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Updated: June 26, 2025
With Krool before them, who was of the veld and the karoo, whose natural habitat was but a cross between a krall and the stoep of a dopper's home, these men were instantly transported to the land where their hearts were in spite of all, though the flesh-pots of the West End of London had turned them into by-paths for a while.
It is, in fact, often very difficult to decide exactly how far it is intelligence and how far memory, instinct, imitative genius, obedience or mechanical impulse, the effects of training, or happy coincidences. There are cases, however, which admit of little or no hesitation. I give a few. One day Krall and his collaborator, Dr.
Triumphant and bewildered, I call in friend Krall, who, accustomed as he is to the prodigy, thinks it quite natural, but knits his brows: "What's this, Muhamed? You've made a mistake again. It's an F you want at the end of the word, not a Z. Just correct it at once, please."
The horses are taken back to their racks and the men separate, wishing one another the inevitable Mahlzeit. As he walks with me along the quays of the black and muddy Wupper, Krall says: "It is a pity that you did not see Zarif in one of his better moods. He is sometimes more startling than Muhamed and has given me two or three surprises that seem incredible.
The horse raps out an E. Krall becomes a little impatient: he threatens, he implores, he promises in turn, carrots and the direst punishments, such as sending for Albert, the groom, who, on special occasions, recalls idle and inattentive pupils to a sense of duty and decorum, for Krall himself never chastises his horses, lest he should lose their friendship or their confidence.
Muhamed is led in. Krall, who is a little nervous, makes no secret of his uneasiness. His horses are fickle animals, uncertain, capricious and extremely sensitive. A trifle disturbs them, confuses them, puts them off. At such times, threats, prayers and even the irresistible charm of carrots and good rye-bread are useless. They obstinately refuse to do any work and they answer at random.
The groom enters to lead him away and makes some movement or other at which the horse starts, rears and shies. "That's his bad conscience," says Krall, gravely. And the expression assumes a singular meaning and importance in this hybrid atmosphere, steeped in an indefinable something from another world. But it is half-past one, the sacred German dinner-hour.
Krall smiles indulgently and, without making any attempt to supplement an education which is too much in arrears to allow of the slightest hope, laboriously works out the problem and declares that the horse was right in refusing to give an impossible solution.
Nevertheless, I put a good face upon it: and, taking at random the first figures that suggest themselves to my mind, I boldly write on the black-board an enormous and most daring number. Muhamed remains motionless. Krall speaks to him sharply, telling him to hurry up. Muhamed lifts his right hoof, but does not let it fall.
Then, suddenly, for reasons as yet obscure the state of the weather, the presence of this or that witness, or I know not what the most undeniable and bewildering manifestations occur one after the other. The case is precisely the same with the horses: their queer fancies, their unaccountable and disconcerting freaks drive poor Krall to despair.
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