124 A BOOK OF MORTALS 



Only the other day an instance of this reasonable apprehension 

 of what is required came under notice. The pony who 

 did the lawn-mower died, and for the first time in his life 

 old Ben was put to the job. " Does it as if he was born to 

 it, you can't teach that old 'orse much," was the admiring 

 comment, as with steady gravity Ben turned at the end of 

 the lawn, waited for the grass box to be emptied, and then 

 went on his way, overlapping the last cut by just an inch 

 or two as if, indeed, he had done nothing else all his life. 

 The comfort of it ! when now-a-days humanity will 

 scarcely try to do work, it has not done before. 



Then there are the endless horses employed on 

 haulage ; even the butcher's pony, sprightly and alert, 

 which looks as if it also fed on meat. The postman's 

 cart, the doctor's gig — what an amount of amusement 

 and consolation they have brought and still bring. 



But the history of the horse is the history of humanity, 

 for the horse has been man's greatest aid to civilisation. 



From the time when the death of a horse was ac- 

 counted a calamity, when the ancient Scythians prayed 

 " Oh, Soma ! bring us riches of gold, of horses, of men " ; 

 and the Aryans welcoming their brides sang, " Come, oh 

 wife of beauty, swift as a mare, desired of the Gods ; 

 woman of tender heart, with tender eyes, good to thy 

 husband, good to the animals, destined to suckle heroes," 

 until now, when almost every omnibus horse in London 

 dies at least ten years before its time from overstrain and 

 overfeeding, it has been our strongest ally in gaining the 

 strength, the position which we now hold. It has opened 

 up for us every new country in the world. 



Is it because of this, that Pegasus, the winged horse. 



