76 TITR HORSK. 



dence that horses were introduced from Ganl, and that chariot- 

 races were established at a very early period." 



I would here observe, that this evidence is not to ni}^ mind 

 direct or conclusive, as to the fact of the introduction of the 

 horse from Gaul ; although it is so, as to the antiquity of chariot- 

 racing in both countries, and to the non-Eoman descent or 

 introduction of the British or Gaulish animal. And my reason 

 for so saying is that, as the blood, the religion and the language 

 of the Britons were cognate if not identical with those of some, 

 at least, of the Gallic tribes, it is no more certain that the Gallic 

 Rheda is the theme of the British rheder, than that it is derived 

 therefrom. It does, however, in a great degree prove that the 

 Gallic and British horses were identical, and descended not 

 from any breed transmitted through Greece and Italy, but from 

 one brought inland to the nortlnvard of the Alps ; perhaps by 

 those Gauls, who ravaged Upper Greece and Northern Italy, 

 almost before the existence of authentic history ; perhaps by 

 their original ancestors ; at all events, of antique Thracian or 

 Thessalic descent, and, therefore, of remote but direct oriental 

 race, in all probability again improved by a later desert cross, 

 derived from the Numidian cavalry of the Carthaginian Barcas, 

 long previous to the Caesarian campaigns in Gaul or the inva- 

 sions of the sacred island of the Druids. Tliis^ however, is of 

 small immediate moment, and is more curious and interesting 

 to the scholar and the antiquary, than to the horseman or horse- 

 breeder. 



" From the different kinds of vehicles, noticed by the Latin 

 ■writers — the carruca, the covinus^ the esseduni, or w^ar-chariot — 

 it would appear that the ancient Britons had horses trained to 

 different purposes, as well domestic as warlike." 



Of the number of horses possessed at this period by the 

 natives of Britain, I have already spoken ; and it is well 

 observed by Youatt, in his larger work on the horse, that from 

 the cumbrous structure of the car and the fury w'ith wdiich it 

 was driven, and from the badness or non-existence of roads, 

 they must have been both active and powerful in an extraordi- 

 nary degree. " Csesar," he adds, though without stating his 

 authority, " thought them so valuable, that he carried many of 

 them to Rome ; and the British horses were, for a considerable 



