36 FOKEIGN BREEDS OF HOUSES. 



Avith no more or better nourishment than a handful of grass, and with 

 nothing to quench their thirst.' This disciphne as much exceeds that ot 

 tlie Arabs in severity and horrible barbarity, as the Arabs excel the 

 Tartars in civilisation. ^ ,-, , , p xr. 



The horses of the Nogais Tartars are some of the best ot the roymg 

 tribes. They are stronger and taller than the others ; and some of them 

 are trained to draw carriages. It is from them that the Khan of Tartary 

 derives the principal part of his supplies. It is said that m case ot 

 necessity they could furnish a hundred thousand men. Each ot the 

 Noo-ais commonly has with him four horses ; one is for his own ridmg ; a 

 second to mount if the first should be tired ; and the other two to carry 

 his provisions, his slaves, and his booty. 



THE TOOEKOMAN HORSE. 

 Turkistan is that part of South Tartary north-east of the Caspian sea 

 and has been celebrated from very early times for producing a pure and 

 valuable breed of horses. They are called Toorhomans. They are said to 

 be preferable even to the pure Persians for actual service. They are 

 lar^e from fifteen to sixteen hands high, swift, and inexhaustible under 

 fatSnie Some of them have travelled nine hundred miles m e even sue 

 cesslve days. They are, however, somewhat too small m the barrel, too 

 lono- on the legs, occasionally ewe-necked, and always having a head out 

 of proportion large : yet such are the good quahties of the horse, that one 

 of the pure blood is worth two or three hundred pounds even m that 



""Tapt^ain Eraser, who is evidently a good judge of the horse,thus relates 

 the impression which they made on him, in his ' Journey to Khorasan :— 

 ' They are deficient in compactness. Theii- bodies are long m proportion 

 to their bulk. They are not well-ribbed up. They are long on the legs, 

 deficient in muscle, falling off below the knee ; narrow-chested ; long- 

 necked ; head large, uncouth, and seldom well put on _ Sach was the im- 

 pression I received from the first sight of them, and it was not for some 

 time that their superior valuable qualities were apparent to me. 



TheToorkomans trace their breed of horses to Arabian sires : and, most 

 anxious that a sufiEcient proportion of the pure blood shall be retamed, 

 they have frequent recourse to the best Ai^abians they can procure 



Before a Toorkoman starts on an expedition, he provides himself with a 

 few hard balls of barley-meal, which are to serve both him and his horse 

 for subsistence until his return ; but sometimes when, crossing the desert, 

 he is unusually faint and weary, he opens the jugular vein of his horse, 

 and drinks a little of the blood, by which he ^s^^doubtedly ref^-eshed 

 and he thinks, his horse is relieved. Accordmg to Sir John Malco m, the 

 Toorkoman will think httle of pushing the same horse one hundred miles 

 a day for some successive days ; and he adds, that a horseman niotinted on 

 a Toorkoman horse brought a packet of letters from Shiraz to Teheran, a 

 distance of five hundred miles, in six days. 



THE TURKISH HORSE. 

 The Turkish horses are descended principally from the Arab, crossed 

 by the Persian and other kindred varieties. They possess all the gentle- 

 ness and tractability of the parent race, but they have lost some of their 

 vigour and speed. They have contributed materially to the ^^P^o^*^^^^* 

 of the English breed. The Byerley and the Helmsley Turk are names 

 familiar to every one conversant ^vith horses, and connected with our best 



^ The learned and benevolent Busbequius, who was ambassador at Con- 



