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The Horse - Breeds of the British Isles (Domesticated Animals of the British Islands)
De David Low
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"The Horse - Breeds of the British Isles" is an essay by David Low, published as part of the "Domesticated Animals of the British Islands" series. This fascinating and profusely-illustrated essay explores the history of the British horse, with information on its various breeds, training, breaking, historical uses, and much more. This volume is highly recommended for those with an interest in the wildlife of the British isles, and it would make for a fantastic addition to collections of allied literature. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in a modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork.
Ações de livro
Comece a lerDados do livro
The Horse - Breeds of the British Isles (Domesticated Animals of the British Islands)
De David Low
Descrição
"The Horse - Breeds of the British Isles" is an essay by David Low, published as part of the "Domesticated Animals of the British Islands" series. This fascinating and profusely-illustrated essay explores the history of the British horse, with information on its various breeds, training, breaking, historical uses, and much more. This volume is highly recommended for those with an interest in the wildlife of the British isles, and it would make for a fantastic addition to collections of allied literature. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in a modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork.
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The Horse - Breeds of the British Isles (Domesticated Animals of the British Islands) - David Low
HORSE.
V. THE HORSE.
THE EQUIDE Æ constitute a small but noble tribe of quadrupeds, which have been termed Solidungula, from their having but single apparent toes, covered by undivided integuments of horn. Their stomach is single, and their food vegetable. Their limbs are strong and sinewy, and their general conformation is adapted to rapid movements. They have the neck and tail covered with hair, longer than that of the other parts of the body. Their ears are very moveable, and their eyes so placed as to include a large range of vision: their voice is loud, in some of the species harsh and braying, in others shrill and sonorous. They are social and migratory, inhabiting the open country rather than woody caverts. They abounded in a former condition of the world, their fossil remains existing in numerous mineral deposites. Various species are yet found living in the state of nature, or reduced to servitude. These species have usually been regarded by naturalists, following the illustrious Linnæus, as constituting a single genus, Equus; although some prefer dividing them into two distinct genera, namely, ASINUS, of which the Ass is typical, and EQUUS, represented by the Common Horse. But these genera pass the one into the other, so that they can only be separated by conventional characters; and we shall equally avoid confusion by regarding them as forming a single genus, of which the species may be considered as approaching more or less to the type which we term Asinine, or more or less to that which is presented in the Horse. In this, as in all parts of the animal kingdom, we find a progression, as it were, from species to species; so that it may be said the living Equidæ present gradations in form and attributes, from the humbler Ass, with his homely exterior, his rudimental mane, and his harsh and grating voice, to the beautiful creature, in which the form and qualities of his tribe are most highly developed.
The WILD ASS, Οναγ 
ος of the Greeks, Onager of the Romans, inhabits the regions of steril wilderness which stretch from the deserts of Syria eastwards between the northern shores of the Persian Gulf and the great saline Lake of Aral, extending his range eastward into the boundless regions of the Tartars, and southward to the deserts beyond the Indus. He is found congregated in troops, sometimes in great numbers together. He trusts for safety to the exquisite senses with which he is endowed, and shuns the fatal neighbourhood of man. In this his natural state of freedom, he shews himself to be endowed with characters and instincts which fit him for his condition. He prefers the bitter and saline plants of the desert to the herbage of the richer plains. He contents himself with the water of brackish pools and saline springs. He is wary in a high degree, exquisite in his senses of sight and hearing, swift in flight, bold in scaling the rocky precipice, and resolute in his own defence. When attacked, he employs his teeth and posterior limbs, without abating his flight. He is hunted by the tribes of the desert for his skin, and for his flesh, which is greatly esteemed by the Tartar nations. He is sometimes, it is said, taken in pitfalls, and thus reduced to servitude. He is hunted by the Persians with a large kind of greyhound trained to the chase.
From the earliest times we have records of the habits and condition of this wild and migratory creature. The Sacred Writings make him the subject of many beautiful descriptions and allusions. Who hath sent out the Wild Ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the Orud? whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwellings. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing.
