114 THE HORSE. 



beauties and the defects of several of our Holstein 

 breeds. They are high, but perhaps heavy in action, 

 courageous, full of fire and passably proud. They 

 exhibit the germs of future ameliorations, and, taken as a 

 whole, may be regarded with considerable pleasure when 

 it is recollected that these are the horses of two thousand 

 three hundred years ago. 



"Art has done much for the horse since that time, but 

 the deportment and face of the human being was then 

 already perfect. These riders have not even a switch 

 with which to guide the animal, but they held the hair of 

 the mane in the left hand, and evidently directed the 

 horse by pulling the mane or pressing the neck with the 

 right hand, placed a little higher than the other." 



This last opinion of the English author is inadmis- 

 sible. How could its application be carried as far as the 

 direction of the horse in the midst of combats in the 

 different operations of war and of pursuit. 



It would be absurd to hope to conduct a horse solely 

 by pressure of the mane. This supposition suffers self- 

 destruction, because observation of these animals nullifies 

 this method of direction, for the mane was generally 

 cropped in a brush, and besides, in these same bas-reliefs, 

 the conductors of the chariots have free use of both arms 

 and hands, which indicates the action produced by the 

 tension of reins intended to conduct the horses. The 

 fingers of the riders are closed with a gesture which grasps 

 the reins that are imaginary to us. 



The ancients, wonderful observers of the harmony of 

 forms, were thoroughly capable of extracting the service 

 of which horses were capable, according to the regions 

 accustomed to produce a long race or a gathered up and 

 more amenable animal. 



I was struck, during my sojurn in Persia, by finding 

 vivid traces of the animals mentioned in the records 

 of the expeditions of Alexander the Great in Asia. 

 I have verified, by ancient authors, that especially in 

 the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, the form is 

 persistently maintained and answers 10 indications recall- 

 ing 330 years B.C. 



It is thus that these grand and long horses, destined 

 to drag the chariots, could be even now recruited among 



