Z EBRA training as carried out by Captain Hayes at the
" Zoo" was not a difficult matter, and what were once, quite wrongly, reputed to be among the most in- tractable of animals were so far tamed that it was predicted that they would be hired out as mounts for London children in the summer. But the finest of the animals, a Gravy's zebra nine years old, one of the pair presented by the Emperor Menelik to the King, was attacked by paralysis a few days after the lessons began, and died on Sunday last, apparently from the mental " upset " caused by the sudden demand made on its nerves. This is a very regrettable and
unexpected result of a well-meaning experiment, for, given sensible management, there are few creatures which man cannot induce to carry him if he has the wish and the patience to do so. It is on record that as early as 1S30 a zebra was occasionally seen ridden for sale as a curiosity in Cape Town. But it may be doubted whether, in a country which breeds such admirable mounts as the Boer and Basuto ponies, even the finest of all the wild equines, the now scarce mountain zebra, would ever have been a serious competitor of the horse if trained to the service of man. Yet there has always been a persistent demand for what may be called the second and third class riding animals of the world. Greek fancy, which felt the naked man and horse to be so suited for each other that it invented the centaur, was content to idealise. But in the common prose of everyday life in divers parts of the world other helpers and servants have been, and are still, in demand. Even the yak, though mainly used as a beast of burden, is occasionally ridden. The loss of over three thousand of these most useful creatures on their way from Nepal to join the Tibetan Expedition will be a serious blow to the transport of the force. The yak is almost as useful, and quite as sensible, in these mountains as is the elephant in the plains. Whether ridden or left to itself, it will lead the caravan, picking out the only safe portions of the snow bridges with unerring instinct. When a steep slope of half-frozen snow intervenes on the road, the yaks go first ; and clambering up, each putting its broad, spreading feet in the footprints of the other, the great beasts make a staircase as good as any set of guides with ice-axes could hew.
How prehistoric man first domesticated animals, and whether he rode upon them or not, will probably never be known. But the record of a vanished race shows that at least one riding animal was once in use, and has, very properly, been abandoned in favour of others. America, whether in the northern or southern half of the continent, is now above all things the land of the riding horse. The indigenous red men have adopted the horse so completely into their lives that were the continent to be dis- covered to-day, instead of having become first known to Euro- peans centuries ago, opinion would be unanimous that the horse was indigenous, and that it had become as absolutely necessary to the existence of the Indian as is the reindeer to that of the Laplander. Yet every one knows that the first horses introduced to the continent were those taken there by the Spaniards, according to Azara, in 1535. Did, then, the civilised Aztecs and Peruvians have no riding animals ? It is clear that they had no horses ; and though it is difficult to conceive a country with no cows, bulls, or oxen, it seems equally certain that the people of both North and South America were without domestic cattle either for milking, for using in the plough, or for riding, as cattle are used and have been used for ages in Central and parts of Southern Africa. Neither did they tame their deer. But there is a passage in a Spanish Report written by Augustin . de Zarate, Treasurer-General of Peru, in 1544, in which he describes the use of the llama, which he calls a sheep, just as Azara insisted on classing the puma and panther with the tiger and lion. " In places where there is no snow (in the Andes) and the natives want water, they fill the skins of sheep with water, and make other living sheep carry them. For it must be remarked that these sheep of Peru are large enough to serve as beasts of burden. They can carry about one hundred pounds or more. The Spaniards used to ride them, and they would go four or five leagues a day. When they are weary they lie down upon the ground, and as there are no means of making them get up, either by beating or assisting them, the load must of necessity be taken off. When there is a man on one of them, if the beast is tired, and urged to go on, he turns his head round, and spits his saliva, which has an unpleasant odour, into his rider's face." Probably a small Shetland pony would be a better and far pleasanter mount than a llama : but there seems little doubt that the latter were ridden by the conquerors of Peru.
Though cattle were the universal ploughing animals of old England, and their use for riding has survived in Africa and in the East side by side with the later introduced horses, there seems no record of their ever having been used for that pur- pose either in England, France, Spain, or Italy. In Africa and in India they were only gradually superseded by horses.