He is often referred to as typical of indocility, perverseness, and scorn of control; and his very presence is associated with images of barrenness and desolation. Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers, yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city; because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of Wild Asses, a pasture of flocks.
The Wild Ass of the Desert is yet familiar to the people of the countries which he inhabited of old. In stature he equals the larger domesticated breeds. His ears are long, and very moveable. His fur varies in colour, from brownish to a silvery gray, being paler on the head, shoulders, and haunches, nearly white on the limbs and lower part of the belly, and dark brown on the mane, with a streak of the same colour, forming a cross on the shoulder, and extending along the spine. He is termed by the Persians Gor; and this name coupled with Khur, the Persian term for an Ass, forms Gor-Khur, by which designation the Wild Ass is known in various countries of the East.
But besides the Wild Ass, properly so called, it has been believed that another species, approaching yet more in conformation to the domesticated kinds, is found within the same geographical limits. It has been described as the Hamar of the Persians. But Hamar is merely the Arabic for a male Ass; and the figures given by travellers of a species of this name, are manifestly the representation of an animal that has been domesticated, and not of a species really wild.
But Wild Asses extend to the great African Continent, and present characters which appear to distinguish them from those of Asia. They were classed by the Romans under the general term, Onager, and were from time to time exhibited in the bloody sports of the amphitheatre, while their colts were regarded as a luxury by the gluttonous epicures of Rome. They have been seen by many travellers, from the countries of the Red Sea to Cape Verde on the Atlantic; and they have been recently observed in great numbers above the cataracts towards the high lands of Bahr-el Ariad, or White Nile. They are described as being of delicate form, as having the hair very fine, of a silver-gray colour on the back, and pale ashy-blue on the neck and sides, with the mane and tail black, a dark cross on the shoulder, and a streak along the dorsal line of the same colour. It is not known whether all the Asses of Africa present the same characters. Those in the subjugated state exhibit a certain difference of aspect in distant localities. Adanson, in describing those of Senegal, brought by the Moors from the interior, says that he could not recognise them to be the same animals as those of Europe.
From the Onagri of Asia and Africa, however distinguished from one another by minor characters, it is reasonable to suppose the domesticated races have been derived. But, at the same time, from the different characters which appear in the subjugated races, even in the same localities, it is not impossible that the blood of allied species, as of the Hemionus, to be immediately referred to, has been mixed with that of the common kinds. But from whatever stirps in the natural state the Common Ass has been derived, this creature, we know, has been subjected to captivity from the earliest congregation of men into societies. Amongst the treasures of the early shepherds of Syria, the Ass is continually mentioned, along with the Camel and the Ox, as the beast employed in journeyings and the bearing of burdens; and even after the return of the descendants of Israel from a country of chariots and horses to the land of their promised inheritance, they preserved the simple habits of their forefathers in the use of this ancient servant. They seem to have had their asses of nobler blood, to which they applied a peculiar term. Princes and the honourable of the land did not disdain to be borne by this ancient steed. Saul, when called by a glorious destiny to be the King of Israel, was in search of his father’s asses, or atonoth, which had strayed. His warlike successor had his superintendent of atonoth, as of the other branches of his government; and even after the Horse was introduced for the purposes of traffic and war, the services of the patient Ass were neither disused nor despised. He was, in like manner, domesticated from the earliest times by the Arabians, the Persians, and other people of the East. He was familiar to the Egyptians, as history and their sculptured monuments attest; to the Libyans; and, it may be believed, to the other inhabitants of Africa bordering on the Great Desert. He was known to the Greeks, as we learn from their earliest writers; to the Romans, who cultivated the race with care; to the Spaniards, whose early intercourse with the Phœnicians and Carthaginians could not fail to make them familiar with so useful a creature. According to Strabo, he was unknown to the Britons, and to the inhabitants of the countries of the Baltic. He at length found his way beyond the Alps into Gaul, and, at a period comparatively recent, into the northern countries of Europe.
