166 THE WILD HORSE. 



they are, moreover, said to attack and destroy do- 

 mestic horses : they rise on their haunches in fight- 

 ing, and bite furiously ; while the mixed races, 

 though ready to bite, are more willing to strike out 

 with their hind feet, and neither have ever been 

 remarked lying down. In these particulars, the 

 younger Gmelin, who likewise travelled in Eastern 

 Russia, corroborates our account, and he does not 

 appear to have come to the same conclusions as 

 Forster or Pallas; we may therefore infer, from 

 what is here stated; that the foal observed by the 

 last mentioned author, when he was on the Samara, 

 opposite Sorotschinska, caught at Toskair Krepost, 

 was of the mixed race, or not sufficiently grown to 

 furnish a satisfactory representation. 



We made further inquiries respecting the resi- 

 dence of the piebald race of ancient history, in 

 High Asia, and found that a variety of this kind 

 was deemed distinct from the Russian horses, and 

 occasionally seen among the Tahtar and Ural do- 

 mestic breeds, but differing from the Chinese and 

 wild race " beyond the southern mountains," * in 

 having their feet very generally dark, while the 

 others have invariably white limbs. Those within 

 the frontier were said to be a breed belonging to the 



facts observed, if care be taken in the process of domestication ; 

 it must be understood to mean that the wild horse resists, till 

 death, the unceremonious forcible system of subjugation prac- 

 tised by the natives. 



* I understood by that appellation, that the Cossack spoke 

 relatively to his own position being north of the central chains 

 of Asia. 



