THE BLACK DRAUGHT HORSE. 19 



ously among the hills. When brought to the stable, his strength 

 appeared exhausted, and he was scarcely able to walk. The 

 groom, possessed of more feeling than his brutal master, could 

 not refrain from tears at the sight of so noble an animal thus 

 sunk down. The baronet, some time after, entered the stable, 

 and the horse made a furious spring upon him, and, had not the 

 groom interfered, would soon have put it out of his power ever 

 again to misuse his animals. 



Hunters are sent over from England to almost every part of 

 the continent, particularly to Russia and Germany. They are 

 sold there for very high prices, as their superiority over all other 

 horses is universally known and acknowledged. 



While the beauty, the elegance, the activity, and strength, of 

 the race horse and the hunter, combined with the most wonder- 

 ful tractableness of disposition, willingness of exertion, and sub- 

 missive obedience, are excellencies which give to these noble 

 quadrupeds a decided pre-eminence in the animal creation, it 

 must be a subject of regret to the feeling mind, that those valu- 

 able qualities should be so frequently abused, and such extraor- 

 dinary power exhausted in the most useless exertions. 



THE BLACK DRAUGHT HORSE. 



This breed of horses surpasses in strength all others that any 

 country has produced. The largest of this sort are found in the 

 fens of Lincolnshire. Instances have been known, of a single 

 horse of this breed drawing, for a short distance, the weight of 

 three tons. A great part of the British cavalry are mounted 

 on horses of this kind : in some regiments, those of a lighter 

 make are used. The old black coach-horse is now almost uni- 

 versally set aside ; instead of which, a more active and lighter 

 kind is used in our carriages. It is pleasing to observe, that the 

 pretension to mend Nature's work by docking the tail, a prac- 

 tice offensive to humanity, and replete with absurdity, begins 

 now to be unfashionable, while we must still regret the continu- 

 ance of the custom of forming it by nicking, which is equally 

 cruel and useless, as it gives to the horse no real, but only a 

 fancied ornament. 



The ponies of Wales, and those bred in the highlands of 

 Scotland, seem to be an original and unmixed race. Both kinds 

 are much esteemed for the neatness of their shapes, and the 

 agility of their motion, but still more for their vigour in sup- 

 porting fatigue, as well as for being exceedingly sure-footed in 

 difficult roads ; qualities well adapted to the mountainous tracts 

 of which they are natives. 



It is very probable, that the horse was not originally a native 

 of this island ; but at what time, or from what part of the con- 



