102 INTRODUCTION. 



and families to the opposite shores, sometimes seve- 

 ral miles distant. Of all the races of man, they 

 alone eat their flesh, drink the milk of mares, and 

 know how to convert it into cur mi, an intoxicating 

 beverage ; they marry on horseback, their councils 

 meet on horseback, and declarations of war, treaties 

 of peace or alliance, are dated from the stirrup of 

 the sovereign. * 



The nations of High Asia were inventors of the 

 bridle, of the true saddle, of the stirrup, t and pro- 

 bably of the horse-shoe. With many of them, a 

 horse, a mare, and a colt were fixed nominal stand- 

 ards of value, such as the cow was once among the 

 Celtae. In a general view, equestrian habits be- 

 come more and more decided as we advance towards 

 the East. In Europe, the Poles continued to elect 

 their kings on horseback to our own times. At pre- 

 sent, no nation of the west can oppose an equal 

 force of cavalry to the Russian ; in the earlier cam- 

 paigns of Suwarrow, the Russian could not cope 

 with the Turkish ; a century ago, the Turks were 

 inferior to the Persian horse; and these were re- 

 peatedly overwhelmed by Usbeks, Afghauns, and 

 Toorkees, who, descending from North-eastern Tah- 

 tary, came from the Jaxartes down the valley of 

 the Oxus, each in turn propelled by riding armies 



* Not a few of these habits are, however, already in vogue 

 among the Abipones and Pawnees, the new Tahtars of Ame- 

 rica, both in the north and south. 



t Stirrup., or Rikiob, first mentioned by Avicenna. Of horse- 

 shoes we shall speak hereafter. 



