Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/89

 hardy life of the deserts of the West. This was specially found to be the case on one occasion—in the T'ang dynasty, we believe—when the vanquished Tartars were compelled to pay tribute to the Chinese in horses. The animals not only sickened themselves, but introduced a terrible epidemic among the horses of the country—a fact which was attributed to bad faith on the part of the Tartars, until experience and observation disclosed the true reason. The second is, that a stop should be put to the practices of gelding and of working mares in foal, one of which has a bad effect upon the present generation, and the other upon their descendants. The third and last is, that a horse should be always continued in the duties to which he was originally trained. The hack should not be turned into a beast of burden, nor the charger into a beast of draught. If this is done, say the Chinese veterinaries—as in England, for instance, where many a fine racer ends his days between the shafts of a London cab—the animal will most assuredly come to grief. It is related, as a case in point, that in the T'ang dynasty a certain man had trained his horse to dance and caper in time to the cadences of music—an accomplishment which was considered very wonderful in those days, and brought in a fair amount of money. But one morning the owner died at a village near Hankow, whither he was taking his horse to perform at a great fair then being held; and the animal had to be sold in order to procure a coffin for the deceased. He was purchased by a petty mandarin, who, being unaware of his terpsichorean talents, shut him up in a stable with a couple of mules and an ass. But the confinement was intolerable to the poor beast. He had done nothing but