65 



be thoroughly broken. They are said also to require the most nourish- 

 ing food, such as pease boiled with butter and sugar, yams, and even 

 when flesh meat is plentiful, the offal boiled to rags, and mixed with 

 rice, butter and sugar, and given them in the form of balls : in a scar- 

 city, they are supported with opium, which damps their appetite, and 

 renders them insensible to fatigue. 



I shall begin with the original Coursers, the Arabian and the Barb, 

 proceeding to notice their varieties, and their bastard produce, in those 

 countries of nearly the same parallel, or wherever they are found. 

 Of these Horses, we are enabled to speak with all the certainty of 

 experimental observation, their species having been long naturalized 

 in this country, from successive importations of individuals within the 

 last two hundred years. Arabia Deserta is allowed to be the breeding 

 country of the purest and highest bred Racers, that is to say, pos- 

 sessed in the highest degree, of those qualities which distinguish the 

 species, and which are generally best ascertained in their produce. 

 This ' glory of Arabian zoology,' is found in the northern part of the 

 desert, between Suez and Persia, and is bred by the Bedouin Arabs. 

 Horses were formerly found in a wild state in these sandy, hot and 

 barren regions, but it is not ascertained whether such be the case at 

 present; an obvious improbability indeed, considering their great value, 

 and that they never could have been very numerous in a country pro- 

 ducing so little food. Mr. Pinkcrton seems to think it rather probable, 

 that the Arabians were descended from the wild Horses of Tartar}^, 

 the latter having passed through Persia, in order to be perfected in 

 Arabia. An unfortunate surmise, far beneath the standard, I hope, of 

 his other antiquarian conjectures. 



The Arabians divide their Horses into three classes : the Kochlani or 

 Kehilaiii, the Kehidischi, and the Attichi. The first are the noble, as 

 they are styled, or the original high-bred Coursers, the produce of the 

 middle, or mountainous country, the blood of which has been preserv- 

 ed pure and uncontaminated by any alien mixture or cross, as the 

 Arabs pretend, for more than two thousand j^ears. However we may 

 justly doubt the accuracy of an account like this, in an affair that 

 must necessarily be liable to accidental, as well as wilful deviations, 



K implicit " 



