262 THE HORSE. 



turn. The course was straight ; and at the end of 

 two miles stood a pillar, around which the racers 

 turned, running home again to the starting post, in 

 order to complete the four miles. But the cream of 

 all this remains to be skimmed. At some distance 

 beyond the pillar, or sharp turn just passed, another 

 trial presented itself for the skill of the riders or 

 drivers. It was no less than the terrific and scare- 

 crow figure of the god, Taraxippus, the alarmer of 

 horses, placed in full view of the racers as they passed, 

 in order to frighten, and cause them to run out of 

 the course, as an additional test of the skill and 

 prowess of the charioteers and jockeys. 



During the Eastern empire, Constantine the Great 

 and his successors ardently pursued the racing sys- 

 tem, upon a scale of the highest magnificence ; and, 

 in the reign of those princes, the principle of justice 

 and compassion towards animals, was well under- 

 stood and acted upon. The horse was placed under 

 the protection of the law, and the humanity of the 

 government was signal towards those faithful ser- 

 vants, the old racers, which had won laurels by their 

 labours in the circus : those were maintained at tlieir 

 ease during the remainder of their lives, as pen- 

 sioners on the public treasury. Readers who desire 

 to go farther into this branch of the subject, are re- 

 ferred to the "History of the Horse," where I have 

 oiven two modern examples of a very different com- 

 plexion, in Bosphorus and Shaftoe's Squirrel. When 

 I first heard of Old Squirrel being condemned to end 

 his former brilliant career in a fish-cart, the recollec- 



