; on she went like the wind, with the engine and train puffing, clattering, and groaning in her rear: so desperate was her pace, that though the speed of the train had reached twenty-five miles an hour, the driver and stoker frequently lost sight of her in the gloom, and at first supposed the train had passed her, but ever and anon she was again caught sight of, still rushing along in the course of the engine; and the screaming whistle, which was now blown repeatedly, acting on the terrified mare more powerfully than the combination of spur, whip, and voice, drove her madly forward far ahead of the iron monster. What would have been the issue of this strange race had it continued much longer it is not difficult to surmise; the mare’s spirit was good, but what in the long run can flesh and blood do against the giant power of steam? As it was, she gallantly kept ahead for full five miles, when just as the flying pursuer reached the Mark’s Tey bridge, the poor animal caught her foot against a stone or part of the rail, and rolled headlong on to the down-line. The engine, with a parting shriek and puff, passed on; and the mare was found, when daylight appeared, nothing the worse for her race and tumble, and in due time was restored to her owner.”

It is not certain that a trotting speed of twenty miles an hour has ever been attained, but the distance has been done in six seconds over that time. Phenomenon, a mare belonging to Sir Edward Astley, when twelve years old, trotted seventeen miles in fifty-six minutes, and performed the same distance a month afterwards in less than fifty-three minutes; that is to say, at the rate of more than twenty-one and a half miles per hour. The American horses are celebrated for their trotting. In general they are not ridden, but driven, and that in a peculiar manner. The driver leans back in his seat and keeps up a steady pull on the reins; as long as this continues the horse runs, but stops the moment the reins are relaxed. Tom Thumb, a celebrated American horse belonging to Mr. Osbaldeston, was matched in 1829 to perform the wonderful feat of trotting a hundred miles in harness in ten and a half successive hours. The vehicle did not weigh more than one hundred pounds, nor the driver more than ten stone three pounds. The gallant little horse, which was but fourteen hands high, completed the task in ten hours and seven minutes; twenty-three minutes within the allotted time, without being in the smallest degree distressed.

It used to be thought that no horse could in fair walking contend with a man, who was a first-rate pedestrian; but the opinion was refuted by the performance of a hackney named Sloven, that, in 1791, beat a celebrated pedestrian by walking twenty miles in three hours and forty-one minutes. Two years afterwards the same animal walked twenty-two miles in three hours and fifty-two minutes.

The preceding statements are sufficient to display the absolute powers of the horse; let us now consider what can be done by horse and man. Wonderful things are related of the Tartar couriers, who used to ride from one end of the Turkish empire to the other in an incredibly short space of time, with a pacha’s head dangling at their saddle bow; but we have had European couriers whose feats were not less astonishing and better authenticated. In the days when as yet railroads were not, government expresses that required great dispatch used to be carried by men on horseback, though ordinary messengers usually travelled in carriages. Relays of horses were kept ready for the courier all along the road; a postilion accompanied him from station to station, and he continued his journey day and night without halting except to take a fresh horse. He ate and drank in the saddle, slept in the saddle, leaning forward on a cushion strapped to the high-peaked pummel, and was lifted, saddle and all, from the back of one horse to another’s; for the attempt to mount and dismount, after his heated limbs had been long fixed in one posture, would have speedily disabled him. The postilion who galloped beside him looked to his safety when he slept, and took charge of his horse. In this way couriers with despatches for London from Vienna, have ridden from the latter capital to Calais without stopping, the distance being about nine hundred miles.

In 1763, a Mr. Shafto won a match which was to provide a person who should ride one hundred miles a day, on any one horse each day, for twenty-nine days together, and to have any number of horses not exceeding twenty-nine. The jockey accomplished the task with fourteen horses, and on one day rode one hundred and sixty miles on account of the tiring of his first horse. The celebrated Lafayette rode in August, 1778, from Rhode Island to Boston, a distance of nearly seventy miles in seven hours, and returned in six hours and half.

One of the most extraordinary feats in the way of express riding performed in modern times was that of a boy of fifteen, Frederick Tyler, who conveyed, from Montgomery to Mobile, the news of the two days’ battle, fought between the armies of the United States and Mexico in the summer of 1846. The distance, one hundred and ninety miles, was accomplished in thirteen hours; and during the entire night the boy caught and saddled his horses, none of which were in readiness, as he was not looked for by those who had the horses in charge.

