4 VICES RESULT FROM FEAR. 



actual warfare. In the charge the more really terrified he feels 

 the more determined he is not to be left alone, so that each 

 horse madly rushes wherever he believes his companion to be 

 going. His most dangerous vices are the result of his extremely 

 timid nature, which makes him imagine every log to be a lion, 

 every gap in a hedge to be a lurking place for a tiger, and an 

 oppossum rug to be a bear, whilst he flies in frantic terror fi"om a 

 serpent-hke leather rope drawn by himself, from the rider dragging 

 in the stirrup, or the carriage wheels rolling behind him. 



5. — In silent, patient, unresisting endurance of sufTerings from 

 which he has not been allowed to fly he has few equals. He 

 plods patiently on from day to day suffering from heat, cold, 

 starvation, or thirst, until his bones start through his skin, and 

 his wasted muscles can no longer raise him from the ground. He 

 pushes on to the fixed bayonet. He carries his rider without a 

 groan or a pause with flanks heaving for life until he drops dead. 

 No person can be prepared to deal properly with the horse who 

 starts with the too common impression that he has to deal 

 with a cunning, courageous, obstinate animal. He has usually 

 to deal with an animal simple as a baby, nervous as a lady, and 

 timid as a partridge. 



(1. — In size the horse varies almost from that of the dog to 

 that of the elephant, from two feet to six and half feet high ; from 

 two cwt. to one ton in weight ; from the mere toy which a 

 gentleman has lifted into his gig, to the gigantic quadruped 

 which starts five tons weight on the London pavement. 

 Fortunately the docihty and ]>lacidity of the horse generally 

 increases with his size, making the giants often more easy to deal 

 with than the dwarfs. In slower times than the present the 

 finest specimens of the race used to be seen calmly wending their 

 way through the sights and sounds of London streets, attentive 

 to every word that was spoken to them by a self possessed and good 

 tempered driver, who was justly proud of his glossy, magnificent, 

 and obedient team. 



7. — Rough stunted ponies are found in the Shetland Islands, 

 and in Iceland, and dry skinned, unhappy, emaciated Arabs and 

 Australian horses are made to endure the heat and insects at the 



