86 A FARMER'S YEAR 



A year or two afterwards Moresco was stolen from Newcastle, 

 in Natal, where I was then living, and for six months we mourned 

 him as lost beyond redemption. One day, however, the poor 

 creature, a mere scaffolding of skin and bones, with a dreadful 

 hole almost through his withers produced by neglected sore back, 

 was found wandering about upon the farm. Subsequent inquiries 

 went to show that the man who stole Moresco had ridden him into 

 the Cape Colony, nearly a thousand miles away, and that the horse 

 had escaped thence and found a path back to his home. 



The end of this horse, the most remarkable which I ever knew, 

 was so pathetic that I will tell it. He was what is called salted, 

 that is to say, he had survived the horse-sickness, and it was 

 supposed, therefore, that he could not catch it again. This, 

 however, proved to be an error ; indeed, my experience goes to 

 show that very few horses are so thoroughly salted that they will 

 not re- develop the sickness, generally in a difterent form, under 

 conditions favourable to that disease. Moresco's state when he 

 escaped from the thief in the Cape Colony was such that had he 

 been any other animal I should have shot him. As an old 

 favourite and companion he was kept and nursed, however, in 

 the hope that he might ultimately recover. But 1881, the year of 

 the Boer war, was a dreadful season for sickness ; I remember 

 that we lost two hundred pounds' worth of horses by it in a single 

 week. At last the plague seized upon poor old Moresco also. We 

 did what we could for him — which was little enough, for, though 

 animals occasionally recover, there is no real remedy for horse- 

 sickness — and then were obliged to leave him to take his chance. 



At the rear of my house at Rooi Point stood a wall of loose 

 stones nearly four foot high, with a gate in it which was shut in 

 tlie evening. About midnight we were awakened by the sound 

 of a clumsy knocking upon the back door. On investigating the 

 cause it was found that poor Moresco, feeling himself dying, had 

 contrived to climb the wall and was seeking our assistance and 

 calling attention to his sad state by the only means in his power, 

 namely, by knocking at the door. Nothing could be done for him, 



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