86 FOREIGN BREEDS OF HORSES. 



breed of horses. They are called Toorkomans. They are said to be preferable 

 even to the pure Persians, for actual service. They are large, from fifteen 

 to sixteen hands high, swift, and inexhaustible under fatigue. Some of them 

 have travelled nine hundred miles in eleven successive days. They are, how- 

 ever somewhat too small in the barrel,— too long on the legs, — occasionally 

 ewe-necked, and always having a head out of proportion large : yet such are the 

 good qualities of the horse, that one of the pure blood is worth two or three 

 hundred pounds, even m that country. 



Captain Fraser, who is evidently a good judge of the horse, thus relates the 

 impression which they made on him, in his Journey to Khorasan :— " They 

 are deficient in compactness. Their bodies are long in proportion to their bulk. 

 They are not well-ribbed up. They are long on the legs, — deficient in muscle, 

 — falling off below the knee ; narrow-chested, — long-necked, — head large, 

 uncouth, and seldom well put on. Such was the impression I received from 

 the first sight of them, and it was not for some time that their superior valu- 

 able qualities were apparent to me." 



The Toorkomans trace their breed of horses to Arabian sires ; and, most 

 anxious that a sufficient proportion of the pure blood shall be retained, they 

 have frequent recourse to the best Arabians they can procure. 



Before a Toorkoman starts on an expedition, he provides himself with a few 

 hard balls of barley-meal, which are to serve both him and his horse for sub- 

 sistence until his return ; but sometimes when, crossing the desert, he is un- 

 usually faint and weary, he opens the jugular vein of his horse, and drinks a 

 little of the blood, by which he is undoubtedly refreshed, and, he thinks, his 

 horse is relieved. According to Sir John Malcolm, the Toorkoman will think 

 little of pushing the same horse one hundred miles a day for some successive 

 days ; and he adds, that a horseman mounted on a Toorkoman horse brought a 

 packet of letters from Shiraz to Teheran, a distance of five hundred miles, in 

 six days. 



THE TURKISH HORSE. 



The Turkish horses are descended principally from the Arab, crossed by the 

 Persian and other kindred varieties. They possess all the gentleness and tracta- 

 bility of the parent race, but they have lost some of their vigour and speed. 

 They have contributed materially to the improvement of the English breed. 

 The Byerley and the Helmsley Turk are names familiar to every one conver- 

 sant with horses, and connected with our best blood. 



The learned and benevolent Busbequius, who was ambassador at Constanti- 

 nople in the seventeenth century, gives the following account of the Turkish 

 horses. Our grooms, and their masters too, may learn a lesson of wisdom and 

 humanity from his words. 



" There is no creature so gentle as a Turkish horse, nor more respectful to 

 his master, or the groom that dresses him. The reason is, because they treat 

 their horses with great lenity. 1 myself saw, when I was in Pontus, passing 

 through a part of Bithynia called Axilos, towards Cappadocia, how indulgent 

 the countrymen were to young colts, and how kindly they used them soon after 

 they were foaled. They would stroke them, bring them into their houses, and 

 almost to their tables, and use them even like children. They hung something 

 like a jewel about their necks, and a garter which was full of amulets against 

 poison, which they are most afraid of. The grooms that dress them are as 

 indulgent as their masters ; they frequently sleek them down with their hands, 

 and never use a cudgel to bang their sides, but in cases of necessity. This makes 

 their horses great lovers of mankind ; and they are so far from kicking, wincing, 

 or growing untractable by this gentle visage, that you will hardly find an ill- 

 tempered horse amongst them. 



