THE HORSE IN WAR AND PEACE 121 



knows nothing. Neither was it h'ghtened by the care and 

 sympathy of man the master ; for England has not yet 

 reached the pitch of civilisation of the Eastern King Asoka, 

 who, in the year 251 B.C., issued his edict that medical aid 

 was to be given to man and beast alike throughout his 

 wide empire. How many of these horses died actually on 

 the battlefield, inspired to some extent by the wild excite- 

 ment which goes so far to carry men through the ordeal by 

 fire, and how many died in cold blood, shot by the master 

 when the day's long tramp was over as unfit for further 

 work, it is impossible to say. But many a man who went 

 through the war remembers still with a shudder the even- 

 ing work of shooting a hundred or more of the poor beasts 

 who had been lamed or galled in our service, lest they 

 might fall into the hands of the enemy if left to recover on 

 the veldt. A stern Red Cross aid this ; one, which if 

 applied to Humanity, would swiftly end all war. To work 

 loyally, to bear the burden painfully, and then, because of 

 your weariness, to be condemned to die. It is a hard 

 saying. 



And when one thinks of all the wars since the beginning 

 of Time, the sum total of life sacrificed to serve man's 

 patriotism, his love of conquest, his desires for this or that, 

 mounts up indeed. Scarcely a thing have we which a horse 

 has not died to win for us. And in this death we have to 

 reckon with one constant factor — the horse's extreme 

 timidity of all things new, unknown, which is due no doubt 

 to the fact that it sees all things three times as large as they 

 really are ; for its eye is a magnifying lens. It is curious 

 to think of this. Supposing we, with our eyes, mind you, 

 at their present horizontal plane, were to see our fellows 



