THE HORSE. 
XVII 
HISTORY. 
The native horses of Franee vary in strength and size with the fertility of the districts in which they have been naturalized. In the 
countries of abundant herbage they tend to the massy form characteristic of the great horses of Northern Europe. In the southern 
districts, and generally in those in which the production of herbage is scanty, they assume a lighter form. But besides the 
characters acquired from the nature of the districts in which the horses are naturalized, there are other characters imprinted by 
mixture of foreign blood. French writers divide the horses of France into those of the Common and those of the Fine race; the 
latter having had their characters communicated to them by means of foreign blood. The largest and most powerful horses of 
France are produced in Normandy and Picardy. The best for the saddle are believed to be derived from Limousin. In the year 
732, an army, said to consist of 200,000 Saracens, penetrated even to the walls of Poictiers, where they were totally routed by 
the heroic Charles Martel. It is perhaps to the horses then left in the country, that those of Limousin and the neighbouring 
districts owe that lightness of form which distinguishes them. Towards the mouth of the Rhone is likewise a race of agile horses, 
having the characters of Barbs, from which they are probably descended. But the native horses of France may be described as 
destitute of that elegance and lightness of action which characterize the horses of southern lineage. Vast pains, however, have 
been taken by successive Governments of France to improve the breeds of native horses. This was a favourite object of Napoleon, 
who introduced considerable numbers of Arabians by the way of Germany. But the enormous destruction of horses by war in 
the Revolutionary and Imperial armies, and the necessity of resorting to every race of the tributary countries around for cavalry, 
have greatly retarded the improvement of the races of France. Since the peace, the high-bred horses of England have been much 
sought for, as possessing the qualities in which the French horses are supposed to be deficient, namely, bone and action. 
Germany is a country which, in every known age, has produced numerous herds of horses. The native horses of Germany 
vary with the fertility of the countries which produce them; but generally, Germany is a country productive of the grasses and 
corn, and the horses are large and fitted for the exercise of physical strength, but deficient in agility and fleetness. They are well 
suited for heavy cavalry, for which the Germans have always been noted in modern wars; and, during the middle ages, the larger 
horses were especially cultivated for the knights and heavy-armed horsemen of the time. Lighter horses have also been intro¬ 
duced from the Ukraine, and other countries to the eastward. The largest horses in Germany are found in Holstein, Mecklenburg, 
and other countries rich in the grasses, on the shores of the Baltic, and the valleys of the great rivers. The same race of heavy 
horses extends to the Danish dominions of the Continent, which have long supplied the other parts of Europe with coach-horses- 
In Holland and Flanders, the same kinds of horses exist, but of yet more bulky and clumsy form: showing that when the climate 
is moist, when the grasses are abundant, and when artificial food is largely supplied, the Horse assumes that grossness of form 
which increases his powers of mere strength, but diminishes his speed and capability of active exertion. 
Great Britain has been a country abounding in horses for an unknown period. The first accounts we receive of the horses of 
these Islands are from the Romans. When Julius CLesae, fifty-four years before the Christian era, landed on the shores of Kent, 
he found the Celtic aborigines in possession of numerous horses, which they employed as cavalry, or attached to chariots after the 
manner of the nations of the East. Short scythes, such as were used by the Persians and other Orientals, were fixed to the axle- 
trees of the chariots. Tacitus and other writers confirm the testimony of CyESAE ; and, what is worthy of note, chariots were found 
in parts of the island which, of all others, seemed the least suited for such an engine. In the great battle fought by the Caledo¬ 
nians for the liberties of their country at the passes of the Grampians, chariots were used in great numbers, and with desperate 
but unavailing courage on the part of the combatants. The Gauls, too, as we learn from Diodorus Siculus, formerly used 
chariots; and it cannot but be regarded as remarkable, that the Celtic tribes of Europe should have employed the same usage in 
this respect as the earliest nations of the East,—the Indians, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Assyrians, and the Greeks during 
the heroic ages. 
With respect to the character of the ancient horses of these Islands, we are left to form a judgment from the nature of the 
country, and from the races still preserved in which there is no admixture, or a very slight one, of foreign blood. We find the 
horses of this kind adapting themselves entirely to the physical conditions of the districts in which they are naturalized. In the 
countries of mountains and heaths, where natural and artificial food is scanty, they are small, or of the pony size: in the lower 
plains, they are of gross aspect and massy form; so that no country of the same extent presents greater diversity in the characters 
of its native horses than the British Islands. All, however, when foreign blood has not been introduced, are of the coarse cart¬ 
horse form, which we are now in use to distinguish as indicating a want of breeding or blood. They have physical strength, but 
are deficient in that power of muscular exertion which distinguishes the horses of more genial climes. 
But a mixture of races may be supposed to have taken place at an early period. During the long space of 400 years in 
which South Britain remained a Roman province, it may be believed that the horses of the Roman cavalry exercised some influ¬ 
ence on the native breeds. But the Romans abandoned all their conquests in Britain in the early part of the fifth century, when 
