THE TOORKOMAN HORSE. 35 



Some of the Tartar and Kalmuck women ride fully as well as the men. 

 When a courtship is taking place between two of the young ones, the answer of 

 the lady is thus obtained. She is mounted on one of the best horses, and off she 

 gallops at full speed. Her lover pursues, and if he overtake her, she becomes his 

 wife ; but it is seldom or never that a Kalmuck girl once on horseback is 

 caught, unless she has a partiality for her pursuer*. 



The domesticated horses belonging to the Tartars that wander over the 

 immense plains of Central Asia are little removed from a wild state. They are 

 small and badly made, but capable of supporting the longest and most rapid 

 journeys on the scantiest fare. 



One well-known circumstance will go far to account for their general hardi- 

 ness. The Tartars live much on the flesh of horses ; and the animals that are 

 unable to support the labour of their frequent and rapid emigrations are first 

 destroyed ; the most vigorous are alone preserved. 



Berenger gives the following account of the Tartar horses : " Although but 

 of a moderate size, they are strong, nervous, proud, full of spirit, bold, and 

 active. They have good feet, but somewhat narrow ; their heads are well- 

 shaped and lean, but too small ; the forehead long and stiff; and the legs over 

 long : yet with all these imperfections they are good and serviceable horses, 

 being unconquerable by labour, and endowed with considerable speed. The 

 Tartars live with them almost in the same manner that the Arabs do with their 

 horses. When they are six or eight months old, they make their children 

 ride them, who exercise them in small excursions, dressing and forming them 

 by degrees, and bringing them into gentle and early discipline, and, after a 

 while, making them undergo hunger and thirst, and many other hardships. 

 The men, however, do not ride them until they are five or six years old, when 

 they exact from them the severest service, and enure them to almost incredible 

 fatigue, travelling two or three days almost without resting, and passing four or 

 five days with no more or better nourishment than a handful of grass, and with 

 nothing to quench their thirstt." This discipline as much exceeds that of the 

 Arabs in severity and horrible barbarity, as the Arabs excel the Tartars in 

 civilisation. 



The horses of the Nogais Tartars are some of the best of the roving tribes. 

 They are stronger and taller than the others ; and some of them are trained to 

 draw carriages. It is from them that the Khan of Tartary derives the principal 

 part of Ins supplies. It is said that in case of necessity they could furnish a 

 hundred thousand men. Each of the Nogais commonly has with him four 

 horses ; one is for his own riding ; a second to mount if the first should be 

 tired ; and the other two to carry his provisions, his slaves and his booty. 



THE TOORKOMAN HORSE. 



Turkistan is that part of South Tartary, north-east of the Caspian sea, and 

 has been celebrated from very early times for producing a pure and valuable 



given to the spirit manufactured in the East maining liquor in the air. I asked the mean- 

 Indies, ing of this ceremony, and was answered that 

 Dr. Clarke saw the process of the manufac- it was a religious custom to give always the 

 lure : ' The still was composed of mud, or first of tho brandy which they drew from the 

 very close clay. For the neck of the retort a cane receiver to their god. The stick was then 

 was used ; and the receiverwas entirely covered plunged into the liquor a second time,whenmore 

 by a coating of wet clay. The brandy had just brandy adhering to the camel's hair, she 

 passed over. The women who had the ma- squeezed it into the palm of her dirty hand, and 

 nagement of the distillery, wishing to give us a having tasted the liquor, presented it to our lips, 

 taste of the spirit, thrust a stick with a small Clarice's Travels in Russia, p. 239. 

 tuft of camel's hair into the receiver, dropped * Clarke's Travels in Russia, p. 333. 

 a portion of it on the retort, and waving the }* Berenger on Horsemanship, vol. i. p. 

 instrument above her head, scattered the re- 135. 



