THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 79 



vigour. Pallas tells us that the Russian boors make 

 use of the dried flesh of the Hamster reduced to 

 powder, and mixed with oats; and that this occasions 

 their horses to acquire a sudden and extraordinary 

 degree of embonpoint. Anderson relates, in his 

 ' History of Iceland,' that the inhabitants feed their 

 horses with dried fishes when the cold is very intense, 

 and that these animals are extremely vigorous, though 

 small. We also know that in the Feroe Islands, 

 the Orkneys, the Western Islands, and in Norway, 

 where the climate is very cold, this practice is also 

 adopted ; and it is not uncommon in some very warm 

 countries, as in the kingdom of Muskat, in Arabia 

 Felix, near the straits of Ormuz, one of the most 

 fertile parts of Arabia, fish and other animal sub- 

 stances are there given to the horses in the cold season, 

 as well as in times of scarcity." 



From horses eating to horses eaten, the transition 

 is easy and natural. Wherever the animal exists in 

 an unreclaimed state, its flesh is a staple article of 

 food. The Kirghis Kassaks pursue it with hawks, 

 and shoot it with arrows, or drive it into the Caspian 

 Sea to be drowned. The Calmucks, Mongols, and other 

 Tartars, make use of horse meat, and manufacture a 

 weak spirit, called koumiss, from mare's milk. The 

 mounted Indians of South America have no other 



