CLASS I. MAMMALIA: 
ORDER 10. SOLIDUNGULA. 
595 
THE CEUSADBES : KING EICHAED AND THE SAEACENS. 
gion;; of Asia renowned for horses from time immemorial. Choice animals were doubtless gath- 
ered here alike from the wide steppes of Scythia and from Media, Armenia, &c. ; and were 
brought to the sea-coast and distributed by the ships of Tyre and Sidon to various countries around 
the Mediterranean Sea. Greece and Egypt, we know, received a portion, and perhaps all their 
horses, from this source. While the horses of the northern migrations into Europe— fed on rich 
pastures and subject to a rigorous but stimulating climate — became robust, ponderous, and pow- 
erful, those of the more southern migration became light, graceful, and spirited. The armies of 
the Saracens, by conquest and pillage, became filled with these breeds, and in due time — that is, 
from the seventh to the tenth century — under the influence of the Caliphs, the renowned Arab 
race was founded. The difference between the horses produced from these two sources — that is, 
between those of Northern Europe and those of Western Asia — is well displayed by the differ- 
ence between the horses of the Crusaders and those of their enemies, when they met in Syria, 
The horse of a northern knight would have crushed a solid column of Moslem cavalry. In fact, 
Richard Coeur de Lion, with seventeen knights, rode in front of sixty thousand Turkish horsemen at 
Jaffa from the right to the left wing, and brandishing his lance, defied them to combat, without 
finding an adversary who dared to encounter him. 
While thus the original British horse was of this northern breed, it appears that it has for two 
thousand years been subject to infiltrations of the Asiatic stock. It is by no means improbable 
that horses were sometimes brought to England by the Phoenicians in that trade which we know 
to have existed for several centuries prior to the Christian era, and to which we have already 
alluded. The Romans also, during the five hundred years in which they held sway in Britain, 
doubtless introduced eastern breeds. It is also probable that the British Crusaders brought some 
Arab horses home with them. Spanish horses with Arabian blood have been frequently imported 
