I asked, then, if some wooden stethoscopes might be made for the Hindustani assistants, as neither of them possessed one. I had been giving them some instructions, and had been holding classes in the evening for the compounders. I found there was not a great deal I could teach the Priest compounder “Hafiz.” He was very well up in his work, and was an intelligent man, the only one I could really rely on in an operation.
Then the Armenian considered that the time had come to speak about the horse, and he waxed eloquent.
His Highness said, “Why ride a horse so dangerous; I have many horses.”
He told me he had a black horse, a remarkable animal, whose speed was like that of a steam-engine. This he would send for. It had been coveted by many of the Courtiers: one wanted it for his son, another for himself; but His Highness would not give it to anyone. I had never seen it. The horse was sent for. I pictured a lovely creature, like an Arab, with a small head, slender limbs, and broad chest. Judge of my surprise when I beheld a black shaggy pony, all mane and tail. I thought within myself: “They are playing it low down upon the stranger within their gates.”
But, at a sign from the Amîr, the head-groom mounted and off the pony started. He did not gallop, canter, trot, nor walk: he simply “skated” over the ground at terrific speed. They said he could keep the pace up for thirty miles without stopping, and could travel from Mazar to Kabul in four days!
Hence, if one found it necessary to move from one place to another hurriedly, this horse seemed likely to be invaluable.
His Highness said that as this horse was not beautiful I was to choose two other horses, handsome and swift. The pony I was to keep at my house, and the other two should be kept in his own stable, and when I needed them I was to send for them.
That black pony was uncanny. An evil spirit—several evil spirits—possessed him. The first thing he did, when we got him home, was to deliberately untie his halter, walk off to the “fool horse,” though he was only about half his size, and fight him. He went so quietly and seemed so gentle—just at first: but he was a fiend. They fought furiously, striking, kicking, and tearing at each other with their teeth. If we had not succeeded in separating them the “fool horse” would have been killed.
The “Steam-engine” Pony.
Shortly after that, and without any hurry, he slipped his head out of his headstall and walked off to a horse belonging to the Armenian, a young one he had lately bought to trade with in Kabul. The young one was frightened, and the “Steam-engine,” seeing it was an adversary not worthy of his steel—or teeth—merely nipped him in the neck and walked back again.