Dar cum er tur’bul freshet up on Bigby Creek one year
An’ old Marse Noah ’lowed de moon was hangin’ mighty queer,
An’ if it didn’t change its chune an’ get up on its horn
Dar was gwineter be a freshet jes’ es sho’ es you was born!
Sho’ ’nuff it tuck to rainin’ an’ it kivered all de groun’,
An’ de crick it got to risin’ an’ er spreadin’ all erroun’
Till it crip up in the stable whar de ole gray mule wus stayin’
An’ skeered ’im so he jined de church an’ got right down to prayin’.
But dat didn’t stop de freshet, Nachur’ bleeves in er variety—
An’ de good Lord He don’t bank much on dis ober-sudden piety—
So He made it rain de harder—O He was mad es pizen’—
For de rain it kep’ er fallin’ an’ de crick it kep’ er risin’!
Sed de mule onto de yudder stock: “Dear frien’s, you all am sinners,
Better think mo ’bout yore mortal souls an’ less erbout yo’ dinners!
’Tis cla’r to my min’ sum ob you dun clean furgot yo’ raisin’
Er follerin’ arter idul gods—or mebbe chicken chasin’!
Dar’s Tom Hal and de Donk’y jes es wurldly es kin be, sah!
Dar’s jes’ one virchus man heah and its plain dat man am me, sah!
You kno’ yo’selves I’ve nurver had no meannes’ to attone fur,
I goes by whut de good book sez an’ nurver throws a stone, sah!”
He skeered ’em so he got ’em all to start up a camp meetin’,
An’ sech er crowd you nurver seed a wailin’ an’ a weepin’,
But dat didn’t stop de freshet—O de Lord was mad es pizen—
An’ de rain it kep’ er fallin’ an’ de crick it kep’ er risin’!
Den de ’possum cum frum out de woods, de coon from out de holler,
De ba’r frum out de canebrake an’ de horg frum out de waller,
De Speckled Bull, de Billy Goat—dey all cum in a hurry—
An’ got religion den an’ dar, for all ob ’em wus skurry!
So de mule he babtize ebry one—ebry son an darter—
“Salvation it am free,” he sed—“an’ dars no eend to water!”
Den Brudder Hal pass ’roun de hat to bild de Lord a fence, suh!
De Donk’y jine de church choir an’ bin in it eber sense, suh!
De bull dey make de Eunuck of—de Billy Goat de elder—
To hold de sister when she shout—an’ Billy he has held ’er!
But dat didn’t stop de freshet—O, de Lord wus mad as pizen—
An’ de rain it kep’ er fallin’ an’ de crick it kep’ er risin’!
Den sed de mule, es up he riz from prayer, an’ Satan tussle:
“Dar’s sech a thing es savin’ grace, an’ sech a thing as hustle!
It’s plain we’ve missed de track ob good Ole Marster’s secret wishes,
An’ if we all don’t bild er ark we’ll soon be food for fishes!”
So dey bilt er ark ob gopher-wood—de mule dey ’lected Noah—
Becase he tell ’em years ago he was in de ark befoah.
An’ dey bilt it strong an’ snug an’ tight—de crick it kep’ er risin’—
To hold ’em all dat creep or crawl—from de snake onto de bisin!
An’ den dey all chip in dey grub—de mule a bar’l ob brandy—
An’ wink his eye an’ laf an’ say: “Dese snakes cum mighty handy!”
But dat didn’t stop de freshet—O, de Lord wus mad as pizen—
An’ de rain it kep’ er fallin’, an’ de crick it kep’ er risin’!
Den de mule he float de ark out near de hill dey all wus founded,
An’ tell ’em all to swim for it or stay dar an’ git drownded!
“An’ lem me tell you now, my friends, I want no half-way racin’—
Dar’s jes’ one way for you to swim, an’ dat’s to swim a-pacin’.”
An’ den dey all struck Nachur’s gait—de snake led de processhun!
De coon, de b’ar, de eliphunt—dey swum like all possesshun!
All but Tom Hal, he stood an’ snort so sassy like an’ plucky,
An’ swore he wouldn’t pace at all—dat he cum frum Kentucky.
But when de water riz up an’ he see dat bar’l ob brandy
He bust de record gittin’ dar—an’ dun it mighty handy!
An’ when Ole Marster seed de gait, an’ dat dey all hed dun it,
He let ’em all go back to earth an’ live and breed upon it.
So dey all went back er pacin’, frum de bug unto de bisin,
An’ de rain it quit a-fallin’, and de crick it quit er risin’!
—OLE WASH.