The Ass, reduced to bondage, loses the fleetness, the spirit, and the wildness, which he possesses in the state of nature. Unlike to the Horse, who readily becomes devoted to his master, and gives up all his powers to his use, this creature seems to yield an unwilling service, and to feel the degradation of servitude. Yet he submits with patience to his lot, and his progeny do not seem to recover the wildness of their parents; for it is not known that the progeny of the domesticated Ass ever seek to regain their liberty by joining their fellows of the desert. It is otherwise with the Horse, who is readily tempted to join the emancipated herds, and fly from the bondage in which he has lived. In South America, numerous Asses have been allowed to escape into the plains, and multiply in a state of nature; but they never acquire the habits of their free-born progenitors of the desert: they linger near the places of their birth, and fall an easy prey to their enemies. The change of nature in the Ass, by the effects of subjugation, is entire. It seems to be less the effect of discipline and education than of simple deprivation of liberty. Thus it is that the Ass was amongst the earliest of the quadrupeds subjected to permanent servitude, and retains so strongly the impress of slavery.
In his state of domestication, the Ass is patient of thirst and toil, and able to subsist on dry and scanty forage. He does not seem to be sensible of cold, but he fears wetness, and is reluctant to enter pools and rivers. He is a strong animal, and is better adapted to the bearing of burdens and drawing of weights than, from his slender limbs and relative bulk of body, could be inferred. He is docile and cheerful under his burden when kindly used; but when urged to tasks beyond his strength, and assailed by unmerited blows, he manifests his natural temper. He sometimes draws up his lips in a peculiar manner, and shews his teeth with a savage grin; an expression of dumb agony which should speak to the feelings, in place of exciting derision and repetition of insult. It is painful to think that this creature, so meek, so patient in our service, so grateful for our kindness, should be too generally treated with contumely and harshness. Do we not consider that he is a creature who is only degraded by our abuse of him, and a slave because Nature has formed him with the instinct to resign his physical powers to our service? His figure, his voice, his very patience and submission, have been the subject of ridicule in every age. He has been regarded as the very emblem of stupidity, perverseness, and obstinacy, tardus, piger, stupidus, stolidus.
With respect to his form, we say that this, like that of all the Equine family, is indicative of activity. His ears indeed are somewhat long for our taste; but his ears, we should remember, are the organs which in the desert enable him to collect the distant sounds, and avoid the danger of his enemies; and his voice, which appears to us so inharmonious and rude, is designed to resound through the wilderness he inhabits, to warn his comrades of danger, and collect the distant members of the troop. His submission and patience do not surely demand excuse, yet even these are not the characteristics of his free-born state, but of that condition in which Nature forms him to be useful to us. His stupidity is merely inferred from his external aspect; for his actions do not exhibit a want of sagacity; and with respect to his obstinacy and perverseness, it may be said that these are the result of our ungenerous use of his services, for, when treated with kindness, he manifests neither indocility nor want of attachment to his protector.
This animal, though capable of enduring great cold, is the creature of the temperate and warmer countries. It is to them that his temperament is adapted, and his spirit seems to droop when he is reared in the higher latitudes. The Asses of the north of Europe cannot be compared with those of Syria, Persia, and the countries of the Levant, nor with those of Spain and the north of Africa. The Persians, though a nation of horsemen, pay great attention to the rearing of an animal so suited to a rocky and arid country. They have their different breeds, some of which are very large, and suited to draught and the bearing of burdens, and others are light and fitted for the saddle. Also, in Syria and Asia Minor are to be seen fine asses employed in travelling and the labours of the field. In the arid deserts of Arabia, the Ass shares with the Camel the burden of transporting the tents and merchandise of the wandering tribes, the goods of the caravan, or the solitary traveller. In Barbary and Egypt, a light and agile kind of Ass is found. In Cairo; numbers of them are to be seen standing ready saddled for hire, serving the same purpose as hackney-coaches with us. They are treated by their owners in the same manner as horses, rubbed carefully, and fed on chopped straw, beans, and barley. They are healthy, cheerful, and gentle, and the safest animals that can be ridden. Their usual pace is a pleasant amble, and they carry their riders rapidly and without fatigue from place to place in the straggling city. The Asses of the caravans of the interior frequently arrive in Egypt, after having carried their riders sixty days and more through the deserts, as fresh as if they had started the day before. It is in situations like these that the services which this creature renders save him from the unmerited contempt which elsewhere accompanies him.
