47 



ARRIVING THIN. 



Many of the horses arrive in the boats quite 

 skeletons, and badly hide-bound. You must 

 not be deterred from purchasing these. The 

 head, jaws, channel, nostrils, mouth, lips, eye, 

 and ears ; the breadth of the haunches ; the 

 straightness of the spine from the fall of the 

 withers to the setting on of the tail; the po- 

 sition of the legs ; the three essential bones ; 

 the large square knee, wiry suspensory ligament, 

 and clean back sinews; none of these are af- 

 fected by a horse being thin. The belly may 

 hang like a cow's, the ribs may stick out, the 

 neck may have lost its crest, and the quarters 

 may have sunk down to a frightful hollow : the 

 thigh, stifle, and forearm will, however, yet show^ 

 a little muscle, if there ever was any; and all 

 that frightful hollow at the quarters will fill 

 up to its proper blood-form in a very few months, 

 if the spine-bone here is only straight, and not 

 drooping ; the neck also will regain its crest, 

 and the belly draw up, as the horse gets into 

 condition : but if, added to this thinness, there 

 should be any dropsical-like swelling under the 

 chest or belly, the breath foul, the flanks per- 

 ceptibly moving with a rise and fall, and the 



