The export was caused by the rise of prices elsewhere; the New Forest nag advanced, for instance, from £5 to £12. But the Icelander has had the sense to part with inferior animals, jades fit only for the knacker and the kennel. He has a curious idea that ponies used in the English mines are first blinded, like decoy singing-birds upon the shores of the Mediterranean.
In 1770 the horse fetched $3 (rixdollars, say half-crowns). During the early part of the present century Mackenzie and others paid $6 where we now disburse pounds sterling. In 1862 a picked animal sold from $12; this price, in 1864, rose, as has been shown, to £5, 5s. a head. The Consular Report of 1870-71 says, “The price for a good horse averages at present from £2 to £4.” During my visit, the mean sums paid by the steamers were £3 to £4. Baggage ponies for travellers commanded £5 to £6, and good riding-nags £7 to £9. Perhaps no article in Iceland has run up so rapidly as horse-flesh, and the resident feels it as well as the traveller. This, however, is, as I have shown, probably a provisional grievance; and, despite the inconvenience, the trade is perfectly legitimate. Happily for Iceland, no class corresponds with our small fund-holder, who is in a fair way of finding life in England impossible, and who must disperse, like the large British colony of small rentiers in Paris, when income became stationary and outlay became imperial.
Henderson (i. 19) and other travellers make the “Hross”[21] average from 13 to 14 hands. If this be true they have fallen off since the beginning of the century, which is improbable as the degeneracy of peaches recorded in “Gil Blas.” Baring-Gould says 14. I should lay down a high average between 12 and 13: out of a number which were measured the shortest was 10·3; and only one in a dozen barely reached 13. The curious fact that the climate least fitted for the horse, and the land where it fares worst, produces larger and stronger animals than the southern islands, can be explained only by the superior size of those first introduced. After a time the eye becomes accustomed to the stunted stature, at least when not contrasted with a tall rider. The best specimens are shaped somewhat like the Suffolk “punch,” with big barrels, thick necks, and short, stout legs. They have round noses of the Norman type, bearded chins, well-opened eyes, ears short and pretty, erect manes, and the square box-head which appears in the classical horse of medals and statuary. The strong points of the fubsy little animals are the manes and tails; the former even when hogged conceal the crest like a lion’s crinière, and if not cut would hang to the knees; the latter would be ornamental but for the local fashion of thinning them at the roots, and of tying up wisps of hair in small knots.
The horse in Iceland is an inevitable evil, the climate being too cold to breed mules. The beasts show many signs of falling off besides size, and we should wonder if it were otherwise. Stallions are allowed freely to run with the mares; and the evil of inbreeding is exaggerated by the small number—sometimes a parish will not have more than one. In the classical days of Iceland men rode entire horses, and a favourite festal pastime was a fight: the Hesta-thing (“horse meeting”) suggests the champion camels which bite each other at Smyrna. It seems to have been a brutal custom, as the animals had to be flogged, like the older sort of Chinaman soldier, to the fray; what a contrast with the Indian “man-eater,” which safely faces a tiger! The Sagas also mention racing as a popular amusement: this, also, is apparently obsolete, at least I never saw it. Stallions are now considered too fierce for general use, and yet, like all the animals in the country, they will be found exceptionally free from vice: mares also are rarely ridden, and the people tell you that they are incapable of hard work, of course, an utter prejudice; in fact, geldings, as with us, are the rule. The Arab, it is well known, mounts the mare because she has more endurance and is less given to neighing at times when surprises are intended: the Spaniard preferred stallions, and to show his contempt for the Ishmaelite, put the jester and the buffoon upon the mare—this custom has prevailed throughout South America, though its origin is now forgotten, and “Yeguas” are still slaughtered in thousands for their hides and fat. And there are superstitions about marks and colour which remind us of complicated Arabian system; for instance, a horse marked with a cross will never drown you.
The effect of promiscuous intercourse appears in wall-eyes, locally called “glass-eyes,” which are painfully common, and in coats of many colours, fit only for the circus. The noble bay, chestnut, and iron-grey are rare: many are skewballs, and the piebald, which in Texas would be called “Paint,” and in the Brazil Jardim (a garden), are perhaps considered the best. Some writers declare that the white are most esteemed, and the black least—I found both exceptional as in the Arabian breed. The foals often wear long fleecy coats, and here the renowned Mr Barnum might have bought many “woolly horse,” real, not manufactured; but whether the few would have lasted in the latitude of New York, deponent sayeth not. Of course they are hardy and sagacious from mode of life. In winter none but favourites are stabled and fed on hay; the others are left out to fare as they best can, on the refuse of the cows and on offals, such as fish bones and heads.[22] At last, when it becomes a matter of life and death, the poor brutes are put under shelter, and fed with a few handfuls of fodder. On the other hand, they are perfectly free from the dire cohort of equine diseases produced by the close and heated stable.[23] Like the sheep, they thrive upon the many and plentiful fuci that line the shore; a similar necessity teaches the horse in the interior of the Brazil to paw open and eat the cactus flesh. Thus the price is nearly all profit to the breeder. During the cold season Icelanders ride very little, if at all: where the snow is deep and hard they use sledges and rough-shoe their nags. They are ready for travel in early June, although I was told the contrary in England by those who should have known better; but the razor-backs at this season require carefully-padded saddles. From that time they get into better condition; they are best in July, but in August again they are soft and blown out by too much green meat. All are shod, and very badly shod; the stones are sure to injure the frog, and Arab plates would be a great improvement. The only remedy known for sore backs and saddle galls are cruel setons in the breast: the Raki of Syria and the Caxaça of Brazil, applied when the saddle is removed, would prevent much of this evil, but spirits are too precious for “uso esterno.” The ears are cut off, not to prevent the Pasha impounding them, but as a mark; and the nostrils are slit with the silly idea of improving the wind. They never see grain, which they must be taught to eat, and salt is not regularly served out to them. From perpetually licking one another’s skins, they supply fine specimens of Œgagropiles, the light and polished balls of hair, the Tophus Ovinus of Norway, so commonly found in the stomachs of Brazilian cows. Broken wind is common, and cow-houghs are the rule.
