Ito Has Been Barbarous To These Gentle, Little-
Prized Animals Ever Since We Came To Yezo; He Has Vexed Me More By
This Than By Anything Else, Especially As He Never Dared Even To
Carry A Switch On The Main Island, Either From Fear Of The Horses
Or Their Owners.
To-day he was beating the baggage horse
unmercifully, when I rode back and interfered with some very strong
Language, saying, "You are a bully, and, like all bullies, a
coward." Imagine my aggravation when, at our first halt, he
brought out his note-book, as usual, and quietly asked me the
meaning of the words "bully" and "coward." It was perfectly
impossible to explain them, so I said a bully was the worst name I
could call him, and that a coward was the meanest thing a man could
be. Then the provoking boy said, "Is bully a worse name than
devil?" "Yes, far worse," I said, on which he seemed rather
crestfallen, and he has not beaten his horse since, in my sight at
least
The breaking-in process is simply breaking the spirit by an hour or
two of such atrocious cruelty as I saw at Shiraoi, at the end of
which the horse, covered with foam and blood, and bleeding from
mouth and nose, falls down exhausted. Being so ill used they have
all kinds of tricks, such as lying down in fords, throwing
themselves down head foremost and rolling over pack and rider,
bucking, and resisting attempts to make them go otherwise than in
single file.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 388 of 417
Words from 106711 to 106971
of 115002