THE PERSIAN— TOORKOMAN. 17 



them to prevent accident ; and sometimes, notwithstanding all this care, 

 they manage to break loose, and then the combat ensues. A general 

 neighing, screaming, kicking, and snorting, soon rouses the grooms, and 

 the scene for awhile is terrible. Indeed no one can conceive the sudden 

 uproar of such a moment who has not been in Eastern countries to hear it, 

 and then all who have, must bear me witness that the noise is tremendous. 

 They seize, bite, and kick each other with the most determined fury, and 

 frequently cannot be separated before their heads and haunches stream with 

 blood. Even in skirmishes with the natives, their horses take part in the 

 fray, tearing each other with their teeth, while their masters are in similar 

 close quarters on their backs." 



His description of a Persian race does not altogether remind us of 

 Newmarket or Doncaster. 



*' My curiosity was fully on the spur to see the racers, which I could not 

 doubt must have been chosen from the best in the nation to exhibit the perfec- 

 tion of its breed before the sovereign. The rival horses were divided into 

 three sets, in order to lengthen the amusement. They had been in training 

 for several weeks, going over the ground very often during that time ; and 

 when I did see them, I found so much pains had been taken to sweat and 

 reduce their weight, that their bones were nearly cutting the skin. The 

 distance marked for the race was a stretch of four-and-twenty miles, and, 

 that his majesty might not have to wait when he had reached the field, the 

 horses had set forward long before, by three divisions, from the starting 

 point, (a short interval of time passing between each set,) so that they 

 might begin to come in, a few minutes after the king had taken his seat. The 

 different divisions arrived in regular order at the goal, but all so fatigued 

 and exhausted, that their former boasted fleetness hardly exceeded a 

 moderate canter when they passed before the royal eyes." 



In Circassia almost every family of distinction, whether of princes or 

 nobles, boasts of possessing a peculiar race of horses, which, when young, 

 are burned on the buttock with a particular mark. On this occasion, they 

 act with the most scrupulous adherence to custom, so that a person who 

 should attempt to burn a character expressing noble descent, on a filly of 

 a common race, would, for such forgery, forfeit his life. The most cele- 

 brated race of Circassian horses has received the name of Shalokh, and is 

 in the exclusive possession of the Tau Sultan family. This race is valu- 

 able for its strength and swiftness, more than its pecuHar beauty. Its dis- 

 tinguishing mark is a full horse-shoe, without an arrow. 



THE TOORKOMAN HORSE. 



Turkistan is that part of South Tartary, north-east of the Caspian sea, 

 and has been celebrated from very early times, for producing a pure and 

 valuable breed of horses. They are called Toorkomans. They are said to 

 be preferable even to the pure Persians, for service. They are large, 

 standing from fifteen to sixteen hands high; swift, and inexhaustible 

 under fatigue. Some of them have travelled nine hundred miles in eleven 

 successive days. They, however, are somewhat too small in the barrel, — 

 too long on the legs, — occasionally ewe-necked, and always have a head 

 out of proportion large : yet, such are the good qualities of the horse, that 

 one of the pure blood is worth two or three hundred pounds, even in that 

 country. 



Captain Fraser, who is evidently a good judge of the horse, (in his 



