Kitabı oku: «Small Horses in Warfare», sayfa 3
Post Horses in Siberia
Mr. H. de Windt, in his book From Pekin to Calais, bears witness to the wonderful endurance of the small post-horses supplied to travellers in Siberia. He describes them as very little beasts ranging from 14.2 to 15 hands. "Though rough and ungroomed, they are well fed, as they need to be, for a rest of only six hours is allowed between stages." The speed maintained depends upon the condition of the roads; and the number of horses furnished for each tarantass is regulated by the same factor; three horses sufficing in good weather and as many as seven being required when the roads are heavy from rain or snow.
Ponies in India
Captain L. E. Nolan, in Cavalry History and Tactics (1860), gives an account of an experimental march made by 200 of the 15th Hussars from Bangalore to Hyderabad and back, 800 miles. The objects of the march were to test the capabilities of the troop horses and to ascertain if there were anything to choose between stallions and geldings in respect of endurance. To arrive at a solution of the latter question, one hundred of the men were mounted on entires and the other hundred on horses which had been castrated only six months previously, regardless of age, for the purpose of making the experiment.
The squadrons marched to their destination, took part in field-days and pageants, and started to reach Bangalore by forced marches; they accomplished the last 180 miles at a rate of thirty miles per day, bringing in only one led horse, the remainder being perfectly sound and fit for further work. One horse, a 14.3 Persian, carried a corporal who, with his accoutrements, rode 22 stone 7 lbs. It may be added that there was nothing to choose between the performances of the stallions and geldings; though the fact that the latter had so recently been castrated was held to make their achievement the more creditable.
A forced march such as this has far more value as testimony to staying power than a more trying feat performed by a single animal; but mention must be made of Captain Horne's ride. This officer, who belonged to the Madras Horse Artillery, undertook in 1841 to ride his grey Arab, "Jumping Jimmy," 400 miles in five days on the Bangalore race-course; and accomplished his task with three hours and five minutes to spare, the horse doing the last 79 miles 5 furlongs in 19 hours 55 minutes, and being quite ready for his corn when pulled up. General Tweedie, in his work on The Arabian Horse (1894), quotes the above particulars from the Bengal Sporting Magazine, in whose pages full details are given.
Captain Nolan, in the work from which quotation has been made above, sums up the shortcomings of the cavalry trooper of his day in the following pithy sentences: —
"Our cavalry horses are feeble; they measure high, but they do so from length of limb, which is weakness, not power. The blood they require is not that of our weedy race-horse (an animal more akin to the greyhound and bred for speed alone), but it is the blood of the Arab and Persian, to give them that compact form and wiry limb in which they are wanting."
The great value of the pony in India was insisted on by Mr. J. H. B. Hallen, formerly the General Superintendent of the Horse Breeding Department, in a memorandum published at Meerut in 1899. Pointing out the many spheres of utility open to the pony, he urged the local authorities and agricultural societies to foster and develop pony breeding by providing suitable stallions for public use. As proving the value of the pony, Mr. Hallen points out that in the two-wheeled cart called an ekka, used by the natives of Northern India, a pony will draw a load of from 4-1/2 to 6 cwt. over long distances at a rate of 5 or 6 miles an hour.
Ponies all over India are equally in request for riding and driving, and in the northern parts for pack purposes. Indeed, adds Mr. Hallen, "the pony may be said to be all round the most useful animal." The supply is not equal to the demand.
Captain H. L. Powell, R.H.A., writing in Baily's Magazine of March, 1900, says: —
"I am a great believer in the Arab for officers' chargers, light cavalry and mounted infantry in this campaign. The Arab is a hardy little beast, and will thrive and do well on what would be starvation rations for an ordinary troop-horse. As a rule the Arab is rather light of bone, but his bone is twice as strong as that of an underbred horse. I have an Arab pony about 14.2 which I am looking after for his owner who went out to the war, and who is now, I am sorry to say, enjoying Mr. Kruger's hospitality in Pretoria. The pony carries my 15 stone as if it was a feather, and never seems to tire."
The superiority of the Arab over the Indian country-bred is reflected in their respective cost. Mr. Hallen, in the memorandum before referred to, says stallions of the country-bred class can be obtained at from about £6 10s. to £13, while suitable Arab pony stallions cost from £16 10s. to £33.
Ponies in Northern Africa. 2
The best authority on the breeds used by the Arabs of Northern Africa is probably General E. Daumas, who held high commands in Algeria and was for a time the French Consul at Mascara. The Chasseurs d'Afrique are mounted on Barbs, and thus the capabilities of these horses were of practical importance to this officer; moreover, he took a very keen personal interest in all matters relating to the horse, and spared no endeavour to inform himself concerning the breed of the country in which he resided. Hence the description in General Daumas' book, The Horses of the Sahara: with Commentaries by the Emir Abd El Kadr (1863) is accepted as the standard on the Barb.
The letters of the famous Emir to General Daumas, containing categorical replies to questions put by the latter, show that the Barbs possess endurance in a very remarkable degree. Their average height is nowhere mentioned in this work, but they are, as we believe, somewhat smaller than the Arab in his native country and in India. There is a suggestive hint of their small size in a remark by General Daumas: he says that inexperienced horsemen with their spurs "sometimes prick the animal on the knee-pan and so lame him if the wound be deep." Assuming that the average height of the horseman be 5 feet 6 inches, and making due allowance for the "straight-legged" seat of the cavalry man, the General's remark points to a horse certainly not over 14 hands.
In answer to General Daumas' enquiry as to the amount of work a Barb can do, the Emir replies: —
"A horse sound in every limb and eating as much barley as his stomach can contain can do whatever his rider can ask of him. For this reason the Arabs say, 'give barley and over-work him,' but without tasking him over much a horse can be made to do about sixteen parasangs (equal to about fifty English miles) a day, day after day. It is the distance from Mascara to Koudiat Aghelizan on the Oued-Mina: it has been measured in cubits. A horse performing this journey every day, and having as much barley as it likes to eat, can go on without fatigue for three or four months without lying by a single day."
The Arabs on their razzias, or cattle-stealing expeditions, of necessity travel with as little encumbrance as possible: on such expeditions, which may require twenty or twenty-five days' rapid travel, each horseman carries only enough barley to give his mount eight feeds. In some parts of the Sahara green food is never given; frequent watering is recommended by all Arab horsemen.
An Arab of the Arbâa tribe gave General Daumas full particulars of a ride he once undertook to save a highly prized mare from the hands of the Turks. In twenty-four hours he rode her eighty leagues, and during the journey she obtained nothing to eat but leaves of the dwarf palm, and was watered once.
More directly bearing on our present enquiry are the particulars furnished by Colonel Duringer of the weights carried in most of the expeditions by the horses of the Chasseurs d'Afrique. These details were ascertained by the Colonel at the moment of departure of a column: – Horseman, 180 lbs.; equipment, 53 lbs.; pressed hay for five days, 55 lbs.; barley for same period, 44 lbs. The man's own provisions brought up the total burden to about 350 lbs. English = 25 stone! Daily consumption of hay and grain would reduce this colossal burden gradually; but the horse would never carry less than 16 stone 9 lbs. at the end of his journey, starting with the load described.
As regards forced marches of comparatively short duration, Colonel Duringer states that
"A good horse in the desert ought to accomplish for five or six days, one after the other, distances of 25 to 30 leagues. After a couple of days' rest, if well fed he will be quite fresh enough to repeat the feat. It is no very rare occurrence to hear of horses doing 50 or 60 leagues in twenty-four hours."
