Drinkers of the Wind

By Carl R. Raswan

Originally published in the 1930s. An exciting yet moving true story of a mans life and travels with nomadic Arabs and their world famous Arabian horses. Many illustrations and details of this wonderful breed of horse. Many of the earliest horse books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Home Farm Books are republishing many of these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Jun 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781446549308

Book preview

PROLOGUE

I

HE was glorious. His eyes flashed with fiery light; his nostrils flared defiance; he tossed his head upon a lofty neck. He was my swift-footed, quivering-limbed steed with the glistening coat! My lively, impatient creature, my dashing, high-mettled, exuberant horse.

I liked his lean dry head and the bend in his strong neck where it arched back to deep, sloping shoulders. His carriage was noble and his shape handsome, set upon the most tender feet.

He hung in an old stained oaken frame above my little bed.

‘Phili,’ I had named him, though my father called him ‘Phalius’ for that horse of Thessaly who wore a white star on his forehead.

I loved Phili. He allowed a little naked boy to pull his mane and struggle hard to climb up on his back. A bearded riding-master, draped in classic folds, held his hand against the shoulder of the little boy to prevent him from sliding to the ground. But the tiny fellow with the curly hair and the strong, determined profile turned to his elder, had already swung his right leg behind the withers of the pony and was ready to bound away . . .

I was only three when Father observed my unusual interest in horses. He read simple old tales to me, and I became well versed in the mythology of the ancient Greeks. I used expressions which no horseman understood until my father came to the rescue.

And the cause of all this was the reproduction of an old Athenian drawing hung in our children’s bedroom in a quaint old village in Saxony.

One day at our county horseshow I thought I had discovered the living counterpart of Phili. A golden chestnut pony with a curly mane and a head tossed defiantly in the air. A boy of ten rode him, and how envious I was!

I begged Father to buy him, but he said I must wait. Perhaps in two years he would seriously attempt to make a horseman of me.

Not far from our house was a hard grey country road on which carriages and riders passed all day and most of the night. My eyes scarcely reached the level of the windowsill, and I had to stand on tiptoe to watch the traffic.

One sunny Sunday morning I heard two riders approach on the street. The sound of hoofs was so resonant that I listened with bated breath.

Phili had come; this was distinctly the hollow cymbal ring of his small hoofs as they struck the hard roadway! The noise of the other horse’s feet upon the ground was only the clatter of an ordinary animal. But the song of the hoofs I now heard was that of a most noble creature—perhaps the white-starred Phili!

I raced through the house and out into the garden as far as the iron fence which at that time limited my world. Opposite me two riders were passing our house. One of them was mounted on a dapple-grey, a small but powerful animal, playfully pawing the air with his forelegs as he seemed to dance over the road. His motions were without vehemence; his rider enjoyed them with reins slack and firm but easy seat. Steed and rider were such a picture of grace and the hollow ring of hoofs such music to my ears, that I have not forgotten it throughout my life. Nor have I forgotten the dark horse at his side, clumsily forging ahead—a spiritless creature.

Suddenly my father stood next to me. Without a word he lifted me to his shoulder and walked along parallel to the garden fence.

This is an Arabian from Hungary, Father said. The King has bought him for his royal stable in Dresden.

I gazed after the Arabian horse from the shoulders of my father until the animal disappeared under the big chestnut tree with its pink candelabra of sweet blossoms.

Father! I called out as I scrambled down his back. This Arabian is more beautiful than Phili!

Father smiled. Yes, he is. The Arabians are the kings of all horses, and your Phili was only an uncle of a king.

But he was a prince? I asked, troubled.

Yes, a prince.

And I knew what kings and princes were, because Father’s brother was chief forester of Saxony, in charge of the famous Royal Hunting Lodge, the old castle of Moritzburg in the midst of a lake overgrown with reeds and huge water lilies. Hansel and Gretel might have hidden in the dark pine forest that for twenty miles surrounded this treasure castle in the lagoon.

But only Uncle Bernhard and his family lived there, where he was also game warden for the royal antlers and wild boar, pheasants and quail. Even the fish were royal and the goats which in gilded harness drew a miniature phaeton with the King’s little daughters in it.

