“The doctor frequently desired Cæsar to make the horse leap over this stream, which might be about six feet broad. The dog, by a kind of bark, and leaping up towards the horse’s head, intimated to him what he wanted, which was quickly understood; and he cantered off, preceded by Cæsar, and took the leap in a neat and regular style. The dog was then desired to bring him back again, and it was speedily done in the same manner. On one occasion Cæsar lost hold of the reins, and as soon as the horse cleared the leap, he immediately trotted up to his canine guide, who took hold of the bridle, and led him through the water quietly.”
“A gentleman,” says Mr. Jesse, “who resides near Southampton, had a retriever, a large half-bred Newfoundland dog, that had formed a friendship with a horse, which, at the time I am referring to, was turned out into a paddock near the house. The dog, hunting one day by himself, was caught in a snare by the leg, and after struggling some time, during which its cries were heard, he disengaged himself so far from his confinement as to break the string of the snare, the wire being still attached to the limb. In this situation he was observed by my friend and his host to go to the horse in the paddock, and seemed at once to make him aware of his distress. The horse gently put his nose down to the dog, and the dog having licked it, lifted up the leg to which the snare was attached in a manner which could not be mistaken. The horse immediately began to try to disengage the snare, by applying his teeth to it in a gentle and cautious manner, although he was unable to succeed in removing it. This is by no means a solitary instance of the sympathy which animals show for each other when in distress.”
Man may fully avail himself of this amiable disposition of the horse; it is rarely the latter’s fault if he and his owner are not on the best possible terms. How often has the horse been found grazing by the side of his drunken prostrate master, whom he would not leave. “We have seen,” says Mr. Blaine, “a child of five years old purposely sent by the wife of the coachman to quiet an unruly and noisy coach-horse, for to no other person would he yield such obedience; but a pat from her tiny hand, or her infantile inquiry—‘What is the matter with you?’ was sufficient to allay every obstreperous symptom. But it was to her only he yielded such submission, for otherwise he was a high-spirited and really intractable animal. Often has this child been found lying asleep on the neck of the horse, when he had laid himself down in his stall, and so long as she continued to sleep, so long the horse invariably remained in his recumbent position.”
There is something almost mysterious in the manner in which the horse contrives to pick his way in safety through dangerous and deceitful ground, and to discover and avoid perils of which his master is quite unsuspicious. In all doubtful cases the animal’s head should be left free, that he may put his nose to the ground, and examine it by touch, as well as by sight and hearing (the muzzle is the peculiar organ of touch in the horse), and he will then seldom fail to judge promptly and unerringly whether or not he may venture to proceed. But even when the animal is confined in harness and restrained from the free use of all his faculties, he sometimes exercises his wonderful instinct in the happiest manner. In the very month in which we are writing (January, 1846), several hundred feet of the viaduct of Barentin over the Rouen and Havre railway came down with a sudden crash. Just before the fall, Monsieur Lorgery, flour merchant of Pavilly, was about to cross one of the arches in his cabriolet, when the horse stopped short and refused to pass. M. Lorgery struck the animal with his whip, but all in vain—he refused to stir. At the moment while his unsuspecting driver was still urging him on, the fall took place.
It is partly owing to the faculty of discerning the obscurest traces of a frequented, or at least a practicable road, and partly to that tenacious power of memory which enables a horse to recognise a road he has once traversed, that bewildered travellers, from the days of knight-errantry downwards, have found it good policy to throw the reins on their steed’s neck, and trust themselves implicitly to his guidance. Along with this retentive memory the horse combines a very business-like observance of habit and routine. The author of “The Menageries” knew a horse which, being accustomed to make a journey once a week with the newsman of a provincial paper, always stopped at the houses of the several customers, although they were sixty or seventy in number. But further, there were two persons in the route who took one paper between them, and each claimed the privilege of receiving it first on the alternate Sunday. The horse soon became accustomed to this regulation; although the parties lived two miles asunder, he stopped once a fortnight at the door of the half-customer at Thorpe, and once a fortnight at that of the half-customer at Chertsey; and never did he forget this arrangement, which lasted several years, or stop unnecessarily after he had once thoroughly understood the rule.
