POWER OF ENDURANCE IN THE HORSE 297 



him. A horse named Wonder, formerly belonging 

 to the Biding School at Woolwich, may be quoted 

 as living to forty years. Mr. Culley, in his Obser- 

 vations on Live Stock, mentions one he knew which 

 lived to forty-seven years, having during all that 

 time a ball in his neck received in the battle of 

 Preston Pans, in the Eebellion of 1715, which was 

 extracted at his death in 1758; thus, judging him 

 to be four years old at the time he received the 

 wound (and it was probable he was more), he must 

 at his death have been forty-seven. But even these 

 venerables were mere babies to the barge horse of 

 the Mersey and Irwell Navigation, which was well 

 known to have been in his sixty-second year when 

 he died.' * 



The hardships the horse is capable of enduring 

 would hardly be credited by those who have not 

 actually witnessed his power of endurance. 



According to Major Butler the horses of North 

 America rival those of the Tartar steppes in their 

 powers of endurance. The following is from his 

 Great Lone Land : 



6 It was the last day of October, almost the last 

 day of the Indian summer. My five horses were 

 beginning to show the effect of their incessant work, 

 but it was only in appearance, and we increased 

 instead of diminished the distance travelled each 



1 Elaine's Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports. 



