1 1 4 Gleanings from the 



muft have refembled our Shetland ponies, with 

 hair as thick as five fingers. Thefe Lilliputian 

 animals were not ridden, but yoked to carts. It 

 is curious to find the father of hiftory meafuring 

 the depth of horfes' hair by fingers, when our 

 ftandard meafure for their height confifts of 

 hands. 



The Goths and Cimbri were anciently, like the 

 Scythians, nomads, and lived alfo like them off 

 their herds and flocks ; for drink they had pure 

 water and mead, with mares' milk. 1 This milk, 

 however, they did not drink unlefs it had firft 

 been confecrated, the horfe being an animal facred 

 to the god of war. Sometimes they drank till 

 drunkennefs overcame them of the milk and blood 

 of their beafts of burden. They had horfes of 

 two colours, black and white, and efteeming one 

 or the other facred, did not ride on both alike. 2 

 The beafts of the ancient Germans, according to 

 Caefar, were fmall and ill-fhaped, and Tacitus fays 

 their horfes were neither confpicuous for beauty 

 nor fpeed, nor were they trained to circle round 

 at the will of their riders, as were the Roman 

 cavalry horfes. 3 The Britons attacked in a de- 

 fultory way with chariots, now charging their 



1 Cnf. Virgil, Georg.," iii. 463 : 



" Et lac concretum cum fanguine potat equino." 



Camilla, the heroine of the later books of the " ^neid," was 

 fed as an infant on mare's milk. One of the few babies pre- 

 ferved by the French through the horrors of the retreat from 

 Mofcow was kept alive by feeding it on a pafte made of horfe's 

 blood. 



2 See V. Hehn, ut fup. 8 Tac., " Germ.," vi. 