A bet against time was won in July, 1840, by an Arab horse at Bungalore, in the presidency of Madras, to run four hundred miles in four consecutive days. Mr. Frazer relates, in his “Tartar Journeys,” a still more striking instance of the speed and bottom of the Arab: a horse of that breed carried him from Shiraz to Teheran, five hundred and twenty-two miles in six days, remained three at rest, went back in five days, remained nine at Shiraz, and returned again to Teheran in seven days. Another high-blooded Arabian carried Mr. Frazer from Teheran to Koom, eighty-four miles, in about ten hours. A courier, whom Major Keppel fell in with between Kermanshaw and Hamadan, places one hundred and twenty miles distant from each other, performed that journey, over a rugged mountainous tract, in little more than twenty-four hours; and the next morning set off on the same horse for Teheran, two hundred miles further, expecting to reach it on the second day.

It is, of course, among the wild races inhabiting vast level tracts, such as are suitable to the habits and constitution of the horse, that the power of holding out long in the saddle is most assiduously and most generally cultivated. There are tribes and nations who may be said to spend the greater part of their lives on horseback:—the Kirghis, for instance, in Central Asia; the Gauchos, or countryfolk of European descent, who inhabit the immense Pampas, or plains of South America; and, in a still higher degree, the Indians of the same regions. The Pampas, though fertile, are totally uncultivated, and yield the scattered inhabitants no other nourishment than water, and the flesh of the unappropriated herds of cattle and horses, that roam over them in countless multitudes. Their hardy inhabitants are thus portrayed by Sir Francis Head:—

“The life of the Gaucho is very interesting. Born in the rude hut, the infant receives little attention, but is left to swing from the roof in a bullock’s hide, the corners of which are drawn towards each other by four strips of hide. In the first year of his life he crawls about without clothes, and I have more than once seen a mother give a child of this age a sharp knife, a foot long, to play with. As soon as he walks his infantine amusements are those which prepare him for the occupations of his future life: with a lasso made of twine he tries to catch little birds or the dogs as they walk in and out of the hut. By the time he is four years old he is on horseback, and immediately becomes useful by assisting to drive the cattle into the corral. The manner in which these children ride is quite extraordinary: if a horse tries to escape from the flock which are driven towards the corral , I have frequently seen a child pursue him, overtake him, and then bring him back, flogging him the whole way; in vain the creature tries to dodge and escape from him, for the child turns with him, and always keeps close to him; and it is a curious fact, which I have often observed, that a mounted horse is always able to overtake a loose one.

“His amusements and his occupations soon become more manly. Careless of the biscacheros (the holes of an animal called the biscacho, which undermine the plains, and which are very dangerous) he gallops after the ostrich, the gáma, the puma, and the jaguar; his catches them with his balls; and with his lasso he daily assists in catching the wild cattle and dragging than to the hut, either for slaughter or to be milked. He breaks in the young horses, and in these occupations is often away from his hut many days, changing his horse as soon as the animal is tired, and sleeping on the ground. As his constant food is beef and water, his constitution is so strong that he is able to endure great fatigue; and the distances he will ride, and the number of hours he will remain on horseback, would hardly be credited. The unrestrained freedom of such a life he fully appreciates; and, unacquainted with subjection of any sort, his mind is often inspired with sentiments of liberty which are as noble as they are harmless, although they of course partake of the wild habits of his life. Vain is the endeavour to explain to him the luxuries and blessings of a more civilized life; his ideas are, that the noblest effort of man is to raise himself off the ground and ride instead of walk; that no rich garments or variety of food can atone for the want of a horse; and that the print of the human foot on the ground is the symbol of uncivilization.

“The character of the Gaucho is often very estimable, he is always hospitable; at his hut the traveller is sure to find a friendly welcome, and he will often be received with a natural dignity of manner which is very remarkable, and which he scarcely expects to meet with in such a miserable looking hovel. On my entering the hut, the Gaucho has constantly risen to offer me his seat, which I have declined, and many compliments and bows have passed, until I have accepted his offer,—the skeleton of a horse’s head. It is curious to see them invariably take off their hats to each other as they enter a room which has no window, a bullock’s hide for a door, and but little roof.”

Sir Francis, who had occasion to make frequent journeys across the Pampas between Buenos Ayres to the Andes, adopted the Gaucho style of riding, galloping from sunrise to sunset without stopping except to change horses, sleeping at night on the bare ground with his saddle for a pillow, and living on beef and water. So violent was the exertion, that at first the blood used to gush from his nose as he sank down at evening utterly exhausted; but practice hardened him by degrees, and at length such was the effect of this rude training and simple diet, that he felt, to use his own words, “as if nothing would kill him.”

