160 THE WILD HORSE. 



leaving the typical characters everywhere percep- 

 tible. This is the cause which induced authors to 

 derive all the wild horses of Asia from the stray 

 troop-horses at the siege of Azof, then, be it ob- 

 served, already geldings, yet made to replenish the 

 steppes with a species of animals constantly noticed 

 before and since as abundant in a wild state in the 

 same regions ! Within these few years, Moorcroft 

 and the brothers Gerrard, when they penetrated 

 into Independent Tahtary and within the borders of 

 China, met with numerous herds of wild horses, 

 scouring along the table lands, sixteen thousand 

 feet above the sea, and express not the least hint of 

 their having been domesticated at any period. 



Whatever may be the lucubrations of naturalists 

 in their cabinets, it does not appear that the Tahtar 

 or even the Cossack nations have any doubt upon 

 the subject, for they assert that they can distinguish 

 a feral breed from the wild by many tokens ; and 

 naming the former Takja* and Muzin, denominate 

 the real wild horse Tarpan and Tarpani. We have 

 had some opportunity of making personal inquiries 

 on wild horses among a considerable number of 

 Cossacks of different parts of Russia, and among 

 Bashkirs, Kirguise, and Kalmucks, and with a suffi- 

 cient recollection of the statements of Pallas, and 



* If I mis-read not my note, Takja, and this name, I find 

 also, in Nemnich, written Taga ; but I am not sure if it is there 

 meant to bear the same definition as above. I took the word, 

 on one or two occasions, to be applied to all unowned horses of 

 the steppes. 



