160
AUSTRALIAN ARMY REFORM.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
THE CHINA PONY.
[March 7, 1.908.
where these white horses ran wild, lived men whom the Greeks called Agathyrai, and these Agathyrsi we have the authority него "most of Herodotus for stating.
wear a profusion of Inxurious folk, and gold." Having got rid of Dolon, the Greeks proceeded to attack these Thracian of whose whereabouts he hal informed them. sleeping, overɑ ɔme They found them, with fatigue; and their armour lay about on the ground, carefully piled in order in three lines. By each man was a yoke of horses, and in the midst slept Horsa, his swift borses tied by the reins to the outer rim of the carriag...." The Greeks finding them at their mercy did not hesitate to att ick the sleeping enemy, and had already killed twelve of them, wh le Ulysses, eager for plunder, drove off the horses towards the ships. The rout, however, awoke the rest of the sleepers, and the Greeks, in their turn taken by surprise, and thinking discretion the better policy, rushed for their lives back. Here they met Nestor, who seeing the steeds, and full of admiration at their beauty, thus addressed the band :- "Tell me, most excellent Ulyses, how in the name of f·rtuns you got hold of these horses? They're just like the riys of the sun, and old a soldier as I am, I never yet saw suh lovely steeds. Surely some of the gods must have sent them!"
As we mentioned in our f·riner notice the China pony, insignificant as he seems in our time, really had his days of glory when he seemed to the old Gro-ks a meet gift for the gods.
Homer's episode recalls the fact that even in his days, about 800 B.C., the horse, which we are accustomed to look upon as contemporary with man, had not yet reached the Mediterranean regions, and that the animal with which we are accus. tomed to connect the wars of the ancient Greeks was little more than a diminutive
(Daily Press, March 2nd.
(Daily Press, March 3rd.) Australia advances. We have heard Probably the last place where we should recently of the Colony's naval enterprise, look for a panegyric of our old friend the and the latest mail brings word of military China pony would be in the Homeric tale reforma in the island continent, projected of the Siege of Troy; yet there is very little in the press, if not actually mooted by the doubt that the horses of the Thracian king legislators. The hitberto existing Defence Rhesos, whow old Homer in the tenth book handsomest Act practically upset in Australia the of his Iliad describes as the principle which stands in the way of compul- and biggest" that he had ever seen, were Bory training in the Mother Country, really and veritably nothing else than the although it did not provide for the training sometime despised, and to our modern eye of a single unit. According to a Sydney ugly Mongolian pony, who for the last half writer, it "specified in cold blood the century has been winning, or losing, our different drafts in which the manhood money on the racecourses of modern China. of the country-absolutely untrained-Of course Homer spoke comparatively when would be rushed to the front." Now he called the China pony bandsome, but it appears it is to give place to a system probably he was not so far out in his
Details are still to come, description as we might suppose. entirely recast.
The but from the published comments it is horse, as we know him to-day, was in possible to glean a conception of some of the Homeric times of but recent introduction in ideas that confront those who are leading the Mediterranean region. It was not till the vun of the new
Imperialistic (or the beginning of the "New" Empire, about national?) movement in the Colony. Que sixteen centuries B.C., that we find the dea that might have been expectel from a "horse and his chariot" naturalised in community so imbued with the democratic Egypt, the highest equine type previously spirit promises an army modelled on a having been the ass; and the horse came mixture of primitive American and late in with the primitiva Arab hordes who, Boer simplicity. "All the tinsel and music under the name of Hyksos, for centuries and ceremony of the military life will be overran Egypt and destroyed the old civi- |
The Mediterranea horse of stripped away-the bright uniforms, the lisation. bands, the ceremonial of saluting." We Homer's day can have been hardly larger concur with the view of the "Lone Hand" than our modern Shetland pony, who by the that this would be "hardly wise." No time of Herodotus had been driven to the doubt in some armies too much attention wild regions north of the Panube, where he has been paid to technique, and the science describes them as long-haired, small, flat- of manslaughter could have been developed nosed, and unable to carry men. In fact without so much devotion to goose step" nowhere in those early days do we hear of marching and pipeclay parades. It is im-horses as having been ridden, but always us portant to recoguise, however, that the democratic ideal, beautiful as it appears in the eyes bent on the sacred liberty of the individual, cannot be fitted anywhere into the organization of a properly disciplined
Shetland, too small in those days to bẹ and effective fighting force. A consistent
