OUR FRIEND THE HORSE.
JUST when people were beginning to say that cavalry.. had become useless in war, the British and French cavalry carried out the whole task of keeping touch with the rearguards of the retreating Germans. And among some of the worst bogs and craters in France we hear that horses hauled heavy guns through at spots where motor traction was out of the question. It need never have been supposed really that the day of the horse was over in war. If a great war could be fought advantageously without horses in Europe, they would still be required where civilization is less compact or its resources too far distant. One cannot think of the campaigns in Mesopotamia and Palestine without" cavalry. Moreover, it is never safe to regard any military branch as finally lopped off. Its day may return. After the South African War bayonets and lances (and even unmounted infantry) wore cohdenmed for ever, but they have all returned. Infantry remains tho queen of the battlefield, and the bayonet is the most useful weapor. So, again, bombs returned at a time when the younger generation hardly knew the meaning of the title of the Grenadiers. Mr. H. 0. Wells may lire to be reconciled to the sight of spurs on an officer's boots, which he says "gets on his nerves." In any case, whether soldiers ever give up the horse or not for military purposes,'thero will never be a better training for the military mind than the mastery of the horse. This mastery emphatically does not mean an over- lordship of terrorism. It means patience, close watching, courage with good temper, humaneness. The rider who has not these qualities will never excel in managing horses. Englishmen, scarcely less than Arabs and Irishmen, love their horses. If ever there were a cavalry battle between Germans and British, the British qualities would certainly prevail. The Germans have not those qualities. Their sympathy falls short. Fortunately riding is not a practice which needs to be kept in being by military orders. It will not die out as bayonet-fighting or bomb-throwing might if it were said by the War Office to be no longer required. The English- man feels with Shakespeare of the horse, " He is my friend." The cult of horses will go on as long as a man feels the joy of being on horseback, as long as springy turf invites a gallop, as long as foxes will break covert, and as long as the competitive instinct of man is satisfied by backing the speed of one horse against the speed of another. " That one horse can run quicker than another is un- doubtedly true," wrote a weary Shah of Persia in his diary during his visit to England in the "seventies" of last century, "but why should I go to Epsom to see that ? " The remark is treasured not for its logic but for its consummate drollery.
We have before us a book on horses written by a friend of horses, Mr. Roger Pocock (John Murray, 5s. net). He has lived, among horses most of his life, and here we have the most instructive and attractive fruits of his experience. As Professor J. Comas Ewart, who is perhaps more learned in horses than any other Englishman, says of the hook in a preface :- " 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.' "
Mr. Pocock has spent years trying to get inside the brain of a horse. His observations provide a key which seems sometimes as though it
could really unlock that charming mystery. The horse is a kind of Celt, the creature of wild impulses, tremendous spirits (which, how- over, quickly change), and generous instincts. He may be brave in the sense of having a " great heart " for enduring and for taking stiff fences, but every horse is subject to panic—blind, unreasoning fright. " Linesman," writing in the Spectator a few years ago, said of the horse : " He is a fool and a coward, but when you look into his beautiful eyes you forget it all." The horse's impulse to panic is one of the most interesting of all things to be studied because of the notorious reciprocity of feeling between horse and rider. The nervous rider makes the nervous or irritable horse. As Mr. Pocock says in an admirable phrase, the rein is " a telegraph wire to carry the vibrations of fear." For that reason he prefers to use a voice which he can control rather than a hand of which he is—so he tells us—doubtful. " A low-pitched quiet voice is very useful if one's hands are rough." He also remarks that when horses are being ridden or driven in a mob a chorus of singing will almost always prevent panic. He has found hymn tunes particularly useful. The history of the horse naturally ensures the survival of a great deal of mob-instinct, and to overcome it in the mass is more difficult than to reason with a solitary animal. Every one who has had anything to do with cavalry camps in the field knows something about stampedes, and if he has had to do with mules he probably knows more. Whyte-Melville used to make a practice of smoking a strong cigar when. he faced difficult country on an uncertain animal. He regarded the cigar as a nerve tonic. It was hardly that except in an indirect way. It was rather a moral argument addressed to himself : " Here am I, cool, collected, and confident, and behaving in a per- fectly normal way—in fact, smoking a cigar as though nothing were happening." For the same reason the soldier under fire tends to smoke whenever the conditions permit.
