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Post by Mother Nature on Nov 30, 2022 12:25:23 GMT -4
It was 1881, and the Pride of Arabia equine performers were famous throughout the developed world. They were a circus to layfolk, but to any equestrian lucky enough to see the show, they were an astonishing team of humans and horses performing very difficult, very high-level maneuvers for a carnival-like atmosphere thankfully absent from normal showgrounds.
The riders and handlers were generally European; the horses were not.
What with the Crabbet Park Stud and others like it taking the western world of sport horse breeding by storm, there was no shortage of Arab-horse enthusiasts willing to purchase tickets to Pride. That ticket money was good enough to buy the world for the horses and still have enough left over to pay the humans well, too...
But the American owner of the show, Mr. James Thackery, decided that the Pride must perform in north Africa and the Arabian peninsula; he'd grown confident enough in the way his show pleased western Europeans to risk performing for the people who made the show possible.
All sixty horses and all one-hundred-seven humans were packed onto the most glorious commercial frigate New England had to offer: the Dusky Leonine. No creature on board felt much discomfort even for being at sea, so luxurious was the ship's construction.
The final days of the trip came straight from the blackest nightmare. Dipping south en route from New York City to Tangier, Mr. Thackery and every soul with him aboard the Dusky Leonine experienced first-hand the consequences of having more money than sense. His most fatal business mistake, it turned out, had simply been bad timing.
The ship was caught in a storm and taken flat aback, rendering like an old boot as the canvas was flogged into ribbons by a voracious wind. The waves had one rail under when the main tore clean away, the hull wrenched and crunched apart, and she sank like a stone.
Imagine all the screaming horses, trapped in their shipping stalls as the floor rolls up and away, water pouring in between splintering boards, not knowing what's wrong but knowing something is wrong. Imagine their relief when they're let out of their stalls at the last minute, free to stampede out of the orlop and up the ladders and into the maelstrom beyond.
Imagine the people they killed, bolting for freedom in a blind panic -- the people they loved.
The Dusky Leonine set sail out of New York City on October 8th, 1881, and never reached her destination. No souls were ever found, and all passengers -- and cargo -- were officially considered lost, entirely disappeared.
But horses have got more stamina than we do, and after all, nobody really knows what goes on in that mysterious Sargasso Sea. Say what you will about the legends of the Bermuda Triangle, but the fact remains that the same currents which sank the ship and drowned the crew saw fit to deposit nearly threescore half-drowned circus horses on the shores of an uncharted island and, in so doing, deliver them to a sort of freedom.
To that end, some of the survivors call this place Al-Huriya -- and depending who you ask, that's either a denotation of hope and gratitude or a cruel irony.
The horses run free on this land-without-humans, their only company in each other and the little island creatures who were here before them.
The riders and handlers were generally European; the horses were not.
What with the Crabbet Park Stud and others like it taking the western world of sport horse breeding by storm, there was no shortage of Arab-horse enthusiasts willing to purchase tickets to Pride. That ticket money was good enough to buy the world for the horses and still have enough left over to pay the humans well, too...
But the American owner of the show, Mr. James Thackery, decided that the Pride must perform in north Africa and the Arabian peninsula; he'd grown confident enough in the way his show pleased western Europeans to risk performing for the people who made the show possible.
All sixty horses and all one-hundred-seven humans were packed onto the most glorious commercial frigate New England had to offer: the Dusky Leonine. No creature on board felt much discomfort even for being at sea, so luxurious was the ship's construction.
The final days of the trip came straight from the blackest nightmare. Dipping south en route from New York City to Tangier, Mr. Thackery and every soul with him aboard the Dusky Leonine experienced first-hand the consequences of having more money than sense. His most fatal business mistake, it turned out, had simply been bad timing.
The ship was caught in a storm and taken flat aback, rendering like an old boot as the canvas was flogged into ribbons by a voracious wind. The waves had one rail under when the main tore clean away, the hull wrenched and crunched apart, and she sank like a stone.
Imagine all the screaming horses, trapped in their shipping stalls as the floor rolls up and away, water pouring in between splintering boards, not knowing what's wrong but knowing something is wrong. Imagine their relief when they're let out of their stalls at the last minute, free to stampede out of the orlop and up the ladders and into the maelstrom beyond.
Imagine the people they killed, bolting for freedom in a blind panic -- the people they loved.
The Dusky Leonine set sail out of New York City on October 8th, 1881, and never reached her destination. No souls were ever found, and all passengers -- and cargo -- were officially considered lost, entirely disappeared.
But horses have got more stamina than we do, and after all, nobody really knows what goes on in that mysterious Sargasso Sea. Say what you will about the legends of the Bermuda Triangle, but the fact remains that the same currents which sank the ship and drowned the crew saw fit to deposit nearly threescore half-drowned circus horses on the shores of an uncharted island and, in so doing, deliver them to a sort of freedom.
To that end, some of the survivors call this place Al-Huriya -- and depending who you ask, that's either a denotation of hope and gratitude or a cruel irony.
The horses run free on this land-without-humans, their only company in each other and the little island creatures who were here before them.