When sent for to tame a vicious beast, for which he was either paid according to the distance, or generally two or three guineas, he directed the stable, in which he and the object of the experiment were, to be shut, with orders not to open the door until a signal was given. After a _tête-à-tête_ of about half an hour, during which little or no bustle was heard, the signal was made, and upon opening the door, the horse appeared lying down, and the man by his side playing with him like a child with a puppy dog. From that time he was found perfectly willing to submit to any discipline, however repugnant to his nature before.
Mr. Croker, to whom we are indebted for this account, once saw this man’s skill tried on a horse which could never before be brought to stand still for a smith to shoe him. “The day after Sullivan’s half hour’s lecture,” he says, “I went, not without some incredulity, to the smith’s shop, with many other curious spectators, where we were witnesses of the complete success of his art. This, too, had been a troop horse, and it was supposed, not without reason, that after regimental discipline had failed, no other would be found availing. I observed that the animal appeared terrified whenever Sullivan either spoke to or looked at him: how that extraordinary ascendancy could have been obtained it is difficult to conjecture.
“In common cases this mysterious preparation was unnecessary. He seemed to possess an instinctive power of inspiring awe, the result, perhaps, of natural intrepidity, in which, I believe, a great part of his art consisted: though the circumstance of the _tête-à-tête_ shows that, on particular occasions, something more must have been added to it. A faculty like this would in some hands have made a fortune, and I understand that great offers were made to him for the exercise of his art abroad. But hunting was his passion: he lived at home in the style most agreeable to his disposition, and nothing could induce him to quit Duhallow and the fox-hounds.”
We have been told by a merchant long resident in Mexico, that it is a common practice in that country to tame the most violent horses by a very simple but singular method, namely, by putting the horse’s nostrils under a man’s armpit. Our informant assures us that the most refractory brute instantly becomes tractable on inhaling the odour of the human body. This strange statement is corroborated by a fact first made known by Mr. Catlin, and both together may perhaps afford a clue to the mystery of the Whisperer’s proceedings. Mr. Catlin tells us, that when an Indian of the Rocky Mountains runs down and nooses a wild horse, one of his first steps is to place his hand over the eyes of the struggling animal, and breathe into its nostrils, when it soon becomes docile, and is so completely conquered that it submits quietly ever after.