RAREYFYING HORSES. 161 



that " This horse- taming business is very, very old. 

 Mortals who have been privileged to view the glorious 

 collection of Greco-Scythic art in St. Petersburg will see it 

 there in practice exactly the same twenty-five hundred 

 years ago, as that with which Mr. Rarey made such a pro- 

 digious sensation in the days when most of us were young. 

 There, on a silver vase in relief, is a Scythian warrior 

 lassoing a horse ; there he is strapping its fore leg up ; 

 there, again, he has it on its knees ; and, finally, in the 

 last group, it stands, saddled, bridled, c tamed.' Probably 

 there is not one Of these latest methods which could not be 

 traced in ancient times. And still somehow we go on 

 breaking horses in the accustomed way, and vice is as 

 common as ever." 



SAMPLE'S HORSE-TAMING MACHINE. 



As a development of the head and tail system of which 

 he was a great admirer Sample brought out and patented 

 in 1891 a machine by which he proposed to tame horses. It 

 consisted of a box, which was supposed* to hold the horse, 

 and which he rotated either by hand or steam at a speed 

 sufficient to render the enclosed animal so giddy that 

 on being taken out, it would be perfectly quiet to handle 

 for the time being, no matter how wild it had previously 

 been. The exhibition of this machine in London was a 

 failure ; partly because its inventor did not provide him- 

 self with a supply of wild horses, with which to demonstrate 

 its power. I feel certain that it would be a valuable means 

 for saving labour in rendering quiet freshly-caught horses 

 which have been brought up under uncivilized conditions. 



SOUTH AFRICAN METHOD OF BREAKING. 



The usual way adopted by the Boers of the Cape Colony, 

 Transvaal, Orange Free State, and Natal for breaking in 



ii 



