Nature and Human Nature

by Thomas Chandler Haliburton

“Why,” sais I, “I had heard a great deal about it. It is a beautiful spot and very healthy. It is all that has ever been said or sung of it, and more too, and that’s sayin’ a great deal, for most celebrated places disappoint you; you expect too much, and few crack parts of the world come up to the idea you form of them beforehand. Well, I went down there to see if there was anything to be done in the way of business, but it was too small a field for me, although I made a spec that paid me very well too. There is a passage through the reefs there, and it’s not every pilot knows it, but there was a manuscript chart of it made by a captain of a tradin’ vessel. When he died his widow offered it to the government, but they hummed and hawed about the price, and was for gitting it for half nothing, as they always do. So what does I do, but just steps in and buys it, for in war time it is of the greatest importance to know this passage, and I sold it to our navy-board, and I think if ever we are at loggerheads with the British, we shall astonish the weak nerves of the folks at the summer islands some fine day.

“I had a charming visit. There are some magnificent caves there, and in that climate they are grand places, I do assure you. I never saw anything so beautiful. The ceiling is covered with splendiferous spary-like icicles, or chandelier drops. What do you call that word, Doctor?”

“Stalactites.”

“Exactly, that’s it, glorious stalactites reaching to the bottom and forming fluted pillars. In one of those caves where the water runs, the admiral floored over the bottom and gave a ball in it, and it was the most Arabian Night’s entertainment kind of thing that I ever saw. It looked like a diamond hall, and didn’t it show off the Mudian galls to advantage, lick! I guess it did, for they are the handsomest Creoles in all creation. There is more substance in ’em than in the tropical ladies. I don’t mean worldly (though that ain’t to be sneered at, neither, by them that ain’t got none themselves). When the people used to build small clippers there for the West Indian trade, cedar was very valuable, and a gall’s fortune was reckoned, not by pounds, but by so many cedars. Now it is banana trees. But dear me, somehow or another we have drifted away down to Bermuda, we must stretch back again to the Nova Scotian coast east of Chesencook, or, like Jerry Boudrot, we shall be out of sight of land, and lost at sea.”

On going up on the deck, my attention was naturally attracted to my new purchase, the Canadian horse.

“To my mind,” said the doctor, “Jerry’s knee action does not merit the extravagant praise you bestowed upon it. It is not high enough to please me.”

“There you are wrong,” sais I, “that’s the mistake most people make. It is not the height of the action, but the nature of it, that is to be regarded. A high-stepping horse pleases the eye more than the judgment. He seems to go faster than he does. There is not only power wasted in it, but it injures the foot. My idea is this; you may compare a man to a man, and a woman to a woman, for the two, including young and old, make the world. You see more of them and know more about ’em than horses, for you have your own structure to examine and compare them by, and can talk to them, and if they are of the feminine gender, hear their own account of themselves. They can speak, for they were not behind the door when tongues were given out, I can tell you. The range of your experience is larger, for you are always with them, but how few hosses does a man own in his life. How few he examines, and how little he knows about other folk’s beasts. They don’t live with you, you only see them when you mount, drive, or visit the stable. They have separate houses of their own, and pretty buildings they are too in general, containin’ about as much space for sleepin’ as a berth on board a ship, and about as much ventilation too, and the poor critters get about as little exercise as passengers, and are just about worth as much as they are when they land for a day’s hard tramp. Poor critters, they have to be on their taps most all the time.¹ The Arab and the Canadian have the best horses, not only because they have the best breed, but because one has no stalls, and t’other has no stable treatment.

¹ On their feet.

“Now in judging of a horse’s action, I compare him not with other horses, but with animals of a different species. Did you ever know a fox stumble, or a cat make a false step? I guess not; but haven’t you seen a bear when chased and tired go head over heels? A dog in a general way is a sure-footed critter, but he trips now and then, and if he was as big as a horse, would throw his rider sometimes. Now then I look to these animals, and I find there are two actions to be combined, the knee and the foot action. The fox and the cat bend the knee easy and supply, but don’t arch ’em, and though they go near the ground, they don’t trip. I take that then as a sort of standard. I like my beast, especially if he is for the saddle, to be said to trot like a fox. Now, if he lifts too high, you see, he describes half a circle, and don’t go ahead as he ought, and then he pounds his frog into a sort of mortar at every step, for the horny shell of a foot is just like one. Well then, if he sends his fore leg away out in front, and his hind leg away out behind like a hen scratchin’ gravel, he moves more like an ox than anything else, and hainte sufficient power to fetch them home quick enough for fast movement. Then the foot action is a great point, I looked at this critter’s tracks on the pasture and asked myself, Does he cut turf, or squash it flat? If he cuts it as a gardener does weeds with his spade, then good bye, Mr Jerry, you won’t suit me, it’s very well to dance on your toes, but it don’t convene to travel on ’em, or you’re apt to make somersets.

“Now, a neck is a valuable thing. We have two legs, two eyes, two hands, two ears, two nostrils, and so on, but we have only one neck, which makes it so easy to hang a fellow, or to break it by a chuck from your saddle; and besides, we can’t mend it, as we do a leg or an arm. When it’s broken it’s done for; and what use is it if it’s insured? The money don’t go to you, but to your heirs, and half the time they wouldn’t cry, except for decency sake, if you did break it. Indeed, I knew a great man once, who got his neck broke, and all his friends said, for his own reputation, it was a pity he hadn’t broke it ten years sooner. The Lord save me from such friends, I say. Fact is, a broken neck is only a nine days’ wonder after all, and is soon forgotten.