CHAPTEK VI. 



THE CENTAUR THE MONGOLS AND CALMUCKS 



A RUSSIAN TABOON. 



HE origin of the fabulous Centaur is 

 referred by some of tbe learned to the 

 Steppes, whence the first horses, and 

 probably their riders also, passed into 

 Thessaly. The equestrian skill acquired 

 by the Thessalians at an early period when the horse 

 was unknown in the rest of Greece, might have 

 induced the imaginative beholders to declare in 

 hyperbolical language that the horse an4 rider were 

 one body : 



" These gallants 



Had witchcraft in 't ; they grew into their seat, 

 And to such wondrous doing brought their horse 

 As they had been incorpsed, and deminatured 

 With the brave beast." 



And thus what was at first but a figurative expres- 

 sion, may have come afterwards to be regarded as 



