RESULT OF BEAUTIFUL PROPORTIONS. 417 



to pull upon soft ground, — their muscles have time to depurate them- 

 selves and their lungs to oxygenate the blood which flows through 

 them, without the difficulty of breathing being exaggerated. Hence 

 it requires a long time to produce fatigue in them, and their w^ork can 

 continue for a considerable time, — ten, fifteen, and even eighteen hours 

 a day, — provided they are properly nourished. Nervous exhaustion 

 is almost the only thing that requires a certain amount of reparative 

 rest ; besides, the necessities of daily labor oblige both animals and 

 people to interrupt their work at certain hours, principally during the 

 night. Hence it is very seldom necessary to work the draught-horse 

 to the utmost extent of his powers of endurance. However, this does 

 not always imply, as De Curnieu humorously says,* that it is foolish- 

 ness to speak of the inexhaustible endurance of horses which have no 

 speed, or which go long distances at a slow pace. On the contrary, it 

 is important to know exactly what these animals are capable of doing 

 at a certain moment in view of unforeseen circumstances which may 

 happen at any instant. Where is the teamster who has not become 

 stuck in the mud after a rain-storm, brought to a stand-still by a 

 slippery pavement, an accidental snow-storm, a frost, a rather steep 

 and slippery slope ? Which of them has never been left on the road, 

 discouraged, obliged to go for additional horses, despairing of over- 

 coming the obstacle with his own team ? Who, finally, being con- 

 fident of his team and convinced of their vigor, has not come out 

 victoriously from the trial by suddenly imposing upon them an excessive 

 labor? These facts are too common and too well known to dwell 

 upon. Let us proceed. 



But in the horse which is employed as a factor of speed endur- 

 ance is of the greatest importance, for the work is more considerable, 

 the expenditure of tissue, and therefore the fatigue, greater. The 

 muscular contraction is always extensive, intense, sudden, and repeated ; 

 the muscles need much blood, exact a rapid absorption, are quickly 

 exhausted ; the lungs should double their activity in order to avoid 

 congestion, effect their interchange with the air, eject their waste 

 products, and absorb the oxygen in sufficient quantity. As to nerve 

 force, when quickly exhausted, it very soon renders the mechanism 

 unable to perform its work. 



"It is the pace that kills I" say the English, those judicious con- 

 noisseurs, thus expressing the enormous losses which this kind of work 

 causes. As the animal can sustain his gait only when endowed with, 



1 De Curnieu, Legoiis de science hippique generate, 3e partie, p. 82. 



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