94 ON THE HORSE IN GENERAL. 



of farmer's-horfes, to the breed of which, little 

 or no attention has been paid. We are to 

 except the Shetland ponies, and a few remain- 

 ing Scotch and Welch mountain hobbies, 

 which are probably the fame race, in all re- 

 fpecls, as when they were either firft created 

 upon, or imported into the Illand. Every 

 body knows the Northern ponies are very 

 fmall, very hardy and durable, and amazingly 

 ftrong in proportion to their bulk. The torrid 

 zones, alfo, produce a very diminutive fpecies 

 of the Horfe; fome of them in Guinea, and 

 the Eaft Indies, are fcarce fuperior in fize to 

 large dogs ; but, unlike their peers of the hardy 

 regions of the North, they are weak, delicate, 

 mulifh, and almoft. without ufe. The following 

 anecdote of a poflman, and his little Horfe, 

 is extracted from that elaborate, and curi- 

 ous work, Sir John Sinclair's flatiftical ac- 

 count of Scotland. " A countryman, about 

 five feet ten inches high, who died lad year, 

 was employed by the Laird of Coll, as poll to 

 Glafgow or Edinburgh. His ordinary burden: 

 thence to Coll was fixteen {tone. Being once 

 flopped at a toll, near Dumbarton, he humo- 

 roufly afked, whether he fhould pay for a 

 burden ; and upon being anfwered in the 

 negative, carried his Horfe in his arms pad 

 the toll." 



The Horfes of this country had, no doubt, 



arrived 



