154 CTCLOPEDIA OF LIVE STOCK AND COMPLETE STOCK DOCTOR. 



acquired great exiDcrieiice in their use is equally certain. In the ancient 

 British language Rhediad is the word for a race — rheder, to run — and 

 rhedecfa^ a race. All these spring from the Gaulish rheda, a chariot. 

 Here, then, is a' direct evidence that horses were introduced from Gaul, 

 and that chariot-races were established at a very early period.' 



"This evidence" says Mr. Herbert "is not to my mind direct or con- 

 clusive, as to the fact of the introduction of the horse from Gaul ; al- 

 though it is so, as to the antiquity of chariot-racing in both countries, 

 and to the non-Roman descent or introduction of the British or Gaulish 

 animal. As the blood, the religion and the language of the Britons were 

 cognate, if not identical, with those of some, at least, of the Gallic tribes, 

 it is no more certain that the Gallic Rheda is the theme of the British 

 rheder, than that it is derived therefrom. It does, however, in a great 

 degree prove that the Gallic and British horses were identical, and de- 

 scended not from any breed transmitted through Greece and Italy, but 

 from one brought inland to the northward of the Alps ; perhajjs by those 

 Gauls, who ravaged Upper Greece and Northern Italy, almost before the 

 existence of authentic historj^ ; perhaps by their original ancestors ; at all 

 events, of antique Thracian or Thessalic descent, and, therefore, of re- 

 mote but direct oriental race, in all probability again improved by a later 

 desert cross, derived from the Numidian cavalry of the Carthaginian 

 Barcas, long previous to the Caesarian campaigns in Gaul or the invasions 

 of the sacred island of the Druids. This, however, is of small imme- 

 diate moment, and is more curious and interesting to the scholar and the 

 antiquary, than to the horseman or horsebreeder. 



"From the different kinds of vehicles, noticed by the Latin writers, 

 it would appear that the ancient Britons had horses trained to different 

 purposes, as Avell domestic as warlike. 



"It is well observed by Youatt, in his larger work on the horse, that 

 from the cumbrous structure of the car, and the fury with which it was 

 driven, and from the badness or non-existence of roads, they must have 

 been both active and powerful in an extraordinary degree. 'Caesar,' he 

 adds, though without stating his authority, 'thought them so valuable, 

 that he carried many of them to Eome ; and the British horses -were, for 

 a considerable period afterwards, in great request in various parts of the 

 Roman empire.' 



" 'During the occupation of England by the Romans, the British horse 

 was crossed to a considerable extent by the Roman horse,' continues the 

 author in the volume first quoted ; for which I would myself, for reasons 

 above stated, prefer to substitue by the foreign horftes of the Roman 

 mercenary or allied cavalry, 'and yet, strange to say, no opinion is given 

 by any historian, Roman or British, as to the effect of this. After tb<» 



