184 ON RUNNING HORSES 



travel eighty or a hundred miles in a day, for 

 feveral fucceirive days, over the fand and ftones 

 of that fultry climate. Sir John Chardin fays, 

 that the Arabian method of trying a maiden 

 horfe, is to ride him ninety miles without ftop- 

 ping, and at the end of that moderate flage, to 

 plunge him up to the cheft in water ;. if he 

 would im.mediately eat his corn, that proof of 

 the vigour of his appetite alfo proved the ge- 

 nuinenefs of his blood. But Sir John under- 

 ftood precious flones better than horfes, and 

 might, like other travellers, eafily liflen to any 

 wonderful flory concerning them. Dr. Blu- 

 menbach, who has within thefe few years wHt- 

 ten a celebrated treatife on the native varieties 

 of the human fpecies, fays, " that all animals 

 " deflitute of the dark pigment of the eye, are 

 " a mere altered breed." How far that obferva-' 

 tion is entitled to dependence, I have never 

 had the opportunity to confider or examine, but 

 the purchale of a particular breed of animals 

 would furely be lead liable to deception in the 

 original country where they were bred. The 

 external charafteriflic of original genus is uni- 

 formity, or univerfal fymmetry ; and the true- 

 bred Arab is diflinguifhed by his hlken hair, and 

 foft flexible fl^in, deer-like hoofs and pafterns, 

 fmall muzzle, full eye, fmall well-turned head, 

 joined to the neck with a curve, capacious 

 (boulders, extenfive angle of the hock, length 



and 