The docility and intelligence of the horse are abundantly shown in the feats he is trained to perform in the Circus; but those which he is self-taught are still more interesting. Lord Brougham in his “Dissertations” says, he knew a pony that used to open the latch of the stable door, and also raise the lid of the corn chest; and he notices the instance of a horse opening the wicket-gate of a field by pressing down the upright bar, as a man would do,—“actions,” he observes, “which the animals must have learned from observation, as it is very unlikely that they were taught.” Such feats are not uncommon; but the following is, we believe, unique. In 1794, a gentleman in Leeds had a horse which, after having been kept up in the stable for some time, and turned out into a field where there was a pump well supplied with water, regularly obtained a quantity therefrom by his own dexterity. For this purpose, the animal was observed to take the handle into his mouth, and work it with his head, in a way exactly similar to that done by the hand of man, until a sufficiency was procured.
The force of habit is particularly strong in the old hunter and in the war-horse. The Tyrolese, in one of their insurrections in 1809, took fifteen Bavarian horses, and mounted them with fifteen of their own men; but in a skirmish with a squadron of the same regiment, no sooner did these horses hear the trumpet and recognise the uniform of their old masters, than they set off at full gallop, and carried their riders, in spite of all their efforts, into the Bavarian ranks, where they were made prisoners. But inveterate habits are contracted in peace as well as in war, domi militiæque, a truth which was curiously exemplified in a case that fell under our own observation. Some ladies of our acquaintance in Essex bought a very respectable, middle aged, black-coated horse, to draw their four-wheeled open chaise, driven by their own fair hands. At first they were greatly pleased with their bargain; the horse was as strong as an elephant, as gentle as a lamb, and as sedate as a parish clerk. But he soon gave proof of very ungenteel propensities. No sooner did a public house come in view than he would rush up to the door, in defiance of whip and rein, and persist in remaining there a reasonable drinking time, thereby exposing the reputation of his mistresses to very shocking surmises. It afterwards came out that he had learned these ways of a jolly old farmer in whose possession he had been for some years.
There is a story told of a famous trotter belonging to a butcher, which attracted the admiration of a gentleman by its splendid action, and was bought by him at a very high price. But no long time elapsed before the purchaser came to the conclusion that he had been taken in; the horse was decidedly a dull, lazy brute; it was all over with his fine trotting; and the butcher who sold him was, no doubt, aware that the animal laboured under some unsoundness that destroyed his former high qualities. The gentleman took the horse to its former owner, and indignantly denounced the fraud that had been practised upon him. The butcher listened in silence to the stormy harangue, and then turning to one of his men, who was leaving the shop with a tray of meat on his shoulder, he said to him, “Here, Dick, jump up, just as you are, and let us see if the horse can’t trot a bit.” The man did so, and off started the horse in the very best style. The gentleman was amazed and confounded: “I can never make him go like that!” he said. “That’s a pity, sir,” replied the butcher; “you see it is not his fault. But I’ll tell you what it is; you just please to mount, and let me put a tray of meat on the saddle before you, and then I warrant you’ll say he goes fast enough!”
Horses often exhibit a good deal of cunning. The late General Pater, of the East India service, was a remarkably fat man. While stationed at Madras, he purchased a charger, which, after a short trial, all at once betook himself to a trick of lying down whenever he prepared to get upon his back. Every expedient was tried, without success, to cure him of the trick; and the laugh was so much indulged against the general’s corpulency, that he found it convenient to dispose of his horse to a young officer quitting the settlement for a distant station up the country. Upwards of two years had subsequently elapsed, when, in the execution of his official duties, General Pater left Madras to inspect one of the frontier cantonments. He travelled, as is the usual custom in India, in his palanqueen (a covered couch carried on men’s shoulders). The morning after his arrival at the station, the troops were drawn out; and, as he had brought no horses, it was proper to provide for his being suitably mounted, though it was not very easy to find a charger adapted to his weight. At length an officer resigned to him a powerful horse for the occasion, which was brought out duly caparisoned in front of the line. The general came forth from his tent, and proceeded to mount; but the instant the horse saw him advance, he flung himself flat upon the sand, and neither blows nor entreaties could induce him to rise. It was the general’s old charger, which, from the moment of quitting his service, had never once practised the artifice until this second meeting. The general, who was an exceedingly good-humoured man, joined heartily in the universal shout that ran through the whole line on witnessing this ludicrous affair.