One evening during the summer I had to take one of the tiny princesses by her hand and walk in front of Uncle and Father and the King on a moonlit path through the dark forest. The lake was a silent, silver sheet except where a fish shot from the surface of the water or a wild duck dove in with a loud splash.

We children, the princess and I, would indeed have been fearful if we had not clung firmly to each other’s warm hand.

Go on! the King urged us. We are behind you.

But in the trees an owl hooted eerily—and I was left alone, for the little princess with a terrified cry had rushed to the arms of her royal father. I called the princess a bad name, but my legs trembled with fright.

That is another memory of my earliest youth—that and the incident of the same evening, when the King took me upon his knee in the castle and asked me questions about Phili and other horses of the ancient Greeks.

The royal house of Wettin had its own ancestral school in Dresden, a humanistic gymnasium. That night the King suggested to my father that I should be enrolled there at the age of nine—if I were well prepared by then—and I should be brought up with His Majesty’s sons.

And my future: to take Uncle’s place some day as Royal Chief Forester of Saxony. Since the early seventeenth century the first line male offspring on Father’s side had been the King’s forester. They were cavalry men, too, and always kept horses.

I promised the King everything (and more than he asked me) that night as I perched on his knee.

Either the romantic spark of Hungarian blood (inherited from my mother) or the restless urge of Ulysses’ soul about which I heard from my father in the classic bed-time stories tempted me to my first daring escapade.

Hans Roeder was our neighbours’ son and my constant companion. In contrast to my dark colouring and husky frame, Hans had bright-blue eyes and light hair and a rather frail body. But he had a courageous spirit.

Not more than a quarter of a mile from our house was the Elbe river with its hills beckoning from the other side. Father and mother often took us to the river bank, where we watched the river craft go by—excursion steamers with bands playing and sail-boats and row-boats with people laughing and singing . . .

I told Hans that the world began behind those hills and that it was only this little water that kept us from seeing for ourselves how the whole earth looked.

Charlotte was my eight-month-old sister. We will take her with us, I said to Hans. But we won’t take her in her baby carriage.

Instead, I showed Hans a little wicker basket carriage, the kind the King used to have his daughters drive with a team of goats. This carriage had been given to me the previous Christmas with a pair of gentle Saanen goats, beautiful hornless white animals.

Hans objected to taking Charlotte along. But I insisted that we needed a woman to do our cooking and washing.

And what if we have children? I asked. She can be the mother when she grows old.

Right now she could not even walk, but her smile had undone me, and I was in love with her and would not have gone out into the world without her.

The eventful day arrived. For provisions I ransacked Mothers’ top shelves which contained those items most desirable to a little boy: cake, cookies and other sweets. Next in importance came a hammer, a saw and a lot of nails and an extra wheel from an old buggy. We would pull the wicker basket carriage ourselves.

We stowed the baby away while the nurse was having her afternoon coffee. Hans and I worked hard to pull Charlotte in her carriage with the five pounds of nails and the heavy sledge hammer, and the saw was as long as either of us was tall.

The road to the Elbe seemed endless!

And the river was a problem. It was as wide as the distance from home. The water was swift and might be deeper than the carriage. We threw rocks into it. Plump—plump. It sounded very deep. We stood now up to our knees in mud and water with reeds about us, and the carriage would not move farther. If only it would go into deeper water, we thought, it could swim; then we could hang on to it and cross to the other shore.

As the hours passed we felt lonesome and forsaken. The sun was going down behind us, and the windows in the villas on the opposite hill burned like the jaws of Father’s furnace when its doors were left open.

We decided to go home and leave the attempt for another day. Charlotte was restless, too. She had been so nice and laughing all the time, wondering about the tall green reeds above her head. But now she was hungry and began to cry.

Hans and I worked hard to get the carriage out of the mud and up the river bank. Finally we succeeded. When we reached the first street, people called to each other and we were picked up and hustled home. Mother’s face was bathed with tears, but when she saw us she laughed through her tears and kissed us and would not allow Father to take me aside for a private interview. At last I was allowed to have supper and go to bed.

