430 MANUAL OF MODERN FARRIERY. 



grey colour so prevalent among the coursers of noble blood. 

 If an Arabian horse exceeds fourteen and-a-half hands in 

 height, the purity of the blood is always doubted in India. 

 Three of the swiftest horses which were known in our own 

 times at Madras, were under fourteen hands. 



Above all others, the Kohlan horse of Arabia is distin- 

 guished for his superior qualities and the beauty of his 

 form. He possesses an uncommon mildness of temper, an 

 unalterable attachment to his master, a courage and intre- 

 pidity as astonishing as they are innate in his noble breast, 

 an unfailing remembrance of the places where he has been, 

 of the treatment he has received ; not to be led, not to be 

 touched but by his master ; in the midst of carnage in 

 battle he is cool and collected ; he never forgets* the place he 

 came from, and though mortally wounded, if he can gather 

 up sufficient strength, he carries back his desponding rider 

 to his defeated tribe.' His intelligence is wonderful, and he 

 seems to know when he is sold. When the proprietor and 

 purchaser meet for that purpose in the stable, the Kohlan 

 soon guesses what is going on, becomes restless, gives from 

 his beautiful eye a side-glance at the interlocutors, scrapes 

 the ground with his foot, and plainly shows his discontent. 



The action of the Arabian in his native plains is very 

 beautiful. He carries his head high, which gives him a dig- 

 nified aspect ; his tail is turned up in the air, and forms a 

 most graceful curve, which our English dealers have vainly 

 attempted to imitate by the cruel and absurd practice of 

 nicking the vertebraB. 



In Arabia the horse is treated with the utmost gentle- 

 ness, kindness, and affection. He inhabits the same tent 

 with his master and family. His wife and children, wdth 

 the mare and her foal, associate together in indiscriminate 

 friendship, occupying the same bed, where tiie children may 



