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
FIRST EDITION ... FEB., 1916
REPRINTED ....... JUNE, 1917
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WORKS BY THE
SAME AUTHOR
PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY.
JESSE OF CARIBOO.
THE SPLENDID BLACKGUARD.
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
INTRODUCTION
I. THE ORIGIN OF THE HORSE
II. THE ORIGIN OF HORSE VARIETIES
III. HABITS OF OUTDOOR HORSES
IV. THE CONQUEST OF THE HORSE
V. THE HORSE IN HISTORY
VI. HORSEMANSHIP
VII. THE PLEASURE HORSE
VIII. THE SOLDIER HORSE
CONCLUSION
INDEX
{vii}
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} 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 1914 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, rearing, and management of
military horses--are duly considered we may have an ample supply of
suitable horses for our next war.
J. COSSAR EWART.
UNIVERSITY, EDINBURGH,
_September_, 1916.
{ix}
INTRODUCTION.
In the world where the horse lives there is one god. This god is
only a human creature, soldier by trade, stockrider, groom, or
drayman, 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 little 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
such a name as Pachynolophus. This may be safe {x} 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.
{1}
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 little 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, physical, 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 like that of a
{2} 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 climate, 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.
[Sidenote: The forest ages]
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 {3} beasts to make life exciting for the creatures on
which they fed.
[Sidenote: Longtails]
Hidden away in the forest there were little animals, of reptile
descent indeed, but quite free from family pride. These converted
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 awkward. For running they were better off {4} 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.
[Sidenote: Horse ancestors]
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 {5} hairy
coat, especially at the muzzle, where the hair is thin.
Of direct ancestors to the horse the earliest known was a little
fellow called Hyracotherium, coloured no doubt like 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.
[Sidenote: The tapir]
The tapir was ever a staunch conservative preferring death to reform.
So he remains, one of the most ancient of all living animals, and
relic 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} 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, like 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 {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.
{Sidenote: The earlier world]
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 servant in the conquest and taming of the wilderness 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 received
from the sun diminished. Ever less vapour was lifted from the
Equatorial seas, the world-roof of cloud thinned out and disappeared;
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} 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, like the Moon, our Earth will swing dead through the
great deeps of space.
[Sidenote: The changing climate]
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 ways 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
English 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 like the dew claw of a dog, sometimes surviving more
or less even in human times, as with Julius Cæsar'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.
[Sidenote: Varieties of the horse]
So we have the beginning of a group of {9} animals the tarpan
(Prejevalski) zebra, quagga and ass. They are so much alike 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.
{10}
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 landscape, all horses would show
the same markings.
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.
{11}
7. If all countries had one quality of forage, all horses would have
one strength.
8. It follows that the study of light, 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.
[Sidenote: 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, showing 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 mixture 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}
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 permanent 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 which 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.
[Sidenote: Magic of sunlight]
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.
[Sidenote: Climate and colour]
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 permanent 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 {13} been exhausted. Yet even despite its colouring, the tissue
of the flesh is partly transparent, so that actinic rays may kill
bacilli, and sunshine is used as a medicine for the sick. But the
rays which begin by killing 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 sunlight 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 light.
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 like the lion and bison have manes as an extra shield
for the nerve centres. {14} The human head and neck, for instance,
grow hair, not to encourage barbers, but for the prevention of
sunstroke, and this varies in colour with the degree of sunlight. 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 primitive 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.
[Sidenote: Protective colour]
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 sunlight but for their
equal shield of non-actinic colour.
The purpose of body colour is defence from actinic light. Only the
markings are {15} protective as concealing animals from one another.
So far I have not been able to find in books about horses these
applications of facts accepted by men of science, which are of use to
horsemen. In the light of such evidence the close hogging of horse's
manes needs reconsidering.