Of the Asses of European countries, those of Greece, Italy, and Spain, have long possessed the greatest reputation for their superior qualities. Greece had the means of obtaining the Asiatic races from the countries on the Black Sea and the Caspian. Those of Arcadia are celebrated by early writers, and Cappadocia is mentioned as supplying Greece with a valuable race. The breeds of modern Greece and the islands of the Archipelago, though treated with the neglect with which every thing useful is treated in those countries, are still greatly superior to those of the northern parts of Europe. The Romans paid extreme attention to the rearing of this animal; and in the days of the Empire paid enormous sums for procuring those that were the most beautiful and of the finest races. Italy still produces Asses of a valuable kind. But of all the countries of Europe, Spain is the most distinguished for these animals. Many of them are fifteen hands high, and of corresponding strength and fine figure. The communication of this country with the East and with Africa, doubtless produced an early attention to the race; and the extensive employment of the Mule has since caused an extreme care to be devoted to the rearing of the parent stock. The Asses of Spain are more numerous than the Horses.
In the New World, the Ass, like all the domesticated animals of the Old, has found a habitation suited to his condition. He is sometimes employed, though more rarely than the Mule, in the bearing of travellers and burdens through the terrible passes of the Andes, and then he manifests courage, fidelity, and sagacity. He bears his rider along the ledge of the precipice, where the foot can scarcely find a resting-place, and where a false step would entail destruction upon both. Sometimes he descends declivities so steep and dangerous that they seem impassable. The faithful creature stops when he arrives at the edge of the descent, pauses, and will not move until he has prepared himself for the danger. He views the path before him, and at length, bringing his hinder legs beneath him, he glides down the precipice with frightful rapidity. He follows the winding of the path as if he had fixed in his mind the very track he was to follow. The rider trusts all to his guidance: the slightest check of the rein might disturb the equilibrium, and cause both to be hurled into the abyss below.
In the British Islands, asses are in great numbers, chiefly used by the poorer classes. The animal was known in England even during the reign of the Anglo-Saxon Kings, but their numbers were small; for even in the reign of Elizabeth they were regarded as foreign to the land. During the reign of James I., however, they had become common. They are now an object of economical importance. They are chiefly, indeed, the property of the poor; but, whoever owns them, they are beasts of useful labour, largely used by a numerous class, and meriting more attention than they have yet received. Great numbers of she-asses are kept about London and the larger towns, for the purpose of supplying a mile, salutary, and nutritive liquid to the infirm.
Although the Ass does not well support the temperature of the higher latitudes, yet beyond a question the breed could be greatly improved even in countries colder than our own. Were a proper selection to be made of the parents for breeding, and were the young to be properly fed, so that their form might be developed, and were they to be sheltered from the inclemency of the weather in the same manner as the Horse, we would succeed in rearing Asses greatly superior in strength and spirit to the diminutive creatures which we see on our highways and commons. The animals, indeed, are mostly in the hands of those who have not the means to procure proper males, or pursue a right system of management; but on this account it is the more important that some attention should be paid to the subject by the wealthier classes. Our commercial relations with Spain and the Levant would enable us, at no great cost, to improve the defective races of the country by the easiest means.
Besides the direct services which the Ass can render to us as a beast of burden, he is endowed with the faculty of propagating a race of animals superior to himself in strength, and equal in sagacity, patience, and fortitude. The Mule is a creature invaluable in the countries in which he is reared for his many and varied services. In Spain, he is the beast of burden the most generally used
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