THE HORSE. 187 



them. These are considered as next to the Ara- 

 bian horses both for swiftness and beauty, but 

 they are rather still smaller than the former. The 

 Italians have a peculiar sport, in which horses of 

 this breed run against each other. They have no 

 riders, but saddles so formed as to flap against the 

 horses' sides as they move, and thus to spur them 

 forward. They are set to run in a kind of railed 

 walk, about a mile long, out of which they never 

 attempt to escape ; but when they once set for- 

 ward, they never stop, although the walk from 

 one end to the other is covered with a crowd of 

 spectators, which opens and gives way as the 

 horses approach. Our horses would scarcely in 

 this manner face a crowd, and continue their 

 speed without a rider, through the midst of a 

 multitude ; and indeed it is a little surprising 

 how, in such a place, the horses find their own 

 way. However, what our English horses may 

 want in sagacity, they make up by their swift- 

 ness ; and it has been found upon computation, 

 that their speed is nearly one-fourth greater, even 

 carrying a rider, than that of the swiftest Barb 

 without one. 



The Arabian breed has been diffused into Egypt 

 as well as Barbary, and into Persia also ; where, as 

 we are told by Marcus Paulus, there are studs of 

 ten thousand white mares all together, very fleet, 

 and with the hoof so hard that shoeing is unne- 

 cessary. In these countries, they in general give 

 their horses the same treatment that they give in 

 Arabia, except that they litter them upon a bed 

 of their own dung, dried in the sun, and then re- 



