CHAPTER V. 



Primitive Stock of Wild Horses The Steppes. 



ARE there any genuine wild horses in existence that 

 is to say, any that are not descended, like those of 

 South America, from a domesticated stock ? Natu- 

 ralists have all concurred until very recently in an- 

 swering this question negatively. They were of 

 opinion that, as in the case of the sheep, the goat, and 

 some other domestic animals, not a single indication 

 remains by which we can judge of the form, the color, 

 or the habits, by which the horse was characterized 

 before it became the servant of man, or how far it 

 may have differed from the present domesticated 

 races. But this opinion is entirely gratuitous, and un- 

 supported by a single fact. They choose to assume, 

 in defiance of probability and of testimony, that the 

 herds of horses that roam over the vast unexplored 

 regions of Central Asia are not wild but feral (that is, 

 sprung from a tame stock), for no other reason than 

 because they are not very unlike our ordinary domestic 

 breeds. Colonel Hamilton Smith, a writer of great 

 authority, has combated these notions with great force. 

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