112 THE CONDITION OF HUNTERS 



make an angle of twenty degrees more than it does 

 with the equinoctial line — three parts of it would be 

 uninhabitable, as neither plant nor animal could 

 sustain the two extremes ! With reference, then, to 

 the unnatural condition of horses, and the unnatural 

 purposes to which we apply them, the more considera- 

 tion I give to the subject, and the more my experience 

 teaches me, the more I am convinced that, with few 

 exceptions, the stable is the place for hunters ; and 

 that subjecting them to sudden changes of diet, and 

 to the vicissitudes of this uncertain climate, is pro- 

 ductive, or at least the predisposing cause, of nine- 

 tenths of the diseases and evils (to say nothing of 

 accidents) which happen to them : and were I to be 

 told that I were to receive a good annuity subject 

 to the life of a horse, I would keep him in the stable 

 all the year, as the most likely means, with proper 

 exercise and grooming, of preserving him to a good 

 old age. I have been more confirmed in this opinion 

 by conversation I have had at different times with 

 officers of dragoon regiments, on the numerous diseases 

 — glanders in particular — to which troop horses are 

 liable ; and I have generally found them to proceed 

 from the following causes — namely, bad grooming^ 

 want of physic, to their only being what may be 

 termed " half in condition," and, under aU these 

 unfavourable circumstances, to their being exposed to 

 the vicissitudes of weather, and sudden transitions 

 from heat to cold, and from cold to heat. 



Now although, fortunately for those who turn out 

 their hunters, they are generally taken up again before 