It will be news to many of my readers when I tell them that the pacing
gait is the oldest and most natural gait of the horse, and that the old
pacer was the thoroughbred of antiquity, the companion of kings, the
warhorse of mighty warriors, the animal that carried on his back the
daughters of Pharaoh and the princesses of Babylon. And yet, when this
gait began to outcrop among the trotters, making that grand type of the
racehorse known as “trotting-bred pacers,” hundreds of people have been
wondering “Where did it come from?” Let us see from whence it came:
There is no real difference in form between the trotter and the pacer.
The theory of “structural incongruity” will do to talk about, but as a
matter of fact there is no such thing, and a pacer paces and a trotter
trots, not from his shape, but his head—his instinct.
When the curtain went up on antiquity, horses were pacing. They paced
because it was the natural gait of the animal, the trot of later years
being the artificial gait. We know that the horses of the ancients
were small—pacing ponies—and the running horse was not developed until
centuries after.
The oldest civilizations of which we have any record of the horse are the
Egyptian and the Babylonian. On the tombs the horse was always carved
pacing. The frieze of the Parthenon was the work of the great artist
Phidias. His horses were pacers. Five hundred years before the Christian
era the great sculptors of Greece and Rome put some of their greatest
work into statues of horses—all pacers. Relics of some of the very
earliest Greek friezes are still preserved in the British Museum and show
the horses to be pacing. At the beginning of the Christian era the Romans
had conquered the Britons and the horses they found there, or carried
there, they called “ambulatores”—amblers—and during the five hundred
years that Rome ruled the island these horses were the favorites for the
saddle and light driving. In 1215 A.D. the barons wrenched from King John
the famous Magna Charta, the great seal of which is a knight in armor,
mounted on a pacing horse. In a previous chapter we have told how Sir
Walter Scott describes them and how for centuries the pacing horse—the
ambler—the jennet, was the favorite, if not the only saddle horse of the
knights and ladies and the nobility.
Could such a horse have been a scrub? For many years there has lived
in England a wealthy American who is an artist and a fond lover of
horses—Mr. Walter Winans. I am indebted to Mr. Winans for many valuable
discoveries about the pacer, the first of them being his letter and
illustrations showing the original drawings from the Egyptian tombs,
these carvings being copied by Mr. Winans while studying ancient Egyptian
sculpture.
Some years ago, Mr. Walter Winans, of Brighton, England, sent me
sketches of bas-reliefs taken from Egyptian tombs. While never having
had before the pleasure of seeing a cut of the bas-reliefs sent to
the writer by Mr. Winans, I have known of their existence and have
repeatedly called attention to the fact that the past history of the
pacer demonstrated beyond a doubt that he was a horse of the noblest
blood, the war-horse of ancient battles, the companion of ancient kings
and princes. The fact that he has been able to do what he has done
is convincing proof of a past greatness somewhere in his breeding—a
scrub would have died at the wire long ago. If “society” is looking
for something that is blue-blooded, with a hoariness that no other
blue-blooded can boast of; that is eminently respectable to a degree
bordering on classical mythiness; that is more ancient than the pyramids
and more respectable in lineage than the longest pedigree of Norman
knight, I respectfully refer it to the pacer. My only regret in the
matter is that the recognition, by “society,” of distinguished lineage,
illustrious achievements and present worth cannot be a subject of mutual
acknowledgment and congratulation.
Brighton, Eng., Jan. 23.
Dear Trotwood: I have brought the pacer to more than four
thousand years ago. Prof. J. E. Marey, Professor of the College
of France, has just published a book called “Le Movement,”
dealing with the correct drawings of men and animals in motion.
He gives two engravings, of which I enclose pen copies, one
of them from an Assyrian bas relief, the original of which
is in London, England, British Museum; the other is a copy
of an ancient Egyptian Bas-relief at Medynet-Abou, in Egypt.
They both represent horses pacing. Prof. Marey says (freely
translated from the French). “Examples of a pacing gait are
here accurately represented. It is of all gaits the easiest to
observe, and therefore to draw, on account of the symmetry of
movement.... Trotting, which is so often represented in modern
works, seems rarely to figure in that of the ancients.”
I noticed lately in one of your contemporaries, which goes in
for “society,” a suggestion that pacing races should not be
held on days that trotting is indulged in, so as not to offend
road riders (a long list of which it gives), who dislike to see
a pacer. It is a good thing that these road riders did not live
four thousand years ago, or they would have been shocked to
see all the rulers and great men of Assyria and Egypt driving
pacers. The ancient Romans called trotters “tormentores,” on
account of the way they shook them up, riding without stirrups.
Referring to the pictures again, the reason the figures
holding the symbols of authority (the half-circles) and the
groom at the horses’ heads being so small, is because that in
ancient Egyptian conventional art figures were not drawn in
their proper proportions, but large or small, according to the
importance of the person represented.
The Assyrian pacer looks as if he must be the champion stallion
of the period.
Yours truly,