The original Hottentots at the Cape owned large herds of cattle when the Dutch first settled there, and to this day their descendants are among the best of cattle-drivers. But they regularly rode their oxen also, training them for riding and as watches, and as guardians for their other cattle and their camps. The Hottentot " watch oxen" were called " Bakeleys." They were so admirably trained that they were used to charge before the tribesmen in battle, apparently without riders, though there may have been mounted leaders. Kolben says that "every Hottentot army is provided with a large troop of these war oxen, which permit themselves to be governed without trouble, and which their leaders let loose at the appointed moment. The instant they are set free they throw themselves with impetuosity upon the opposing army ; they strike with their horns, they kick, they rip up, and trample beneath their feet all that opposes them ; they plunge with fury into the midst of the ranks, and thus pre- pare an easy victory. The manner in which these oxen are trained and disciplined certainly does great honour to the talent of this people." Another race, the Koranna, rode their oxen in the early days of the Cape Colony, their wives and children being carried by them. The oxen were broken when not more than a year old. The bit was a stick passed through the dividing cartilage of the nostrils, the saddle a sheepskin fastened by thin thongs of leather round the body of the ox. When the animal's nose was tender from the operation of boring, it was very sensitive to the " bit," and it was as a rule well trained in a week or two. The Hottentots then taught it " manners," and trained it to stop, walk, trot, or even gallop, when wanted. In the Shoa country only the chiefs had camels. Other people rode oxen. The young ladies had smart riding bullocks, and would precede the pack-oxen to market, adorned with all the splendour of amber, silver rings, and coral, and riding astride on their animals, to meet their friends in the town.
That the ox should be ridden even by the Khirgiz, an eques- trian tribe, and owning abundance of horses, is rather curious. Its special province is to serve as a mount for the shepherds when the tribe, or rather the collective inhabitants of the group of " yurts," is moving to fresh pasturage. The troops of horses, with herdsmen specially mounted, move on, towards the end of April, some way in front of the sheep, goats, and cattle, which follow later, and at a distance. The second division only goes "a sheep's journey" daily, and in order not to press the pace in any way, the shepherd rides an ox, the active steppe sheep following him. On this ox the shepherd even crosses considerable streams, and if the leading sheep will not follow he lassoes them, and drags the first two or three across behind the riding bullock. Further East, both the buffalo and the ox are ridden in China, and in Korea, where the Japanese sick soldiers are now carried with the column on ox-back. The buffalo's enormous back acts as a kind of family coach, on which the children ride out to the fields. It is said that in some districts north of Manchuria the women ride the oxen, while the ponies are reserved for the men.
The most ancient riding animal, or rather the animal most anciently ridden, seems to have been the ass. The late Sir William Flower when writing the history of the horse found that there is no trace of the horse having been used in Egypt before 1900 B.C., but that the ass was introduced and used long before that period. The Egyptian bieroglyhs and paintings are, it may be mentioned, the oldest and most consecutive illustrated natural histories in the world, and determine, among other things, the fact that the water buffalo of India, now among the commonest and most useful of Nile Valley domestic animals, was not known to the old Egyptians. Though the wild ass of Cutch is just as free and fleet a creature as those of Persia or Somaliland, the ass has never been honoured in India as he is in Syria and Egypt. On the contrary, only the most miserable specimens are commonly seen, and these are used by potters and other poor persons. The poor donkey is also associated with the goddess of smallpox. Only in Syria and Egypt, and in the great mule-breeding countries, is the ass, the primitive riding animal, properly cared for, and its pedigree and status kept up. In England after the Reforma- tion, when mules ceased to be the correct animals for eccle- siastics to ride, the donkey went into aermanent eclipse. The camel is now ridden in Northern and Southern Asia, Africa, and West Australia, and may before long be introduced into Damaraland and Namaqualand.
Doubtless the elephant will always remain as the mightiest of riding animals. But it is rather an animal locomotive of the stately order than a riding animal. For the latter, strictly speaking, it would be necessary to breed pigmy elephants. Meantime the tendency of these latter days is to dispense with riding altogether in favour of draught animals. Wherever good roads are made the carriage or the gig is found to be more economical than the riding horse. More persons can be accommodated with less fatigue. England, once the home of horsemanship, is so no longer. It would be a safe speculation to bet that in any ordinary country neighbourhood no horseman would pass a given spot in half a summer's day. A time seems close at hand when horse- manship will be confined to Colonial-bred Englishmen, and to a very limited number who can either afford to hunt or who are artificially trained in the Army.
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