Next day we all went to the river, for I must point out the spot where we had tried to cross. Mother wept again, and Father was permitted to have his private interview with me.

From this talk I learned the wrong I had done—the danger to Charlotte—the danger to Hans and myself. I remember that I rushed to Mother and cried and promised never to go alone to the horrid river. I was allowed to throw some stones from a distance into its big mouth.

He has not swallowed you! Mother consoled me.

Father asked me why I had done such a dreadful thing as to try to cross the river.

I explained carefully. I wanted to go with Hans into the hill and take a look at the world. And in the same breath I asked how far the world was beyond the hill.

Oh, far, very far! Father answered. When you come to the top of the hill there is another hill.

And, I interrupted, when you come to the other hill you see the world?

No, then again there is another hill.

And then you see the whole world? I asked.

No, of course not. On and on it goes—hill and plain, more plains and high mountains.

But when do you see the world? I persisted.

This is the world, Father answered patiently. Right where your feet stand, right under you. If you go on and on, you will only come back here to this place where you stand now.

Father held up his clenched hand.

You see this knuckle? This is the first hill, and these are other hills. Then comes big water and more land and hills. You would go all around them and come right back again to this little water and this little hill . . .

After all, he was my father and he must be right. But somehow I still felt—and I believe I do to this day—that beyond the next hill or the one after that, I shall come to another world. . . .

II

On my fifth birthday Father gave me the golden chestnut pony that I had seen two years previously in the county fair.

Now I had my living Phili with the curly mane and the proud head and the dainty feet.

Throughout my entire young life I associated with animals, for Father always kept horses, and there was also a donkey which we children rode and drove with the Saanen goats.

From Father’s Greek readings I had learned that boys in classic times began to ride at the age of seven. This was part of their gymnastic training. At eighteen or nineteen the accomplished horsemen were eligible for the Athenian cavalry and began to practise throwing the javelin and fighting with other weapons while on horseback.

At five I was two years ahead of Greek youth, and I had a pony that could teach me more than I could ever have taught him.

This was Phili. He seemed to have descended from the picture on my wall, dashing into my young life with sudden vigour to receive all my enthusiasm and affection.

I had some wild rides with him before my father discovered my foolish abuse of the brave little pony.

A week after Phili came into my possession I sat down to the rudiments of practical horsemanship, to learn how to understand and guide Phili’s animal intelligence.

I had little fear of horses. This was no virtue but an acquired talent. We had learned to give as much confidence to an animal as he gave to us. We were never allowed to punish him with blows, never to thrust our will upon him with force. We children had always been taught to reason with ourselves before we tried to reason with the animal—and still remain the master. That was the secret.

Phili was about my own age—coming six. We had a language, and I talked to him practically all the time. I was sure that he understood. A smack of the lips, a kiss-like, quickly repeated chirrup would calm him down instantly, no matter how high was his spirit. But even as quickly I could snatch him from lethargy by clucking my tongue against the roof of my mouth. His spirit would be aroused at once, and he’d bound away with me when I connected the clucking with a forward touch of my heels.

I was convinced that Phili was a horse for heroes and gods, and I treated him accordingly. He stood his honours well, though he was not more than twelve hands from his shining black hoofs to his small withers. Phili was a mettlesome fellow, I was warned; he has a temper like a man, they told me. But with a gentle hand and supreme childlike confidence I found him only exceedingly ambitious.

He could gallop as if animated by blind wrath. His dash at full speed was a task for a six-year-old, and his controlled action in the show ring was breathtaking, too. But I handled him well enough after three months to be allowed to take him on the road in the company of other people, children and grown-ups.

Our favourite riding-spot was the Heide, the forests and heather meadows above Dresden, where the cavalry practised their mounts. There was enough sand to enjoy a rocking-chair canter and to trot precisely as our riding-master would insist. After rains and ground fog, the sand was ideal for both horse and rider, and it was always safe, even for a tumble.

Phili developed his showy action to become a high-stepper. His active spirit dwelt in a strong body. He could rear in style and throw many a scare into spectators, but I knew Phili best of all. I was sure that he would never endanger me purposely. We co-operated by little tricks, enjoying our own small world of make-believe.

