lO 



The Book of the Horse. 



"But Barbary is rough, rocky, and mountainous, intersected with ravines, and in many 

 portions thicl<ly covered witii shrubs. On such ground it would be impossible for a horse to 

 gallop with safety ; at any great pace he would be sure to come to grief. To avoid this he 

 trots, keeping his legs well under him, able to turn on one side or the other with great facility. 

 The nature of the ground causes him to raise his feet high at each step. Thus the different 

 action of horses of Barbary and Arabia may bg accounted for, assuming that they have a 

 common origin." 



In a review of the I'rench army by the late Emperor of the French, at Boulogne-sur-Mer, 

 soon after he assumed the imperial crown, the field officers of infantry regiments which had 



KI.IMHII CHIEF MOUNTED. 



recently served in Africa were most of them mounted on Barb ponies, many of them not more 

 than 13 liands high, with notliing to attract admiration except their astonishing manes 

 and tails, some of which actually swept the ground. I found in M. Fould and other French gentle- 

 men engaged in breeding-racc-horses quite as great a dislike to tlie Arab cross as i)rcvails amongst 

 the ICnglish. 



Tlie Shah of I'er.iia, wlien visiting ]<mgland, brought with him tivo Persian liorses, which, by 

 tile kindness of Colonel Maude, the Crown Equerry, I had an opportunity cjf closely examining. 



The Shah's favourite riding hor.se was a dark chestnut stallion, about 14 hands high, on 

 short legs, well crested, very powerful, antl with the peculiar picturesque style of tail of the 

 Arab, but in other respects not to be distinguished from an hjiglish thorough-bred ; his head, 

 although very blood lilcc, not having the Arab character the wide flat forehead and com- 



