THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 76 



they indulge habitually, is that of washing their hair 

 in mare's blood. They are fond indeed of intoxicating 

 liquors, which they drink to excess when they can 

 procure them from the white men ; but this happens 

 only on rare occasions, and they have none of their 

 own manufacture. 



The tribes that, settling, some fifteen hundred or 

 two thousand years ago, in the regions of Europe sur- 

 rounding the Baltic, brought with them the worship 

 of Odin, were undoubtedly of Asiatic origin, and came 

 probably from the banks of the Don, and the shores 

 of the Black Sea. It is a curious confirmation of this 

 opinion, that the eating of horseflesh prevailed among 

 their descendants down to the eleventh century. 

 Now such a custom could never have arisen spon- 

 taneously in a country like Germany, or Scandinavia, 

 where the animal was comparatively scarce and valua- 

 ble, but it must have existed from the earliest times 

 in the inexhaustible pastures of the plains of Asia. 

 It was practised at the religious feasts of the Pagan 

 north, in commemoration of the original land of those 

 who partook of the banquet, and was a token of 

 adherence to the religion of Odin. In one of Pope 

 Zachary's letters to Saint Boniface, the great apostle 

 of the Germans, he enjoins that pious missionary to 

 prevent the eating of horseflesh ; and St. Olaf, the 

 cruel king, who converted the Scandinavians to 

 Christianity by the sword, put to death or mutilated 