People always wondered why Phili so willingly seized the bridle when I led him into the saddle-room to pick his own bit or halter. The trick was one of old Xenophon: never lead the horse to feed without his halter or bridle.

But not everything was sheer, painless joy.

I had to ride him bareback, with my legs dangling entirely free from the knees down. It takes some time before the muscles become supple, even in a child. But when Phili was urged by the master’s whip to leap ahead, I was ordered to forget the hold with my legs and to take the sudden, heavy jolts by balancing and shifting my weight a little over the withers.

A quiet seat and most gentle hands were required, hands that inspired both confidence and obedience. But most important was a calm mental attitude. Our riding master stressed what I had already learned; there was no disorder possible except within us. It could not be found in the horse unless it had first been transmitted from us to the animal.

We learned to correct the faults of the horse in ourselves and to watch the animal only for our own joy and delight in him. How proudly he would hold up his head, arch his neck and glory in his own graceful action, lifting his legs freely and bearing his tail with style!

Induce him to feel free—rouse his spirit to glory—soothe and calm him down with a quiet hand and a cheerful chirrup.

Those were the classic remarks of our old Rittmeister (captain of cavalry).

Never let his fire die out, but kindle it with words and make him feel the joy that is within you that you are honoured to be carried along on his strong shoulders and back and on his swiftly moving feet.

So the old riding master gave us an almost spiritual interpretation of the art of riding.

Composure and tranquillity, he repeated, were more vital than muscular action.

It is as if you were centaurs, said the riding master, warming to his subject. All grace and precision of the animal are first born within you before they become part of the complex creatures . . .

Sometimes when I rode Phili, I wanted to hold on to his long, curly mane. It was tempting, I admit, but I was told that the mane did not exist.

You don’t want Phili to prance about with a short, hogged mane? Your disgrace would be Phili’s own disgrace.

Nothing could have hurt me more than that.

For jumping lessons a small, folded blanket was permissible. It was fastened by a girth under the belly of my pony, but I was never allowed to touch either one with my hand after I had swung my leg over Phili’s back. We had to ride for miles with folded arms—walk, trot and canter—and last, but not least, to jump with arms crossed, hands on our shoulders or thumbs in our belts.

To attend to Phili, his food and his stable, I had to arise at five in the morning.

From my fifth to my sixth year I had preparatory lessons at home. At six I entered school. Three years later came the examinations at the humanistic school, the Royal Wettin Gymnasium. I passed—and Latin became the yoke around my neck. Three years later, at twelve, another burden came to me: Greek.

But I still had Phili, also twelve and full of spirit.

We lived now above the Elbe river, on those hills which had beckoned to me when I was three.

Hans Roeder came often to us, spending week-ends and vacations in our home, though he attended another school, a Real Gymnasium.

Father had a sanatorium on that beautiful hill which was studded with little villas and outdoor restaurants. In summer the air was always sweet with music; orchestras played on terraces of the cafés or on the crowded decks of steamers gliding by on the river. At night the boats were garlanded with festive lamps, and fireworks greeted them from the hills and the shore.

A more glorious youth I could not imagine for a boy of that age in any land. With a gentle mother and a firm but understanding father, my life was rich in the extreme. It was burdened with work but also eased with pleasures.

Phili was the magic carpet upon whose back I could escape to the woods and fields beyond the hill—far out upon the plateau toward the greater timber and heather land of the Heide.

I still had to get up at five in the morning to care for Phili, to get my own breakfast and walk or run downhill the mile and a half to board the morning boat which docked an hour later, exactly fifteen minutes before seven, at Dresden. Those fifteen minutes were just enough to allow me to reach school on time. In summer at seven, in winter at eight. Except on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when we had no afternoon school, I returned home at six in the evening. Most of my school work I was able to do on the boats or in the free afternoons and Sundays at home—often outdoors, with my Latin or Greek textbook in one hand and in another, a freshly broken switch to guard Father’s herd of Nubian goats which he had acquired from an African show in the Dresden Zoo. They had increased to sixty head by the time I was fifteen years old.