Every one has heard of the celebrated highwayman Turpin, his black mare, and the incredibly short space of time in which she is said to have carried him from London to York, animated by the juice of a beef-steak, which the bold robber had tied round the bit. The efficacy of this expedient appears to be established. We ourselves are aware of its having been practised by a noted hardriding butcher of Dover, and it is deserving of remark, that his horse was of an exceedingly violent and ungovernable temper, possibly from the effects of this frequent beef-chewing. An inhabitant of Hamah in Syria, assured Burckhardt that he had often given his horses roasted meat before the commencement of a fatiguing journey, that they might be the better able to endure it; and the same person fearing lest the governor should take from him his favourite horse, fed him for a fortnight exclusively upon roasted pork, which so excited his spirit and mettle, that he became absolutely unmanageable, and no longer an object of desire to the governor. The classical reader will call to mind the mares of Diomedes, which were fed upon human flesh, according to the Greek legend, and which it was one of the labours of Hercules to capture.

In the “Edinburgh Journal of Natural History,” we find the following passage:—“We are assured by Mr. Youatt, that in Auvergne fat soups are given to cattle, especially when sick or enfeebled, for the purpose of invigorating them. The same practice is observed in some parts of North America, where the country people mix, in winter, fat broth with the vegetables given to their cattle, in order to render them more capable of resisting the severity of the weather. These, broths have been long considered efficacious by the veterinary practitioners of our own country in restoring horses which have been enfeebled through long illness. It is said by Peall to be a common practice in some parts of India to mix animal substances with the grain given to feeble horses, and to boil the mixture into a sort of paste, which soon brings them into good condition, and restores their vigour. Pallas tells us that the Russian boors make use of the dried flesh of the Hamster reduced to powder, and mixed with oats; and that this occasions their horses to acquire a sudden and extraordinary degree of _embonpoint_. Anderson relates, in his ‘History of Iceland,’ that the inhabitants feed their horses with dried fishes when the cold is very intense, and that these animals are extremely vigorous, though small. We also know that in the Feroe Islands, the Orkneys, the Western Islands, and in Norway, where the climate is very cold, this practice is also adopted; and it is not uncommon in some very warm countries,—as in the kingdom of Muskat, in Arabia Felix, near the straits of Ormuz, one of the most fertile parts of Arabia, fish and other animal substances are there given to the horses in the cold season, as well as in times of scarcity.”

From horses eating to horses eaten, the transition is easy and natural. Wherever the animal exists in an unreclaimed state, its flesh is a staple article of food. The Kirghis Kassaks pursue it with hawks, and shoot it with arrows, or drive it into the Caspian Sea to be drowned. The Calmucks, Mongols, and other Tartars, make use of horse meat, and manufacture a weak spirit, called koumiss, from mare’s milk. The mounted Indians of South America have no other food than the flesh, milk, and blood of their mares, which they never ride; and the only luxury in which they indulge habitually, is that of washing their hair in mare’s blood. They are fond indeed of intoxicating liquors, which they drink to excess when they can procure them from the white men; but this happens only on rare occasions, and they have none of their own manufacture.

The tribes that, settling, some fifteen hundred or two thousand years ago, in the regions of Europe surrounding the Baltic, brought with them the worship of Odin, were undoubtedly of Asiatic origin, and came probably from the banks of the Don, and the shores of the Black Sea. It is a curious confirmation of this opinion, that the eating of horseflesh prevailed among their descendants down to the eleventh century. Now such a custom could never have arisen spontaneously in a country like Germany, or Scandinavia, where the animal was comparatively scarce and valuable, but it must have existed from the earliest times in the inexhaustible pastures of the plains of Asia. It was practised at the religious feasts of the Pagan north, in commemoration of the original land of those who partook of the banquet, and was a token of adherence to the religion of Odin. In one of Pope Zachary’s letters to Saint Boniface, the great apostle of the Germans, he enjoins that pious missionary to prevent the eating of horseflesh; and St. Olaf, the cruel king, who converted the Scandinavians to Christianity by the sword, put to death or mutilated all who persisted in using that heathenish food. Odinism is now extinct, and no man can be tempted by hostility to Christianity to prefer horse-steaks to beef-steaks. Yet is it not very curious to find that neither a total change of religion, nor the lapse of seven centuries have quite extinguished the hereditary taste of the northern nations for such untempting viands? There has even sprung up in Germany, of late years, a society having for its object to encourage and promote the use of horseflesh for human food! The horse is the only animal slaughtered for the supply of the prisoners, in the house of correction in Copenhagen. Mr. Bremner, who courageously tasted both the soup and the _bouilli_, says, that the latter is “tough, like the worst kinds of beef, but by no means bad to eat, or disagreeable in taste, only dry and thready. Had we not been told, we should have taken it for the flesh of an ox ill fed.”

