122 A BOOK OF MORTALS 



looming large, twelve feet higher than we were, how many 

 wars, think you, would there be in the world ? not 

 many ! 



For this magnifying power in the horse's eye, however, 

 though it brings to the beast so much agony of terror, we 

 have reason to be thankful ; without it, so strong, so highly 

 strung, an animal would scarcely be so blindly obedient to 

 a man as it is ; for even now an intensity of fear will sweep 

 all before it, and a stampede of the baggage train ruin many 

 a well-laid plan. On the other hand, we, who gain so 

 much by the counterfeit dignity bestowed on us by the 

 horse, ought surely to consider the cause of it, and order 

 our doings so that we inflict as little needless fear as possible. 

 How then about the way in which horses were shipped to 

 South Africa, how about the unseasoned battens, the useless 

 shoddy padding, the whole horrible heaping together of 

 maddened horses in the hold which in some cases made a 

 vessel come cargo-less to port. Terrible, awful to think of ! 

 A storm at sea, and hundreds of horses at the mercy of 

 incompetence, fraud, and greed of gain. Such things go 

 far to dim the laurels of victory. 



This is not a pleasant history. We can only hope that 

 what man gained was worth the agony so needlessly indicted 

 on our faithful servants. 



For the horse has always been a faithful friend. It is 

 difBcult indeed to imagine a human world without it. 

 Think of the joy it has brought into millions of lives ; the 

 exhilarating sense of power, of speed, it has given to many a 

 man as, one with his mount, the miles, the obstacles have 

 slipped from his path without one effort on his part ? A 

 xnotor car is faster than a horse, but what man, when the 



