Sir Francis, who had occasion to make frequent journeys across the Pampas between Buenos Ayres to the Andes, adopted the Gaucho style of riding, galloping from sunrise to sunset without stopping except to change horses, sleeping at night on the bare ground with his saddle for a pillow, and living on beef and water. So violent was the exertion, that at first the blood used to gush from his nose as he sank down at evening utterly exhausted; but practice hardened him by degrees, and at length such was the effect of this rude training and simple diet, that he felt, to use his own words, “as if nothing would kill him.”
Every one has heard of the celebrated highwayman Turpin, his black mare, and the incredibly short space of time in which she is said to have carried him from London to York, animated by the juice of a beef-steak, which the bold robber had tied round the bit. The efficacy of this expedient appears to be established. We ourselves are aware of its having been practised by a noted hardriding butcher of Dover, and it is deserving of remark, that his horse was of an exceedingly violent and ungovernable temper, possibly from the effects of this frequent beef-chewing. An inhabitant of Hamah in Syria, assured Burckhardt that he had often given his horses roasted meat before the commencement of a fatiguing journey, that they might be the better able to endure it; and the same person fearing lest the governor should take from him his favourite horse, fed him for a fortnight exclusively upon roasted pork, which so excited his spirit and mettle, that he became absolutely unmanageable, and no longer an object of desire to the governor. The classical reader will call to mind the mares of Diomedes, which were fed upon human flesh, according to the Greek legend, and which it was one of the labours of Hercules to capture.
In the “Edinburgh Journal of Natural History,” we find the following passage:—“We are assured by Mr. Youatt, that in Auvergne fat soups are given to cattle, especially when sick or enfeebled, for the purpose of invigorating them. The same practice is observed in some parts of North America, where the country people mix, in winter, fat broth with the vegetables given to their cattle, in order to render them more capable of resisting the severity of the weather. These, broths have been long considered efficacious by the veterinary practitioners of our own country in restoring horses which have been enfeebled through long illness. It is said by Peall to be a common practice in some parts of India to mix animal substances with the grain given to feeble horses, and to boil the mixture into a sort of paste, which soon brings them into good condition, and restores their vigour. Pallas tells us that the Russian boors make use of the dried flesh of the Hamster reduced to powder, and mixed with oats; and that this occasions their horses to acquire a sudden and extraordinary degree of embonpoint. Anderson relates, in his ‘History of Iceland,’ that the inhabitants feed their horses with dried fishes when the cold is very intense, and that these animals are extremely vigorous, though small. We also know that in the Feroe Islands, the Orkneys, the Western Islands, and in Norway, where the climate is very cold, this practice is also adopted; and it is not uncommon in some very warm countries,—as in the kingdom of Muskat, in Arabia Felix, near the straits of Ormuz, one of the most fertile parts of Arabia, fish and other animal substances are there given to the horses in the cold season, as well as in times of scarcity.”
From horses eating to horses eaten, the transition is easy and natural. Wherever the animal exists in an unreclaimed state, its flesh is a staple article of food. The Kirghis Kassaks pursue it with hawks, and shoot it with arrows, or drive it into the Caspian Sea to be drowned. The Calmucks, Mongols, and other Tartars, make use of horse meat, and manufacture a weak spirit, called koumiss, from mare’s milk. The mounted Indians of South America have no other food than the flesh, milk, and blood of their mares, which they never ride; and the only luxury in which they indulge habitually, is that of washing their hair in mare’s blood. They are fond indeed of intoxicating liquors, which they drink to excess when they can procure them from the white men; but this happens only on rare occasions, and they have none of their own manufacture.
The tribes that, settling, some fifteen hundred or two thousand years ago, in the regions of Europe surrounding the Baltic, brought with them the worship of Odin, were undoubtedly of Asiatic origin, and came probably from the banks of the Don, and the shores of the Black Sea. It is a curious confirmation of this opinion, that the eating of horseflesh prevailed among their descendants down to the eleventh century. Now such a custom could never have arisen spontaneously in a country like Germany, or Scandinavia, where the animal was comparatively scarce and valuable, but it must have existed from the earliest times in the inexhaustible pastures of the plains of Asia. It was practised at the religious feasts of the Pagan north, in commemoration of the original land of those who partook of the banquet, and was a token of adherence to the religion of Odin. In one of Pope Zachary’s letters to Saint Boniface, the great apostle of the Germans, he enjoins that pious missionary to prevent the eating of horseflesh; and St. Olaf, the cruel king, who converted the Scandinavians to Christianity by the sword, put to death or mutilated all who persisted in using that heathenish food. Odinism is now extinct, and no man can be tempted by hostility to Christianity to prefer horse-steaks to beef-steaks. Yet is it not very curious to find that neither a total change of religion, nor the lapse of seven centuries have quite extinguished the hereditary taste of the northern nations for such untempting viands? There has even sprung up in Germany, of late years, a society having for its object to encourage and promote the use of horseflesh for human food! The horse is the only animal slaughtered for the supply of the prisoners, in the house of correction in Copenhagen. Mr. Bremner, who courageously tasted both the soup and the bouilli, says, that the latter is “tough, like the worst kinds of beef, but by no means bad to eat, or disagreeable in taste, only dry and thready. Had we not been told, we should have taken it for the flesh of an ox ill fed.”
