10 England's horses. 



when they had been either immolated or expelled, is the 

 impressive argument set up to show that the Arab horse of 

 the past and present is, like our own thorough-bred, an 

 artificial animal, dependent for his intrinsic qualities to the 

 accident of climatic influence, domestic treatment, " cross- 

 ing," and judicious culture. 



To ancient Egypt has been awarded, by philologists, the 

 first systematic attention to rearing and improving breeds 

 of horses. 



That from the Egyptians, Persians, Armenians, the Arabs 

 first derived the horse is, no doubt, correct. That they 

 cannot claim an indigenous horse at any 'period researches 

 of a very exhaustive character have, at various times, been 

 advanced to show. But, at the time of their uniting under 

 the sway of the Koran, they had for long, as a nation, been 

 accustomed to horses, is evidenced by the manner in which 

 their marvellous cavalry conquests were enforced over the 

 enormous mounted armies of Sassian Parthians, and the 

 disciplined science of Eastern Rome. We read : — " None 

 but a people long possessed of numerous and well trained 

 chargers, could have given wings to the sword of Islam, 

 and in sixty years planted its victorious banners on the 

 Pyrenees, as well as on the banks of the Ganges." 



With the extended conquests of the soldiers of the 

 crescent flowed throughout Southern Europe and the far 

 East that strain of equine blood, derived originally through 

 the ancient Egyptians, Parthians, and Armenians from high 

 Asia, after long periods of careful culture and " crossing " 

 had improved the animal type that represented it. 



The important correspondence that the interest for our 

 present subject has led to in the columns of the Times and 

 other journals, gives us, from the scholarly pen of the Earl 

 OF WiNCHiLSEA AND NOTTINGHAM, the most able letter it 

 has been my good fortune to read upon thu Arab and Barb 



