800 



HORSE-CHESTNUT HORSEMANSHIP. 



time the males expel tliein from the troop. . Their 

 neigh is louder than that of the horse. They are 

 very timid and camions, stationing sentinels whilst 

 they are feeding. They are amazingly swift, even 

 outstripping the antelope. The Tartars often take 

 them alive when young, but have never been able to 

 domesticate them. They are usually killed or taken 

 in rainy or stormy weather, at which time they are 

 less shy. The Mongol and other Tartar tribes pre- 

 fer their flesh to any other food. See Ass. 



Horse Power. A horse's power of draught or 

 carriage, of course, diminishes as his speed increases. 

 The proportion of diminution, according to professor 

 Leslie, is as follows: If we represent his force when 

 moving at the rate of 2 miles an hour by the number 

 100, his force at 3 miles per hour will be 81 ; at 4 

 miles, 64 ; at 5 miles, 49 ; at 6 miles, 36 ; which 

 results agree pretty nearly with the observations of 

 .Mr U'ood (Treatise on Rail-Roads, page 239). At 

 his height of speed, of course, he can carry only his 

 own weight. A horse draws to the greatest advan- 

 tage when the line of draught inclines a little upwards. 

 Desaguliers and Smeaton consider the force of one 

 horse equal to that of five men, but writers differ on 

 this subject. The measure of a horse's power, as the 

 standard of the power of machinery, given by Mr 

 Watt, is, that he can raise a weight of 33,000 pounds 

 to the height of one foot in a minute. Care should 

 be taken, when a horse draws in a mill, or an engine 

 of any kind in which he moves in a circle, that the 

 circle be large ; for, since he pulls obliquely, and 

 advances sideways as well as forwards, his fatigue is 

 greater as the circle is smaller. In some ferry-boats 

 and machinery, horses are placed on a revolving 

 platform, which passes backward by the pressure of 

 their feet as they pull forward against a fixed resist- 

 ance, so that they propel the machinery without 

 moving from their place. A horse may act within 

 still narrower limits, if he stands on the circumference 

 of a large vertical wheel, or on a bridge supported 

 by endless chains, which pass round two drums, and 

 are otherwise supported by friction wheels. Various 

 other modes of applying the force of animals are 

 practised, but most of them are attended with great 

 loss of power, either from friction, or from the 

 unfavourable position of the animal. 



HORSE-CHESTNUT (eesculus hippocastanum) ; 

 an ornamental tree, a native of the northern parts of 

 Hindoostan, and frequently cultivated in Europe and 

 America. It is one of the few plants belonging to 

 the class heptandria of Linnaeus, or having seven 

 stamens. The leaves are opposite, composed of five 

 or seven leaflets radiating from a common foot-stalk. 

 The flowers are white, spotted with red and yellow, 

 and disposed in superb racemes. The fruit is a 

 prickly capsule, containing one or two large seeds, 

 externally somewhat resembling chestnuts, but pos- 

 sessing a bitter and disagreeable flavour. It was 

 unknown to the ancients. 



The horse-chestnut is one of our most admired 

 ornamental trees. Its large and bright green foliage, 

 its full and rich form, and the profusion of spikes of 

 flowers, of the most delicate and brilliant colours, 

 with which it is covered, render it one of the most 

 showy trees to be found. In Europe, the fruit is 

 used for feeding various kinds of cattle, who are said 

 to be fond of it. For this purpose, it is first soaked 

 in lime-water or an alkaline solution, which deprives 

 it of its bitterness ; it is then washed, and boiled to a 

 paste. In Turkey, it is ground and mixed with pro- 

 vender for horses. It has been made into starch, 

 and forms a paste or size, which is preferred, by 

 bookbinders, shoemakers, &c., to that made from 

 flour. In France and Switzerland, it is used for 

 cleaning woollens, and in the washing and bleaching 



of linen, and it is supposed that it might be made to 

 answer the purpose of soap in washing and fulling. 

 The powder, snuffed up, excites sneezing, and has 

 been used with benefit in affections of the eyes. 

 This tree was first brought to Europe from the north- 

 ern parts of Asia, about the middle of the sixteenth 

 century. It is very easily raised, and grows with 

 greater rapidity than any tree we know, the who" 

 length of its spring shoots being complete in abou 

 three weeks from the first opening of the buds. 



HORSE-GUARDS; a building opposite Whit 

 hall, London, so called because the horse-guards 

 usually do duty here. In this building is the office 

 of the commander-in-chief of the British army, and 

 we find therefore many important papers dated 

 from it. 



HORSEMANSHIP. The earliest writer on this 

 subject, whose work lias come down to us, is Xeno- 

 phon : in his treatise Hip ;<*, he gives rules for 

 judging of horses, dressing them, and riding. The 

 Romans have left us no work on the manage, and, 

 though the mounted hordes who overthrew the 

 Roman empire, and the knights of the later period 

 of chivalry, must have been skilled in the care and 

 guidance of the horse, the earliest modern treatise 

 on horsemanship was written in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, by Grisone, an Italian. "There are," says a 

 French writer, " three principal European races, the 

 Latin, the Teutonic, and the Sclavonic, each of which 

 is no less characterized by its manner of riding on 

 horseback than by its language. The Poles and 

 Hungarians, however, who belong to the Sclavonic 

 race, have adopted the Teutonic manner ; but the 

 three Latin nations the French, Italians, and Span- 

 iards are all of the Italian school." The English, 

 according to this very erudite division, belong to the 

 Teutonic school ; and, among the Noble and Royal 

 Authors of Walpole, the duke of Newcastle appears 

 as the author of two treatises, which later writers 

 have done little more than to copy or abridge 

 Methode nouvelle de dresser les Chevaux (Antwerp, 

 1658; in English, 1743, 2 vols., folio), and New 

 Method to Dress Horses (London, 16G7). The prin- 

 cipal matters in which the pupil is to be instructed 

 at the manege, are, to sit on horseback with firm- 

 ness, ease, and gracefulness, and to guide his horse 

 accurately in going straight forward, to the right or 

 left, or sideways, at a walk, trot, or gallop, or halt 

 at once, and to rein back without difficulty. For an 

 account of the manner of training a horse, see 

 Manege. 



The horse has three natural paces, namely, walk- 

 ing, trotting, and galloping. In the first, he moves 

 off with one of his fore feet, which is immediately 

 followed by the hind leg of the opposite side ; and 

 so with the other fore and hind leg. His trot differs 

 from his walk, not only in its greater velocity, but 

 also in this, that he always moves the two opposite 

 legs together. The gallop is a series of leaps, and 

 it is true and regular when the horse lifts his two 

 feet on one side at the same time, and follows with 

 those of the other side; when the right feet move off 

 first, the horse is said to gallop to the right ; when 

 the left move off first, he is said to gallop to the left. 

 A horse may not only gallop false, but trot and walk 

 false. In his galloping for instance, a horse is said 

 to go false, when, in proceeding to the right, he leads 

 off with the left leg; or, when in going towards 

 the left, he moves off with the right ; or he may be 

 disunited, that is, if he leads with the opposite leg 

 behind to that which he leads with before. A horse 

 may thus be disunited to the right or to the left. 

 He may likewise be at the same time both false and 

 disunited. Thus he is both false and disunited to 

 the left, when in going to the left he leads with the 