Mr. Pocock's theory is that, since the horse is bound to choose his ground better in all circumstances than the rider can, he may be allowed a loose rein, but should be impressed by the rider's confident voice. Every reader of F. A. Anstey's story, The Talking Horse, will remember the delightful humour and ingenuity with which the reciprocity between rider and horse is employed as a theme. The rider is forced to buy the horse though he does not want him, and all his movements are ,governed by the horse's desires, subject to a certain amount of bargaining where the horse yields in one direction in order to acquire more benefits in another. The rider's moments of apparent mastery in Rotten Row have thus been purchased at a high and humiliating price. All this extravagant fable is only an emphasis on a profound truth. The rider in the story is Mr. Pocock's ideal in one respect ; he accepts the advice of the horse: "Leave everything to me." But he fails utterly in the other respect ; he has no confidence in himself and can convey none to the horse ; he makes concessions in a voice which rings like an appeal for mercy. The horse knows, and does very nearly what he likes. Every horse before he treats you with respect requires you to state your meaning clearly and to prove that you can carry out your intentions. If those conditions are fulfilled, he delivers his soul into your keeping and worries no more. He likes that sort of subjection, for he finds it very composing. If this relation be not established, however, he is by no means un- conscious of the failure. He keeps reminding you of it. He feels that you are not deciding things for him. He does not acknow- ledge any responsibility himself, being like the little American girl who cried : " Ma's lost me. I told the darned old thing she would, and she has ! " Mr. Pocock's attitude to the horse is : " You have an instinct which I have not. Therefore I leave the choosing of ground absolutely to you. But I could take the decision away from you at any moment and keep it for myself. So be very careful how you behave." That is a perfect relation for friendliness, at all events. Any horse, so trusted, would probably justify himself. A groom said the other day to a friend of the present writer about a light-footed mare that could be trusted to pick her ground in a treacherous place : " It's just like kissing the ground. If it was covered with eggs, she wouldn't break one." To which we may add 'with Walter Scott :— " E'en the light harebell raised its head,
Elastic from her airy tread."
There aro many other points in the book on which Mr. Pocock is very interesting. He observes that horses feed up-wind. But is this true of highly domesticated horses, or only of range horses and such-like ? The wild horse naturally feeds up-wind, for the wind brings him the sounds and smells of approaching danger. Birds like to keep head to wind for the same reason as well as because they get up against the wind. Mr. Pocock's father once rode a pony up the Mediterranean stairs at Gibraltar, but the kind of horse which Mr. Pocock himself has trusted to climb up precipitous slopes thousands .of feet high would refuse a step knee-high. Writing of the likes and dislikes of range horses, Mr. Pocock says :— "American railway bridges have no pathway, and when one leads a horse, stepping from tie to tie, he thinks he has five legs. With two
legs down, and a train expected or a bear sauntering ahead, he looks so damned patient that one begins to realise an obscure trait in his character which needs explaining. It is easier to take him across bridges than to ride or lead him through a waterfall. Ho prefers a waterfall to a corduroy-timbered swamp road when it happens to be flooded and afloat. I have tried him with quicksands and moss holes and glare ice on the mountain tops. Because I cannot swim I have stayed in the saddle swimming lakes, rapids, and rivers which run sand. Still worse are beaver swamps under a tangle of deadfall timber, and old avalanches. All these and sundry other kinds of evil ground a horse accepts as fate so long as he trusts his man. It is not his business. It is the man's affair. One begins to think that, like a savage, ho lacks continuous purpose of his own and is merely the meek victim of his destiny. And that is exactly where the man is fooled. When a horse really wants grass, water, or to get home, he rivals the white man in sustained purpose, and does his own job with an intelligence and courage which he never gives to that of his employer."
Any one may have seen in a London street how quickly a horse turns away from a trough when he has finished drinking. It is the old instinct of never being off guard a moment longer than necessary. One of the best secrets of management which Mr. Pocock presents to his readers is to remember that a horse cannot think of two things at once like a human being. To put a new thought in a horse's head is to deprive him of an old one which may have been troublesome. A man once astonished the onlookers by treating a jibbing horse in a curious way. He twisted up a cigarette-paper and put it in the horse's ear. The horse was so much " intrigued " by this extraordinary conduct that he forgot to jib.
Mr. Pocock was never able to understand the use of the slippery English saddle till Lord Lonsdale, in a positively masterly ex- planation, told him that it enabled the rider to fall clear ! Mr. Pocock's comment is half ironical, half serious : " The application to Army use of a saddle made for falling off seems a little eccentric until one begins to reason. The idea is not without valueebeeause an Army in time of peace is really a school of manhood."
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