296 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER 



CHAPTER XXTI. 



POWER OP ENDUEANCE AND LENGTH OP LIFE IN 

 THE HORSE. 



The following anecdotes will give some idea of the 

 hardships our four-footed friends can undergo, and 

 also a notion of the duration of life in the horse. 



' A horse's life with moderate care and good 

 usage is protracted to twenty-five, thirty-five, or 

 forty years. A gentleman at Dulwich, near London, 

 had three monuments of three horses who severally 

 died in his possession at the ages of thirty-five, 

 thirty-seven, and thirty-nine years. The oldest, it is 

 to be remarked, was in a carriage the very day he 

 died, strong and vigorous, but he was carried off in 

 a few hours by spasmodic colic, to which he was 

 subject. At Chesham, in Buckinghamshire, there 

 was a horse thirty-six years old, which exhibited no 

 symptoms of debility, nor any external signs of age 

 except being nearly covered with warts. It was re- 

 markable with regard to this four-footed Nestor, that 

 when an unusually hard day's work was required he 

 was chosen as never failing in what was expected of 



