102 INTRODUCTION. 



and families to the opposite shores, sometimes seve- 

 ral miles distant. Of all the races of man, they 

 alone eat their flesh, drink the milk of mares, and 

 know how to convert it into curmi^ an intoxicating 

 beverage ; they marry on horseback, their councils 

 meet on horseback, and declarations of war, treaties 

 of peace or alliance, are dated from the stirrup of 

 the sovereign. * 



The nations of High Asia were inventors of the 

 bridle, of the true saddle, of the stirrup, t and pro- 

 bably of the horse-shoe. With many of them, a 

 horse, a mare, and a colt were fixed nominal stand- 

 ards of value, such as the cow was once among the 

 Celtae. In a general view, equestrian habits be- 

 come more and more decided as we advance towards 

 the East. In Europe, the Poles continued to elect 

 their kings on horseback to our own times. At pre- 

 sent, no nation of the west can oppose an equal 

 force of cavalry to the Russian ; in the earlier cam- 

 paigns of Suwarrow, the Russian could not cope 

 with the Turkish ; a century ago, the Turks were 

 inferior to the Persian horse; and these were re- 

 peatedly overwhelmed by Usbeks, Afghauns, and 

 Toorkees, who, descending from North-eastern Tah- 

 tary, came from the Jaxartes down the valley of 

 the Oxus, each in turn propelled by riding armies 



* Not a few of these habits are, however, already in vogue 

 among the Abipones and Pawnees, the new Tahtars of Ame- 

 rica, both in the north and south. 



t Stirrup, or Rikiob, first mentioned by Avicenna. Of horse- 

 shoes we shall speak hereafter. 



