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MANUAL OF MODERN FARRIERY. 
grey colour so prevalent among the coursers of noble blood. 
If an Arabian horse exceeds fourteen and-a-half hands in 
© 
height, the purity of the blood is always doubted in India. 
Three of the swiftest horses which were known in our own 
times at Madras, were under fourteen hands. 
Above all others, the Kohlan horse of Arabia is distin¬ 
guished for his superior qualities and the beauty of his 
form. He possesses an uncommon mildness of temper, an 
unalterable attachment to his master, a courage and intre¬ 
pidity as astonishing as they are innate in his noble breast, 
an unfailing remembrance of the places where he has been, 
of the treatment he has received ; not to be led, not to be 
touched but by his master; in the midst of carnage in 
battle he is cool and collected ; he never forgets the place he 
came from, and though mortally wounded, if he can gather 
up sufficient strength, he carries back his desponding rider 
to his defeated tribe. His intelligence is wonderful, and he 
seems to know when he is sold. When the proprietor and 
purchaser meet for that purpose in the stable, the Kohlan 
soon guesses what is going on, becomes restless, gives from 
his beautiful eye a side-glance at the interlocutors, scrapes 
the ground with his foot, and plainly shows his discontent. 
The action of the Arabian in his native plains is very 
beautiful. He carries his head high, which gives him a dig¬ 
nified aspect; his tail is turned up in the air, and forms a 
most graceful curve, which our English dealers have vainly 
attempted to imitate by the cruel and absurd practice of 
nicking the vertebrae. 
In Arabia the horse is treated with the utmost gentle¬ 
ness, kindness, and affection. He inhabits the same tent 
with his master and family. His wife and children, with 
the mare and her foal, associate together in indiscriminate 
friendship, occupying the same bed, where the children may 
