168 THE WILD HORSE. 



ing Samarah by means of 130,000 pied horses of his 

 army, each conveying a sack of earth to the spot. It 

 was on this mound, called Tel-al-Mekhali, or the hill 

 of sacks, that his son and successor Wathek built 

 the famous tower." They are again mentioned in 

 the Tahtar army under Peta Khan, when in 1241 

 he broke through Russia and Poland and defeated 

 and slew Duke Henry II. of Silesia at Wahlstadt. 

 They continue at present to exist in small breeds 

 in Moldavia, Wallachia, Poland, and .Pomerania, 

 but are now only used to mount trumpeters and 

 the bands of Hussar regiments, excepting in Italy, 

 where the Borghese breed of pied horses is still in 

 repute. It is reared near Rome, in the sandy pine 

 district about ancient Ardea, the classical site of the 

 exploits of Turnus and jEneas, and proves the dura- 

 bility of the markings of this form of horse, since 

 Virgil clearly alludes to it in the same locality : 



" Turnus, : 



Improvisus adest : maculis quern Thracius albis 

 Portat equus, " jEN. ix. 48. 



and the same breed was in the poet's mind when he 

 describes the Trojan game as it was performed by 

 the Roman youth : 



-" quern Thracius albis 



Portat equus bicolor maculis ; vestigia primi 

 Alba pedis, frontemque ostentans arduus albam. 



jEN. v. 565. 



The great Roman poet shows, in other writings, as 

 well as in the local legendary part of the ^Eneid, a 



