590 
THE HISTORY OF THE HORSE, 
ders breed was strong. The horses in Gaul were good for carrying 
burthens. The German breeds were so bad, so diminutive and ill¬ 
shaped, that no use could be made of them. The Swiss and Hun¬ 
garian horses were good; and, lastly, those of India diminutive and 
feeble. 
Next to the Arabian was formerly accounted the Barb. The 
original horses of Barbary and Morocco were considerably smaller 
than the Arabian breed, but, when the tide of Mahometan conquest, 
under the dominion of the Caliphs, swept over the western portion 
of northern Africa, the breed was improved by a mixture of Ara¬ 
bian blood. The faith of Mahomet springing up in Arabia, and being 
propagated by a wild sword law, improved, by a dispersion of its va¬ 
luable breed of horses, the native stock in every country which fell 
beneath the ensign of the crescent. In Turkey there are to be 
found horses of almost all races, besides the national breed,—Ara¬ 
bians, Tartars, and Hungarians; of both of the latter I will speak 
with more detail as I pursue my subject. 
Next to the Barb was generally accounted the Spanish Jennet. 
These horses, like the Barb, were small, but swift. The head 
large, the mane thick, ears long, but well pointed, the eyes like 
fire, the legs beautiful, the pastern long as in the Barb, but the 
hoof rather too high; nevertheless they moved with grace, ease, and 
spirit. The colour was usually black or dark bay. 
The grave and stately Spaniards, who valued a horse in propor¬ 
tion to his susceptibility of the manoeuvres of the riding-house, 
were accustomed to style those which excelled in such exercises 
hagedores, or doers. We in this country emphatically distinguish by 
the appellation of goers those horses particularly endowed with our 
favourite qualification, speed. The long occupation of Grenada by 
the Moors, and its final conquest by Ferdinand and Isabella, pro¬ 
bably gave rise to the superiority of the Spanish breed in the neigh¬ 
bouring province of Andalusia, where so high a value was set upon 
external grace, that its natives have become proverbial for its pos¬ 
session. 
“ She cannot step as doth an Arab Barb, 
Or Andalusian girl from mass returning.” 
Notwithstanding its parade, the Spanish jennet possesses courage, 
grace, and spirit, in a higher degree than the Barb. 
I cannot avoid thinking that the swift breed of South American 
horses, bred to the chase in the neighbourhood of Quito, must be of 
this kindred, imported by Pizarro or his successors, when they 
conquered Peru. The Mexicans were as much astonished by the 
sight of the Spanisli soldiers on horseback as by the prediction of 
the coming eclipse by Cortez, which affords presumptive evidence 