Is it not wonderful thus to behold systems of cookery surviving systems of religion out of which they arose, and to see empires and kingdoms pass away, while the practices of the kitchen hold their ground? Special inclinations to certain kinds of food, may be constantly traced among different nations. Swine’s flesh has been from all times an abomination to the Arabians; and the aversion of the Jew to pork, wisely confirmed by Divine command, is a striking indication of his Arabian origin. The Germanic nations have always held beef in favour, and they alone know how to prepare it so as to make it savoury and nutritive. In Germany as in England, in Sweden as in Norway and Denmark, the German blood announces itself by this unfailing test. The Roman nations, _i. e._ the French, the Spaniards, and the Italians have all something in common in their kitchen as in their language and history. The Tartar princes long domesticated in St. Peterburg, and accustomed to every Western luxury, still have their feasts of horseflesh, which is dressed in twenty different forms, and which they wash down with the choicest vintages of France and Germany.

Stow makes no mention of horse-baiting as among the pastimes of the Londoners in former days, and for the honour of our ancestors we could hope that so brutal a sport was seldom witnessed; but that it was occasionally practised is certain. Ass-baiting, although more common, does not appear to have become very popular; not probably from any lack of inclination to torment, but because the poor ass resisted feebly, and made but little sport. In Malcolm’s “Anecdotes of London” we are told, that so late as 1682, horse-baiting was witnessed, and under circumstances of singular barbarity. Notice was given in the public papers that on the 12th of April, a horse of uncommon strength, and between eighteen and nineteen hands high, would be baited to death at his Majesty’s bear-garden, at the Hope, on the Bank-side, for the amusement of the Morocco ambassador, and any nobility who knew the horse, or would pay the price of admission. It seems that this animal originally belonged to the Earl of Rochester, and being of a ferocious disposition, had killed several other horses, for which misdeeds he was sold to the Earl of Dorchester, and in his service he committed several similar offences; he was then transferred to the worse than savages, who kept the bear-garden. On the day appointed, several dogs were set on the ferocious steed, but he destroyed, or drove them from the area. At length his owners determined to reserve him for a future day’s sport, and directed a person to lead him away; but before the horse had reached London bridge, the spectators demanded the fulfilment of the promise of baiting him to death, and began to destroy the building. At last the poor beast was brought back, and other dogs set upon him without effect, when he was stabbed to death with a sword.

A parallel for this barbarity is recorded in Colonel Davidson’s “Travels in Upper India.” He saw at Lucknow in the king’s stable, a beautiful bay English blood horse, which had been presented by George IV. to a former king of Oude. The animal was blinded with cloths, and fastened on each side of his headstall with strong chains, his vicious temper rendering these precautions necessary. While thus secured he was not only a windsucker, but a weaver; and his whole body incessantly moved from one side to another without rest by night or day. On the colonel’s calling out in groom’s fashion, “Come up!” the weaving instantly ceased, the horse trembled violently, and then suddenly lashed out with his hind legs, as if he wished to kick the speaker to atoms. Attempts had been made to educate him in the native style, and this was the cause that had rendered him so intolerably vicious; nor is this to be wondered at, for few horses possess tempers sufficiently good to endure the severe treatment of the native riding schools. On the accession of the late king of Oude, this poor creature was turned loose into a court-yard with a hungry royal Bengal tiger. The battle was of considerable duration; but the event proved the power and spirit of the horse, who kicked the tiger to death after his own bowels had been torn out, and trailed on the ground.

M. Arnauld, in his “History of Animals,” relates the following incident of ferocious courage in a mule:—“This animal belonged to a gentleman in Florence, and became so vicious and refractory, that his master resolved to make away with him, by exposing him to the wild beasts in the menagerie of the grand duke. For this purpose he was first placed in the dens of the hyenas and tigers, all of whom he would have soon destroyed, had he not been speedily removed. At last he was handed over to the lion, but the mule, instead of exhibiting any symptoms of alarm, quietly receded to a corner, keeping his front opposed to his adversary. Once planted in the corner, he resolutely kept his place, eyeing every movement of the lion, which was preparing to spring upon him. The lion, however, perceiving the difficulty of an attack, practised all his wiles to throw the mule off his guard, but in vain. At length the latter, perceiving an opportunity, made a sudden rush upon the lion, and in an instant broke several of his teeth by the stroke of his fore-feet. The ‘king of beasts,’ as he has been called, finding that he had got quite enough of the combat, slunk grumbling to his cage, and left the sturdy mule master of the field.”