780 



HORSE. 



that upon the Saxon invasion, the Britons did no 

 escape to the Welch mountains, any more than, upor 

 the Danish and English invasions, the Scotch low- 

 landers fled to the highlands. The probability is 

 that in either case they would have been escaping 

 from Scylla to fall upon Charybdis ; but the point 

 though necessary to be mentioned, and well worthi 

 of investigation, does not properly fall within ou 

 present subject, 



We are to urtdertand, therefore, that at very early 

 times there was a bringing of horses from the 

 Levant and the adjacent countries into the southerr 

 states of Europe ; and that those horses were all 

 brought from countries to the southward and the 

 westward of the Caucasus, the mountains of Armenia 

 and of Asia Minor. So, also, in the gradual migra- 

 tion of the hordes of central Asia, westward into the 

 valley of the Danube, and so into Germany, and 

 along the north of the Carpathian mountains, through 

 Russia and Poland, into Denmark and Scandinavia, 

 there was a migration of Tartar horses, which ulti- 

 mately found its way as far as the Norwegian Vickingr 

 extended their excursions. 



Thus we are to understand that horses were origi- 

 nally imported into Europe by two channels, one in 

 the south and the other in the centre ; for though we 

 may suppose that there was something analogous to 

 this on the line of the Danube, yet the connexion be- 

 tween this line and the shores of the North Sea was, 

 at that time, very much, if not altogether, interrupted 

 by the dense forests in the central parts of Ger- 

 many. 



The southern importation, being of a stock of horses 

 from near the country of the Arabs, may be re- 

 garded as having partaken a good deal of the 

 Arabian character, while those of the north were 

 more allied to the Tartar breed, as at present found 

 in the south of Russia and in central Asia. 



Thus we are brought to at least not more than two 

 original races, one to the south of the mountains 

 which divide Asia in latitude, and the other to the 

 northward of the same. 



The characters of those two races, as they now 

 exist in the two countries, beyond which we cannot 

 trace them, may or may not be climatal varieties of 

 one single parent stock : but the probability is that 

 they are. The race of the south are remarkable for 

 beauty and fleetness ; and those of the north for 

 strength and protection from cold in the thickened 

 hair with which their bodies are covered, as compared 

 with the others. Now, when we look at other races 

 of animals, we find that the species which are adapted 

 for fleet motion over long distances, and by that 

 means the best fitted for an extended range over de- 

 serts but thinly spotted with anything upon which the 

 animals can subsist, or plains which are subject to 

 seasonal periods of barrenness in consequence of the 

 heat of the sun and the dryness of the air, have the 

 legs long and slender; while, on the other hand, 

 those which have to walk among rocks, to climb hills 

 or dwell in rough and miry places, have always the 

 legs much stouter ; so that though they do not admit 

 of such rapid motion, yet the animals can stand more 

 firmly upon them, and use the individual foot with 

 more power for a single exertion. This circumstance 

 did not escape the penetrating glance of Burns, the 

 Scottish bard, for he makes use of the expression 



" Muirlnnd rams, 

 Wi' woo' like gaits, an' feet like tram*." 



He does not, it is true, use the expression with any 

 reference to the point which we wish to establish ; 

 but then this makes his evidence all the more valu- 

 able. Now these characters of the Muirland sheep, 

 against which the subject of the poem is understood 

 to be cautioning her progeny, which of course mean, 

 "wool as coarse as the hair of goats," and "feet as 

 thick in proportion as the shafts of a cart," are the 

 very characters in which the northern, Tartaric, or 

 hill and bog horse differs from the southern, Arabic, 

 or wide and dry pasture one ; and if we find this dif- 

 ference between the characters of horses, and a par- 

 allel case in the matter of sheep, we perhaps get as 

 near to demonstration as such subjects will admit of, 

 that the thick-legged, strong-bodied, and compara- 

 tively slow horses are descended from the Tartar 

 breed, while the clean-limbed, narrow-chested, and 

 fleet horses are all from the south. It is doubtful 

 whether we have in western Europe any breed of 

 horses, comparatively in a slate of nature, which can 

 be considered as Arabians, only altered by climate ; 

 but there is little doubt that the Shetland pony is the 

 final stage of diminution in the Tartar horse, with the 

 blood pure ; and this is confirmed by the resemblance 

 in the shape of the head, and in many points of the 

 character of the two, for the, Shetland pony has really 

 more of the peculiar vigour and inexhaustibleness of 

 the eastern horse, than those handsome ponies which 

 are understood to have Arabian blood in them. 



The only other point which remains, worthy of 

 much inquiry, is from what origin the great dray 

 horse, usually called the Flanders horse, has been de- 

 rived. The thick legs, long fetlocks, square chest, 

 and heavy body of this horse, forbid all possibility of 

 relationship between it and the Arabian, and there- 

 fore we must have recourse to the other origin. Now 

 the horses of Holstein, and of all the richer parts of 

 Germany and the Netherlands, near the shores of the 

 German Ocean, are of this character ; and they are 

 always larger and heavier in proportion as the coun- 

 try is lower and richer in its surface ; and if the 

 severity ofthe climate, and more especially the poorness 

 of the pasture, could on the one hana reduce the 

 Tartar horse to the small dimensions of the Shetland 

 lony, it is quite natural to suppose that, on the other 

 land, the opposite kind of feeding might bring it up 

 o the volume of the dray horse. We know that 

 >oth the Saxons and Danes invaded England and 

 he Lowlands of Scotland from countries where, in 

 )art at least, such horses might be expected, from the 

 modifying influence of climate and pasturage alone ; 

 and, therefore, while we see the Tartar horse has been 

 carried by the northern route to Ireland, peopling the 

 whole of the north with little hardy ponies ; so the 

 Danes and the lower Saxons carried to Britain, and 

 he countries farther to the south, the parent stock of 

 ill those working horses of the British Islands, and 

 he adjacent parts of the continent, which are of 

 icavier make than the Welsh ceffal, which, as we 

 iave said, tnay be considered as the breed principally 

 ntroduced by the Romans. The dray horse may be 

 considered the extreme of this breeding in size ; and 

 rom what we have said of the incapacity of these 

 eavy horses for continued exertion, it is obvious that 

 or general purposes it has been carried beyond the 

 x>int of maximum value, by more having been lost in 

 ime than has been gained in power. 



Such is the history of the horse, in brief outline, 

 iewing that animal as an isolated member of animated 



