74 THE HORSE AND ITS RELATIVES 



sixteenth century, wild horses would seem to have 

 lived in the Vosges Mountains, the wild borderland 

 between two nationalities ; for Rosslin, in his 

 account of Alsace and the Vosges (Strasburg, 1593), 

 thus circumstantially describes them : ' Horses that 

 be of their kind much wilder and shyer than the 

 stag ; also much more difficult to take even in 

 traps like the stag ; yet when they are tamed, which 

 is accomplished with great toil and trouble, they 

 make the very best horses, that equal those of 

 Spain and Turkey, and surpass them in many 

 things, and are hardier, for they are accustomed to 

 cold and to coarse food, and are sure-footed, being 

 as used to mountains and rocks as the chamois.' 



"If wild horses were thus found in the cultivated 

 west and south of Germany, they must have existed 

 still longer in the wild country on the Baltic, in 

 Poland, and Russia. In fact, we find innumerable 

 proofs of this down to modern times. At the time 

 of Bishop Otto of Bamberg, in the first half of the 

 twelfth century, Pomerania was rich in all kinds of 

 game, including wild oxen and horses. At the 

 same period wild horses are mentioned as extant in 

 Silesia, whence Duke Sobeslaus in 1132 'carried 

 away many captives, and herds of wild mares not a 

 few.' It is known, and is confirmed by many literary 

 allusions, that till the time of the Reformation, 

 and even later, the woods of Prussia were inhabited 

 by wild horses. Toppen's History of Masovia 