Is it not wonderful thus to behold systems of cookery surviving systems of religion out of which they arose, and to see empires and kingdoms pass away, while the practices of the kitchen hold their ground? Special inclinations to certain kinds of food, may be constantly traced among different nations. Swine’s flesh has been from all times an abomination to the Arabians; and the aversion of the Jew to pork, wisely confirmed by Divine command, is a striking indication of his Arabian origin. The Germanic nations have always held beef in favour, and they alone know how to prepare it so as to make it savoury and nutritive. In Germany as in England, in Sweden as in Norway and Denmark, the German blood announces itself by this unfailing test. The Roman nations, i. e. the French, the Spaniards, and the Italians have all something in common in their kitchen as in their language and history. The Tartar princes long domesticated in St. Peterburg, and accustomed to every Western luxury, still have their feasts of horseflesh, which is dressed in twenty different forms, and which they wash down with the choicest vintages of France and Germany.
Stow makes no mention of horse-baiting as among the pastimes of the Londoners in former days, and for the honour of our ancestors we could hope that so brutal a sport was seldom witnessed; but that it was occasionally practised is certain. Ass-baiting, although more common, does not appear to have become very popular; not probably from any lack of inclination to torment, but because the poor ass resisted feebly, and made but little sport. In Malcolm’s “Anecdotes of London” we are told, that so late as 1682, horse-baiting was witnessed, and under circumstances of singular barbarity. Notice was given in the public papers that on the 12th of April, a horse of uncommon strength, and between eighteen and nineteen hands high, would be baited to death at his Majesty’s bear-garden, at the Hope, on the Bank-side, for the amusement of the Morocco ambassador, and any nobility who knew the horse, or would pay the price of admission. It seems that this animal originally belonged to the Earl of Rochester, and being of a ferocious disposition, had killed several other horses, for which misdeeds he was sold to the Earl of Dorchester, and in his service he committed several similar offences; he was then transferred to the worse than savages, who kept the bear-garden. On the day appointed, several dogs were set on the ferocious steed, but he destroyed, or drove them from the area. At length his owners determined to reserve him for a future day’s sport, and directed a person to lead him away; but before the horse had reached London bridge, the spectators demanded the fulfilment of the promise of baiting him to death, and began to destroy the building. At last the poor beast was brought back, and other dogs set upon him without effect, when he was stabbed to death with a sword.
A parallel for this barbarity is recorded in Colonel Davidson’s “Travels in Upper India.” He saw at Lucknow in the king’s stable, a beautiful bay English blood horse, which had been presented by George IV. to a former king of Oude. The animal was blinded with cloths, and fastened on each side of his headstall with strong chains, his vicious temper rendering these precautions necessary. While thus secured he was not only a windsucker, but a weaver; and his whole body incessantly moved from one side to another without rest by night or day. On the colonel’s calling out in groom’s fashion, “Come up!” the weaving instantly ceased, the horse trembled violently, and then suddenly lashed out with his hind legs, as if he wished to kick the speaker to atoms. Attempts had been made to educate him in the native style, and this was the cause that had rendered him so intolerably vicious; nor is this to be wondered at, for few horses possess tempers sufficiently good to endure the severe treatment of the native riding schools. On the accession of the late king of Oude, this poor creature was turned loose into a court-yard with a hungry royal Bengal tiger. The battle was of considerable duration; but the event proved the power and spirit of the horse, who kicked the tiger to death after his own bowels had been torn out, and trailed on the ground.
M. Arnauld, in his “History of Animals,” relates the following incident of ferocious courage in a mule:—“This animal belonged to a gentleman in Florence, and became so vicious and refractory, that his master resolved to make away with him, by exposing him to the wild beasts in the menagerie of the grand duke. For this purpose he was first placed in the dens of the hyenas and tigers, all of whom he would have soon destroyed, had he not been speedily removed. At last he was handed over to the lion, but the mule, instead of exhibiting any symptoms of alarm, quietly receded to a corner, keeping his front opposed to his adversary. Once planted in the corner, he resolutely kept his place, eyeing every movement of the lion, which was preparing to spring upon him. The lion, however, perceiving the difficulty of an attack, practised all his wiles to throw the mule off his guard, but in vain. At length the latter, perceiving an opportunity, made a sudden rush upon the lion, and in an instant broke several of his teeth by the stroke of his fore-feet. The ‘king of beasts,’ as he has been called, finding that he had got quite enough of the combat, slunk grumbling to his cage, and left the sturdy mule master of the field.”