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.”
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