186 A TREATISE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



the immense numbers of their horses. Those 

 of Tartary were greatly inferior in point of 

 beauty to those of the regions further south- 

 ward, but they were a hardy race. Their 

 heads were large ; ears long, wide and drooping 

 backward ; legs short and stout ; muzzle and 

 jaws fringed with long, stiff hair, or bristles; 

 mane thick and bushy ; hair long and shaggy, 

 and some of them with hair frizzled or curly 

 In color they were usually a brownish dun, 

 some of them approximating a cream color. 

 In the high mountainous regions of North- 

 ern India, near the head waters of the great 

 rivers of that country, were found a race of 

 very diminutive ponies. Corsica had, down 

 to a very late period, a race of small, wild 

 horses, vicious and untamable. Early writers 

 describe a peculiar race of horses found in the 

 mountains near the coast in Northern Africa 

 called Coomsie by the natives. They were said 

 to be 10 or 11 hands high, of a reddish color, 

 with broad foreheads, short heads, wide be- 

 tween the eyes, muzzle small, ears wide, eyes 

 small, hair long, and the tail covered with hair 

 like that of the body to its extremity, but ter- 

 minating in a tuft of long, black hair. 



A characteristic difference between the Asi- 

 atic horses and those of Africa has been noticed 

 by many writers, in that while in the Asiatic 

 varieties the length of body is about equal to 