My three sisters and I were raised the ‘natural’ way, with goat’s milk and fruit from our own trees, vegetables from our garden. There were over one hundred and twenty acres of land—a big stretch in Germany and so close to Dresden, the city of half a million.

Nature was our god. We loved the old oak trees in the folds of a hill, the meadows with cabins and sun-booths scattered about. Woods with firs, birch, pine and oak stretched on one side of the property far across the hill to an old village. This was our most beloved hunting ground, full of trails and look-outs over the river. Deer, hares and pheasants were plentiful there.

Here it was that Phili and I spent our happiest hours. Here it was, too, that Hans and I roamed and our companionship was strengthened. Hans also rode horseback with the same instructor, but he was less interested in that sport than in mechanics. It was predicted that he would some day be an engineer.

III

The swift, happy years raced by. I was outgrowing Phili, who proved to be an excellent companion for my three sisters.

I was deep in Latin and Greek, and life suddenly began to be very serious. It was not all play, I learned—not just what I could get but what I could give, too.

The classics can influence even a thirteen-year-old. Latin and Greek syllables were innocent enough, but when they were strung together to form sentences and then paragraphs, they also began to make sense. And making sense, they aroused the dormant powers of youthful reasoning.

At thirteen the mind is only thirteen—and no more. But the soul may have gone, by intuition and sentiment, far beyond that limit, searching its own goal, discovering new pastures . . .

There was a dual life developing within me. The one of reality and the other of dreams. The one of form and fact and the other of intangibles, the Platonic idea.

This conflict was the price I paid for beginning the study of Greek.

However, much of the time my feet remained on the firm ground of reality; I swung them across the back of a horse and felt that the world was still round and the sun was life to me.

Hans and the young prince who often visited us, Charlotte and Phili—they were a whole row of realities to chase cobwebs from my young brain.

I re-discovered Xenophon’s book on the art of horsemanship. Vaguely I remembered that Father had read it to me when I was very little, and now I lectured to Charlotte and my friends about it!

Even the treatise of Simon, the Athenian Hipparch, was read, and Varro and Virgil, Oppian and Palladius. Some of the fragments were boring, but others had enough in them to inspire us, even though they were old vintage.

And now we rode bareback a great deal because—the old Greeks had done it! We fed our horses on barley instead of oats on the advice of the ancients. From Pollux we learned that we must use warm water to wash the mouth of Phili and the other horses and to anoint their bars with pure olive oil and rub it into their skin and gums.

One day I rode Phili into the lake at the Moritzburg castle, when I saw that he recognized his image in the clear water. His semblance was perfect, as in a mirror, and there was not a ripple in the pool as he stood gazing for minutes at his own likeness.

From then on we called it Sophocles’ pool, because we had read in Tyro about the young mare who had found her image in the meadow stream.

But only Phili had the noble spirit to recognize himself in the pool. We took many horses there, but they were all indifferent to their portrait. We called them stupid creatures for their lack of discernment.

One day Prince Ernst came riding on the Arabian stallion which his father had bought in Hungary years ago and which I had seen prancing along the old country road. The horse was almost white now, though he had come to Germany as a dapple grey.

I shall never forget when he splashed into the pool and recognized his image at once, though the disturbed water rippled and the stallion’s portrait trembled on the opal surface. It seemed animated with life, swaying back and forth, and the Arabian steed played with his image, tossing his feet with light touches upon the surface of the pool and keeping the ripples vibrating and the picture dancing before his eyes.

We decided that the Arabian had even greater intelligence than little Phili.

At that time I still thought that the ancient Greek horse was the acme of beauty and perfection and that it had disappeared with the decline of the old republic.

Deeper and deeper I became involved with the Greek classics; I felt then that my life would somehow always be connected with the spirit of Hellas.

I was amazed by one thing: the smallness of the Greek horses. They seemed twelve to thirteen hands only—not much larger than Phili. Father again was able to help me by explaining that the size of the ancient Greek horse was deceptive. Greek friezes were always placed in elevated positions and when they were seen from below the figures of men and horses were brought into harmonious proportions. Whether mounted or walking, the human figure was always even with the highest point of the horse, and naturally this had to be accomplished by sacrificing the actual size and height of the animal and by exaggerating other parts.

