THE HORSE. 
xii 
HISTORY. 
and Tripoli. Those of the interior, on the confines of the Great Desert, are described as of smaller size, hut as being swift, and 
wonderfully patient of thirst, hunger, and toil. Some of them in the inland mountains of Morocco are said to he fed solely on 
camel’s milk; to be of matchless endurance, but to droop and die when brought to the countries on the sea and deprived of their 
habitual aliment. 
Turning from the regions of the swift and agile Horse of Africa to the countries of the Euxine and Caspian Seas, which we 
may regard as another central region of the Horse, we find the animal reared under different conditions, and exhibiting a different 
class of characters. He is here of a robust form, with broader chest and more muscular limbs. He is superior in strength of 
body to the slender African, but inferior in speed. His bearing is more bold, his aspect more noble. He is capable of tasks to 
which the strength of the African is unsuited; but he requires a larger supply of food, and would sink under the thirst and slender 
nourishment on which the other can subsist. This race is found in perfection in the countries near the Euxine and Caspian Seas, 
in the mountains of the Caucasus, in Armenia, and other parts of Asia Minor. The Circassians, amongst the western Asiatics, 
are noted for the beauty and excellence of their horses. These warlike mountaineers have their breeds of noble blood, on which 
they set an extreme value. They brand them by peculiar marks, as a horse-shoe, an arrow, a lance, the imitation of which they 
punish as a capital crime. The Turcomans possess horses of great strength and power, fit for war and the chase; and likewise 
the Kurds, who have in every age maintained their liberties. It is from the same countries that the Turks derived that splendid 
cavalry with which they subdued the neighbouring nations. Recurring to the happier ages when Asia Minor was covered with 
cities and the monuments of civilization, we find that it was distinguished for its horses as for all its productions. Armenia sup¬ 
plied with horses and mules the merchant princes of Sidon and Tyre; and in a subsequent age the horses of the same countries 
are described by Vegetius and other writers as being a race tall and beautiful. Homer, nearly a thousand years before the 
Christian era, speaks of the horses of the same countries as yoked to the chariots of his heroes; and, at a subsequent period, the 
horses of Capadocia, Phrygia, and the neighbouring states, furnished steeds to contend in the Olympic games of Greece. Now 
the fertile regions of Asia Minor are laid desolate. The glory of its twenty nations has passed away like a dream. Ages of 
tyranny and misrule have marred the image of the lovely land, and left us but the recollection of its former happiness. Its arts 
have disappeared with the palaces of its kings and the tombs of its heroes. If its noble horses still survive, though deprived of 
their ancient glory, this is because the tyranny of man has not been able wholly to destroy the bounties of nature in her animal 
productions. All the horses of the countries referred to, although varying in strength and size with the fertility of the districts 
they inhabit, exhibit a common class of characters. 
To the southward we enter the deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia, and the arid wilderness of Arabia. Of all the countries 
of the East, Arabia has become the most celebrated for its horses. This wild and barren country, however, does not seem to have 
acquired the Horse until the less remote periods of its history. The Camel, the Ox, the Sheep, the Goat, afforded the inhabitants 
of old, as at the present day, their chief means of subsistence. The Horse appears to have been added as their habits became 
more predatory. Their contact with Persia, and the countries of the Horse on the north, put it in their power to obtain horses ; 
and they acquired them just as we see tribes of savages in modern times possess themselves of fire-arms, which they use for mutual 
destruction or defence. No records exist to show at what era the Arabians began to use horses, but it appears that they were 
little multiplied in the country till after the Christian era. Even in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Strabo states of the south 
of Arabia, then termed Arabia Felix, that it had neither horses nor mules; and regarding the north of Arabia, or Arabia Deserta, 
he says, that it had no horses, and that camels supplied their place. The warlike successors of Mahomet became horsemen, 
and laid the countries of the Horse in the East under contribution; but up to the age of the Prophet himself, the horses of the 
country were neither numerous nor generally diffused. On his advance to Mecca to take vengeance on his enemies of the Koreish, 
he had only two horses in his army, and in the list of plunder which he carried back with him, while there were camels, sheep, silver, 
and human captives, not a single horse is mentioned. When once, however, the Horse was added to the domesticated animals of 
this eager and wandering people, the gift was cultivated with boundless care. With them the Horse acquired a value which it 
could scarcely any where else possess. Not luxury and enjoyment alone depended on their horses, but liberty and life; and they 
acquired a love and regard for the animal which no other people have manifested in the like degree. They speak of their horses 
with all the warmth of eastern enthusiasm, they cherish the memory of their feats, and boast of their ancestry. They have formed 
to themselves families which they hold to be of noble lineage, and breeding from these, and preserving the purity of descent, they 
have succeeded, beyond all the people of the East, in perpetuating a race of horses possessed of many valuable properties, and 
suited in an eminent degree to the condition of the country and the uses of the people. 
The horses of Arabia are connected in all their characters with those of the Caucasus and Asia Minor, as might be inferred 
from the geographical position of the country in contact with the great region of the Asiatic Horse on the north. But inhabiting 
