THE ART OF TRAINING 247 



and hardships than it is his lot still to bear. One would 

 suppose, from all the fuss and work which has been made 

 about breaking horses, that they were just caught up 

 from their wild state on the plains of South America, 

 instead of being quiet, sensible, domestic animals, whose 

 parents and progenitors have been in bondage to man for 

 centuries past. 



Rough treatment will generally produce rough tempers 

 in boy or colt. Some horses are, no doubt, more viciously 

 disposed than others, but it is not by harsh means 

 that the worst-tempered are to be reclaimed. Firmness, 

 patience, and perseverance are the necessary requisites 

 in any man who pretends to be a colt-breaker ; and by 

 these the most refractory animals may be subdued, with- 

 out having recourse to the objectionable modes recom- 

 mended by Mr. Rarey. There is an old saying, that 

 " hunger will tame a lion," and I remember to have seen 

 this verified, in a poor, wretched, half-starved lioness, in 

 a menagerie upon a small scale, where deer, dogs, cats, 

 and animals and birds of almost every variety were all 

 huddled together in a small comfortless yard in the New 

 Road. The poor lioness was, indeed, an object of com- 

 passion in her miserable den — lean, spiritless, and so 

 thoroughly tamed by long abstinence, that my heart 

 melted at the sight of her prostrate condition ; and, save 

 for the bairns at home, I certainly should have been in- 

 stigated to purchase her, and try my hand as a lion-tamer, 



I do not, however, mean to insinuate that a vicious 

 colt should be nearly starved to death to conquer his 

 temper ; but a short abstinence from food will induce him 

 to eat from his master's hand, and thereby be the means 

 of familiarising more effectually than by whip or spur. 

 With our splendid breed of horses, superior to every other 



