MR. KIRBY AND THE FOREIGNERS. 73 



finder, Clincher, Chief Justice, and Old England ; 

 Prussia followed up her Woful purchase with Brutan- 

 dorf, Elis, Sittingbourne, Talfourd, and Mundig ; 

 while Germany purchased Taurus twice over, and has 

 not a few scions of The Nigger, Wolfdog, Sheet 

 Anchor, Buckingham, Glaucus, Augustus, Erymus, 

 St. Nicholas, and Chief BaronNicholson, in her stalls: 

 The Colonel was repurchased from them, but for very 

 little purpose ; and Euclid and Attila both died on 

 shipboard. Cobnut is now in the Sardinian domi- 

 nions, and even "John Chinaman" has got Black Jack 

 and Little Bo-Peep. A great number of our blood 

 horses also go to the colonies, and a.bout a hundred 

 of them have landed at the Cape alone during the 

 last fifteen years, many of them with pedigrees a 

 foot long, but sadly unsound outcasts withal. In 

 its paddock list we find the names of the symmetrical 

 Battledore, Middlehanr, Fancy Boy, Evenus, Tra- 

 verser, Misdeal, Gammon-Box, Sylvan, Gorhambury, 

 Mr. Martin, and Cockermouth. The Cape turf is 

 said to have reached its zenith under Lord Charles 

 Somerset; and the late Sir Walter Gilbert bore high 

 testimony to the style in which the Dragoon Guards, 

 weighing on the average about twenty stone, were 

 carried through their long marches by its hackneys. 

 Unhappily, the present colonists do not pay such a 

 high price, or import nearly such good horses as they 

 used to do; and the Mynheers "cultivate assidu- 

 ously many of the continental prejudices regarding 

 colour and marks, and are particularly solicitous 

 about small pointed ears, a pretty head, and peacocky 

 carriage; legs and feet, strength and substance, being 

 minor considerations."* 



The Russians, who were once among our largest 

 customers, turn their sires out of the stud at twenty- 

 three, thus virtually folio wing the spirit of the Celtic 



* Sporting Review. March, 1856. 