For a time we children longed to organize a troop of Athenian cavalry and once a year have a contest like the Panathenaic festival, hurling the javelins from horseback and performing other feats of horsemanship. Later we wanted four-wheeled chariots with horses longer-barrelled than Phili and fit for driving.

But by the time I was fifteen the idea no longer seemed practical. The organization of one thousand horsemen mounted on beasts of beauty, courage and endurance was only a dream. The ten Attic tribes could not be found in Saxony, and the chariots did not materialize.

However, we did succeed in organizing a species of polo club. The variety we concocted was a knockabout game requiring some measure of horsemanship and experience, and we used mallets and balls of various sizes.

From this game developed the idea of hurling javelins against wicker targets nailed to posts at about the level of the riders’ heads. It required a good deal of skill and practise, and we played for weeks before we achieved enough aptitude to play the game according to the rules set down (again) in the classics.

The skirmish, the wheeling about, the pressing on at full speed to be the first to return to the line of one’s own riders—that was the thrill of the game. And Xenophon’s own rule was adopted:

Before hurling the javelin, throw your left shoulder forward, withdraw the right arm, rise from your thighs and let the javelin go with its point slightly raised, but your eyes aimed at the centre of your mark . . .

How beautiful! The force that carries the spear through the air is your own and the course it takes through space is the path of your calculating mind. And the animal under the control of your hands and legs is part of yourself. You speed the whirling hoofs, you turn the body of closely-knit muscles and nerves. You are the animator of javelin and horse!

At seventeen I had three years of Plato and Aristotle behind me. The Platonic idea no longer held my mind in its tight embrace, but the reality of Aristotle’s observable facts was clear and beautiful to my eyes. I became aware of the science of nature; I desired to gather facts and classify them. The deeper I probed into Aristotle’s science of logic, the more intelligible the world became. The fascinating, static universe of Plato evolved into a dynamic world of form, filled with perfect things as Aristotle had seen them in evolutionary growth.

The blending of masculine and feminine principle toward a perfect end. The aim of the classic age. What had been speculation with Plato became reality with Aristotle.

I suddenly discovered that I was not just a boy and Phili not just a pony.

We had a place in the scheme of things!

Thus the innocence of my youth passed into oblivion, and with new eyes and a new power of analysis I gazed at the world.

As I look back upon all the years since then, I am grateful for the one fact which impressed me above all others: nature tries to create a perfect form.

Loving horses as I did, this was the most important thought to remember. I felt that it applied to everything in nature, and happily it did not interfere with the faith I had gained from the study of the Old and New Testaments. And the Bible did not conflict with my vision of Greece, for I was comforted by the deep certainty that there was a pattern and a purpose . . .

My father, who talked these matters over with me, helped me to reason that the body is the temple of the spirit and that those ancients were wise indeed who said: A healthy mind in a healthy body.

I think I owed it to little Phili, whom I had long since outgrown, that both my feet were planted squarely on this earth, though my soul was struggling out of the pain of darkness. I was content with Phili. But I was also well aware that he could not have stepped from that immortal frieze of the Parthenon!

But while I loved him, the thought of the perfect creature haunted my heart. This little stab I was forced to suffer for having rubbed elbows a brief moment with the great men of Athens.

IV

In the year 1911, when I was eighteen, I was promised my vacation in Greece. The semester would end in June, but by special permission I was to be allowed to set my departure for early in May. This arrangement would enable me to join a party of students and teachers who were to travel to Constanza by way of Budapest and Bucharest and by a Rumanian-Lloyd boat through the Bosphorus to Constantinople.

My eyes were to behold the glory that was Greece. I could not believe my good fortune.

The day before my departure I went with Hans Roeder to visit the International Hygienic exhibition in Dresden.

Thousands of foreigners had come to the capital. Among them was a family from Athens who were related to Hans and who joined us on that day’s excursion.

A military band played in the park, while the warm sun beat down upon trees covered with bright new green. A small Egyptian temple rose beyond a clear pond, with water lilies and slender rushes and rose-hued flamingoes standing in solemn contemplation.

I wish Charlotte could see that, I said to Hans.

Hans promised