ridden. The other animal, whose arrival democrat cannot be a good soldier, any more
was a r. velation to the Greeks, and a model than a consistently selfish person can be a
of all that a hor«c should be, was such a wa the good Christian. Old-fashioned military
thick set, shuffling animal as traditions on which time and money is still
Mongol pony of fifty years ago, before the wasted could probably be pruned with
treachery of the Chinese hal rendered it necessary to send out the Ind ́an cavalry to advantage, but the reformers should go very deliberately and cautiously to work The story of these Thracians is not less chastise the ill faith of the Taku Forts. in this direction. No coldly democratic interesting. They had lately come to help But his history goes back still further t› philosophy or logical formula can ade-king Priam in his defence of Troy. Dolon, the time when he wandered over the half frozen steppes of eastern Europe, and was quately account for the spinal thrill that a Trojan youth, had been sent as a spy to
hunted for his flesh by the paleolithic agitates the average man who hears his report on the doings of the Greeks, and the
constituted the most national anthem or some familiar military number of their ships, and had been noticed stages who then march played in certain circumstances; by some of the enemy, who however, decided advanced of humanity. Curiously the white and yet that thrill is a symptom of an to let him go on, while they laid a trap to horses of Homer have almost disappeared, emotion that inspires deeds of patriotism catch him returning; under evasive pro-and the Mongol pony of t-day, though and derring-do," and it has to be mises of safety they contrivel to pump taken into account. Half a hundred men bim, and get out information regarding the with a good officer, habituated by a late arrivals, when regardless of his word long training to the unanimity or discipline Diomede rushed at him and killed him. that ensues such "mummeries as saluting, The "Thracians" had, he learned, but regimental colour bearing, and so on, will recently arrived; they had come from a beat hundreds of untrained units assembled great distauce, further than any of the in a mob that follows, if it follows at all, others, and were under command of king some chance-chosen bell-wether of the flock, Horsa, son of Eioneus (Hloni), and were at according as the dictates of its individual the time resting themselves after the intelligence permit. These things are not fatigues of the march. Amongst the old mere devices to attract recruits; they form Greeks Thrace bad a very indefinite menn. the soldiers' ritual of duty, and appeal, iting; it lay north of Thessaly, but how far may be only subconsciously, to the most it extended they knew not. Literally it intellectually alert as well as to the most was at the back of Beyont, and like that phlegmatic unit of the corps. Even mas equally indefinite country was the natural culise human nature" is a feminine and home of wonders, so we need not be sur self-contradictory sort of thing," which prised that from such a region should have means that there are hidden well-springs come these snow-white steeds. Now not of feeling and motive that logic may not many months ago (Daily Press, May' 07) we reason must showed how thes) snow-white horses were approve but common-sense take into account. American democratic actually as late as the 4th century B.C. ideals long ago encountered this obstacle, still living on the banks of the Dalester, and failed to remove it; they had to creep and that in all respects they answered per- under it. So will Australian democracy, if it fectly to the Mongol pony of half a century wants to achieve effective forces of defence,'ago. But more; in this same country,'
yoked to carriages, and not unlikely the first reason for this fact was their small size. These horses of Rhesos then struck the hard naturally as something larger and finer than he had ever seen, and it is interesting so to look into their other characteristics. They were whiter than snow," he tells us, "and like to the winds for speed," and the frames attached to them, for chariots as yet were not, were ornamented with silver and gold, while the king himself had harness of
a wonder to see.' gold,
(
11
still white is the dominant colour, would scarcely answer the description of being whiter than snow. The process has not, however been one of extinction, nor de. struction, but the contrary one of improve- ment; and all this has tiken place within fifty years, as contrastel with the tens of thousands during which the typo remine l unchanged.
A CHINA COAST PROPHET.
(Daily Press, March 4th.)' Breath of mind comes by travelling, so travellers often say; and some of us who outposts have sojourned for a while in the "
are fond of quoting KIPLING'S of Empire "What do they know of Eugland who only Sometimes we quote it England know?" correctly, but general'・ with a tone, an air, "What indica'ing that we ly mean,
It is a fine do they know in England ?"
acquire for contempt that som, of us insularism and narrowness, the existence of which (possibly conscious of a much needed
$
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.