Part 39 (1/2)
”Ad ictus moenium c.u.m terribili sonitu editos, pavor et trepidatio cepit.”
[”At the battery of the walls, performed with a terrible noise, the defenders began to fear and tremble.”--Idem, ibid., 5.]
The Gauls, our kinsmen in Asia, abominated these treacherous missile arms, it being their use to fight, with greater bravery, hand to hand:
[”They are not so much concerned about large gashes-the bigger and deeper the wound, the more glorious do they esteem the combat but when they find themselves tormented by some arrow-head or bullet lodged within, but presenting little outward show of wound, transported with shame and anger to perish by so imperceptible a destroyer, they fall to the ground.”---Livy, x.x.xviii. 21.]
A pretty description of something very like an arquebuse-shot. The ten thousand Greeks in their long and famous retreat met with a nation who very much galled them with great and strong bows, carrying arrows so long that, taking them up, one might return them back like a dart, and with them pierce a buckler and an armed man through and through. The engines, that Dionysius invented at Syracuse to shoot vast ma.s.sy darts and stones of a prodigious greatness with so great impetuosity and at so great a distance, came very near to our modern inventions.
But in this discourse of horses and horsemans.h.i.+p, we are not to forget the pleasant posture of one Maistre Pierre Pol, a doctor of divinity, upon his mule, whom Monstrelet reports always to have ridden sideways through the streets of Paris like a woman. He says also, elsewhere, that the Gascons had terrible horses, that would wheel in their full speed, which the French, Picards, Flemings, and Brabanters looked upon as a miracle, ”having never seen the like before,” which are his very words.
Caesar, speaking of the Suabians: ”in the charges they make on horseback,” says he, ”they often throw themselves off to fight on foot, having taught their horses not to stir in the meantime from the place, to which they presently run again upon occasion; and according to their custom, nothing is so unmanly and so base as to use saddles or pads, and they despise such as make use of those conveniences: insomuch that, being but a very few in number, they fear not to attack a great many.” That which I have formerly wondered at, to see a horse made to perform all his airs with a switch only and the reins upon his neck, was common with the Ma.s.silians, who rid their horses without saddle or bridle:
”Et gens, quae nudo residens Ma.s.sylia dorso, Ora levi flect.i.t, fraenorum nescia, virga.”
[”The Ma.s.sylians, mounted on the bare backs of their horses, bridleless, guide them by a mere switch.”--Lucan, iv. 682.]
”Et Numidae infraeni cingunt.”
[”The Numidians guiding their horses without bridles.”
--AEneid, iv. 41.]
”Equi sine fraenis, deformis ipse cursus, rigida cervice et extento capite currentium.”
[”The career of a horse without a bridle is ungraceful; the neck extended stiff, and the nose thrust out.”--Livy, x.x.xv. II.]
King Alfonso,--[Alfonso XI., king of Leon and Castile, died 1350.]-- he who first inst.i.tuted the Order of the Band or Scarf in Spain, amongst other rules of the order, gave them this, that they should never ride mule or mulet, upon penalty of a mark of silver; this I had lately out of Guevara's Letters. Whoever gave these the t.i.tle of Golden Epistles had another kind of opinion of them than I have. The Courtier says, that till his time it was a disgrace to a gentleman to ride on one of these creatures: but the Abyssinians, on the contrary, the nearer they are to the person of Prester John, love to be mounted upon large mules, for the greatest dignity and grandeur.
Xenophon tells us, that the a.s.syrians were fain to keep their horses fettered in the stable, they were so fierce and vicious; and that it required so much time to loose and harness them, that to avoid any disorder this tedious preparation might bring upon them in case of surprise, they never sat down in their camp till it was first well fortified with ditches and ramparts. His Cyrus, who was so great a master in all manner of horse service, kept his horses to their due work, and never suffered them to have anything to eat till first they had earned it by the sweat of some kind of exercise. The Scythians when in the field and in scarcity of provisions used to let their horses blood, which they drank, and sustained themselves by that diet:
”Venit et epoto Sarmata pastus equo.”
[”The Scythian comes, who feeds on horse-flesh”
--Martial, De Spectaculis Libey, Epigr. iii. 4.]
Those of Crete, being besieged by Metellus, were in so great necessity for drink that they were fain to quench their thirst with their horses urine.--[Val. Max., vii. 6, ext. 1.]
To shew how much cheaper the Turkish armies support themselves than our European forces, 'tis said that besides the soldiers drink nothing but water and eat nothing but rice and salt flesh pulverised (of which every one may easily carry about with him a month's provision), they know how to feed upon the blood of their horses as well as the Muscovite and Tartar, and salt it for their use.
These new-discovered people of the Indies [Mexico and Yucatan D.W.], when the Spaniards first landed amongst them, had so great an opinion both of the men and horses, that they looked upon the first as G.o.ds and the other as animals enn.o.bled above their nature; insomuch that after they were subdued, coming to the men to sue for peace and pardon, and to bring them gold and provisions, they failed not to offer of the same to the horses, with the same kind of harangue to them they had made to the others: interpreting their neighing for a language of truce and friends.h.i.+p.
In the other Indies, to ride upon an elephant was the first and royal place of honour; the second to ride in a coach with four horses; the third to ride upon a camel; and the last and least honour to be carried or drawn by one horse only. Some one of our late writers tells us that he has been in countries in those parts where they ride upon oxen with pads, stirrups, and bridles, and very much at their ease.
Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullia.n.u.s, in a battle with the Samnites, seeing his horse, after three or four charges, had failed of breaking into the enemy's battalion, took this course, to make them unbridle all their horses and spur their hardest, so that having nothing to check their career, they might through weapons and men open the way to his foot, who by that means gave them a b.l.o.o.d.y defeat. The same command was given by Quintus Fulvius Flaccus against the Celtiberians:
[”You will do your business with greater advantage of your horses'
strength, if you send them unbridled upon the enemy, as it is recorded the Roman horse to their great glory have often done; their bits being taken off, they charged through and again back through the enemy's ranks with great slaughter, breaking down all their spears.”--Idem, xl. 40.]
The Duke of Muscovy was anciently obliged to pay this reverence to the Tartars, that when they sent an emba.s.sy to him he went out to meet them on foot, and presented them with a goblet of mares' milk (a beverage of greatest esteem amongst them), and if, in drinking, a drop fell by chance upon their horse's mane, he was bound to lick it off with his tongue.