IT is no unusual circumstance in the East for deadly feuds, such as that detailed in the last chapter, to be occasioned by disputes for the possession of a horse. Quarrels of this kind are very common among the Arab tribes of the Desert, and are often perpetuated from generation to generation. The fatal beauty of Helen scarcely caused more disasters than have severally followed the abduction of many a famous steed. Runjeet Singh, the great ruler of the Punjaub, had a horse named Lylee, which he computed to have cost him 60 lakhs of rupees (£600,000) and the lives of 12,000 soldiers, having been the occasion of several wars. It was the property of Yar Mohammad Khan, of Peshawer; and Runjeet Singh, after a long contest with that potentate, made the delivery of the animal to him a primary condition of peace. Yar Mohammad tried many stratagems to evade this demand; first, he declared the horse was dead, and when this was discovered to be a falsehood, he made several attempts to palm off other horses on the conqueror, instead of the real Lylee. In the course of the negotiations, Yar Mohammad died, and was succeeded by his brother Sooltan Mohammad Khan, who also prevaricated as long as he could. But at last General Ventura, an Italian in Runjeet’s service, ended the matter by a bold stroke. Entering the reception room one day, he once more formally demanded Lylee, and when Sooltan Mohammad began to quibble as usual, Ventura called up his soldiers, whom he had posted in the courtyard of the palace, and pronounced the Khan a prisoner in his own capital. This so astounded the Khan, that he ordered the horse to be brought forthwith, and Ventura quitted Peshawer, with his costly booty.
Lylee was full sixteen hands high, and was magnificently apparelled. His bridle and saddle were splendid, and round his knees he had gold bangles. He was seen by Lieut. Barr’s party in 1839, when he was old, and disappointed their expectations. He was then a speckled grey, overloaded with fat, filthily dirty, and his heels, for want of paring and exercise, were so high, that he limped along with much difficulty. A Dakhini, for which the Maharajah had given about £1000, in their opinion far exceeded Lylee in beauty.
Runjeet Singh’s passion for horses has passed into a proverb in the East: it amounted almost to insanity. He was never weary of talking to and caressing his favourite steeds; they were continually in his thoughts, and almost constantly in his sight, adorned in the most sumptuous style. Their bridles were overlaid with gold or enamel, a plume of heron’s feathers was fixed to the headstall, strings of jewels were hung round the animals’ neck, under which were fastened suleymans or onyx stones, highly prized on account of the superstitions connected with them. The saddles were likewise plated with enamel and gold, and set with precious stones, the pummels being particularly rich. The housings were of Cashmere shawls fringed with gold, and the crupper and the martingales were ornamented in the same style as the other furniture. Even a cart-horse, sent him by the King of England, was dressed out in the same fashion. His Majesty wished to make a suitable return for the shawl tent presented to him through Lord Amherst, by the old Lion of the Punjab, and a very extraordinary selection was made, upon whose advice is not known. A team of cart-horses—four mares, and one stallion, were sent out from England, under the notion that Runjeet would be glad to rear a larger breed than the native Punjabees. But the fact was, he cared only for showy saddle horses, of high courage, well broken in to the manège of Hindustan, that he could himself ride on parade, or on the road, or set his favourites upon. Accordingly, when the cart-horses arrived at his court, the stallion was immediately put into the breaker’s hands, and taught the usual artificial paces. This animal, with its enormous head and coarse legs, stood always in the palace yard, or before the tent of the chief, blazing with gold and precious stones, and was sometimes honoured by being crossed by Runjeet Singh himself. The mares were never looked at, and were held in utter indifference.
When Runjeet Singh had become weak, he adopted a singular method of mounting the tall horses on which he loved to ride. A man knelt down before him, over whose neck, he threw his leg, whereupon the man rose, with the Maharajah upon his shoulders, and approached the horse. Runjeet then putting his right foot into the stirrup, and holding by the horse’s mane, threw his left leg, over the man’s head and the back of the horse, into the stirrup on the other side.
The Persian cavalry was anciently the best in the East, but the improved incomparable Arab breed of horses was not then in existence. The modern Persian horses seldom exceed fourteen, or fourteen and a half hands high; but, on the whole, they are taller than the Arabs. Their usual fodder is barley and chopped straw; and they are fed and watered only at sunrise and sunset, when they are cleaned. Their bedding is horsedung, dried in the sun, and pulverized. They are carefully clad in clothing suited to the season, and in summer they are kept entirely under shade during the heat of the day. At night, besides having their heads secured with double ropes, the heels of their hind legs are confined by cords of twisted hair, fastened to iron rings and pegs, driven into the earth. The same custom prevailed in the time of Xenophon, and for the same reason: to secure them from attacking, and maiming each other. As a further precaution, their keepers always sleep on the rugs amongst them; but sometimes, notwithstanding all this care, they break loose, and then the combat ensues. A general neighing, screaming, kicking, and snorting, soon rouses the grooms, and the scene for a while is terrible. Indeed no one can conceive the sudden uproar of such a moment, who has not been in Eastern countries to hear it. They before their heads and haunches stream with blood. Even, in skirmishes with the natives, the horses take part in the fray, tearing each other with their teeth, while their masters are at similar close quarters on their backs.
The ancient Persians sedulously taught their children three things: to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak the truth. Their modern descendants never speak the truth when they can help it; archers they are not, although notorious for drawing the long bow; but horsemanship is still in great esteem amongst them. The following amusing anecdote is related by Sir John Malcolm:—
“Before the year 1800,” he says, “no political mission from an European nation had visited the court of Persia, for a century; but the English, though only known in that country as merchants, had fame as soldiers, from the report of their deeds in India. An officer of one of the frigates, who had gone ashore to visit the envoy, when mounted on a spirited horse, afforded no small entertainment to the Persians by his bad horsemanship. The next day, the man who supplied the ship with vegetables, and who spoke a little English, met him on board, and said, ‘Don’t be ashamed, sir, nobody knows you: bad rider! I tell them, you, like all English, ride well, but that time they see you, very drunk!’ We were much amused at this conception of our national character. The Persian thought it would have been a reproach for a man of a warlike nation not to ride well, but none for an European to get drunk.”
The horses of the Toorkmans, or Turkmans, are much esteemed in Persia, and in the adjacent countries. Turkestan, the native region of these nomads, lies north-east of the Caspian, but their tribes are widely dispersed over Persia, Asia Minor, and Syria. Their horses are large, swift, and possess extraordinary powers of endurance, though their figures are somewhat ungainly. When a Turkman starts on an expedition, he takes with him some hard balls of barley-meal, which are to serve both him and his horse for subsistence until his return. But sometimes in crossing the Desert, when he finds himself unusually faint and weary, he opens the jugular vein of his horse, and drinks a little of the animal’s blood, by which he is himself refreshed, and thinks that the horse, too, is relieved. Some of these men and horses have been known to travel nine hundred miles, in eleven successive days.
The Othmanlis or Ottomans, the founders of the great empire that bears their name, were a branch of the Turkman stock. Othman, the first of their dynasty, was the chief of a small horde, a mere handful of men; his grandson Amurath I, was he who conquered Adrianople. The first conquests of the Turks were achieved by freemen; but, after the taking of Constantinople, a new military institution was established; and the relation between the commander and his warlike servants resembled much more the personal subjection of the Mamelukes to their Beys, than the free allegiance owned by the bands of the west to their Condottieri. The invincible army of the Sultan—the terrible cavalry of whom it was proverbial, that
“—where the Spahi’s hoof hath trod,