The domestic animals of all countries bear testimony to the character of their owners: reason, or the result of a developed brain, acts and is acted upon by instinct, or the imperfect brain produce, the two being different in quantity, not in quality. Man and beast learn to resemble each other much after the fashion of Darby and Joan: the servants of menageries, like those of mad-houses, become peculiarly brute-like, whilst animals educated by men have an unspoken language which it is not difficult to understand. In Iceland the horse has learned much from his master. The hardy and hard-working little brutes are, like other quadrupeds and bipeds too, curiously headstrong and self-willed. Their obstinate conservatism is offended by anything savouring of innovation: I tied a bell to the leader, and he showed his resentment by all the pettishness of a spoiled child; as a rule, they appeared rather frightened than pleased by the music so attractive to the Spanish mule. Each has his own peculiar likes and dislikes: one shuns the puddles, objecting to wet feet, another avoids rock, and all hate loose stones: the lazy tread in preference upon the tops of the grassy mounds, bog-trotting like humans; and these are the least safe; others step in the hollows, as the trusty Brazilian mule in the “caldeirões.” They resemble the riders in their dislike to beaten paths, probably from experience of cracks and holes; they will at times resolve to go no farther, and they have been known to stand in the same position until killed by the cold. Upon bogs and swamps they seem to feel the surface, to walk with the head down, and noses depressed, smelling the ground. They change pace and swerve, as if starting, when they come upon crevasses, with a suddenness and an agility which has unseated many a traveller; and like mules and asses, they are unwilling to part company—another sure sign of ignoble blood. Those over nine years old are much preferred, because more prudent and experienced: they are even better when nearly double that age, and they live from twenty to twenty-five years.
The best roadsters are natural pacers (Skeið hestar, or Vakur-hestar), moving like the camel and the elephant, two legs on one side, instead of traversing: this is the well-known Paço, introduced into Southern Europe by the nearer East. Many have a false amble (að valhopa), cantering with the forehand, and bog-trotting behind: this the people like because it easily covers six miles an hour. They are utterly untrained to trot and canter (að stikkva); consequently, all go false: I cannot but think the trot proper a purely artificial pace; in the so-called wild horse it serves only to connect the walk and the canter, and it is never kept up for long distances. This does not apply to the amble or shuffle of the Barb and his American descendants: the former was driven to this specialty by the necessity of raising the forelegs to clear rough, thorny ground, and the peculiarity has been artificially developed. If you attempt to make them back, they will probably, like Argentine animals, tangle their legs and fall; few are accustomed to leap, and the smallest ditch makes them spring like buck-jumpers when put to it. They might be expected to prove surefooted, yet systematic tripping and stumbling on easy ground are inveterate evils; the people blame the rider when the pony breaks its knees, and the arms ache with the exertion of holding the brute up. I once tried, for experiment, giving my nag its head upon a tolerable road, and it came down with me three times in a few hours’ march: my military saddle, however, was unusually heavy; and, of course, increase of weight requires exceptional animals.
It is a good plan for the first day or so to use spurs, which, as I have said, are now all but unknown to the people. The only instrument of punishment is a whip with short handle and strap, the latter always coming off, and if this be absent the animals become utter slugs. The comfortable traveller brings with him an English whip, and the long thong is very useful for driving. Education is confined to making the animal stand still when the reins drawn over the head are thrown upon the ground: the custom is general throughout Australia and the Argentine Republic; and I should recommend it to cavalry where the thongs are not always liable to be wet and dirty; they are great at climbing mountain-paths and hopping from rock to rock; they ford rivers well, walking crab-wise with heads up stream, and in the “scour,” violent shallow water, they kneel to their work. The worst footing for them is the boulder-paved bed. If they happen to fall in fording, the best way is to slip off on the current side, to hold the rein firm, and to steady one’s self by pommel or cantle till the shore is reached. Those taken to England soon sicken under change of diet and climate; some have done well as ponies for children, and I saw a neat pair driven at Edinburgh.
There is an art in riding these little mustangs, and an Icelander will get more work and better pace out of them than a stranger. Of course the slowest gives the rate to the caravan, and this will sometimes not exceed three miles an hour—making the journey an écœurante corvée. All assure you that they never kick; you hear the same in the Argentine Republic; you believe, and sooner or later you are kicked: two Englishmen of my acquaintance suffered in the flesh, and an Iceland pony suddenly did its best to knock out my teeth. Rearers and bolters are rare, and I saw only one biter; the people are not brutal to their beasts, but only careless. Temper never shows so much as when they are loaded; the worst are the riding animals, which lose all manners, apparently feeling insulted by the proceeding. They will never keep Indian file like mules, they rush past one another, bumping and striving to destroy the traveller’s traps; if a load happens to become loose or to shift on one side, there is a grand scene of plunging, of lashing out, especially at pots, kettles, and kegs, and of running away till everything is strewed on the ground. About evening when hunger becomes imperious, and especially where forage appears, they wax wild as antelopes.
“Omnis commoditas sua fert incommoda secum;”