both. The barb possesses a superb and high action; is an excellent trotter and galloper, and very active when in motion. Although generally not so strong as other breeds, when well chosen I do not know a more noble horse; and I have read strange accounts of their courage, for example, when so badly wounded that their entrails have protruded, they have carried their riders safe and sound out of danger, with the same spirit with which they entered it, and then dropped dead."

He gives the preference to barbs, though, as he observes, he may be prejudiced in their favour by having had and seen more of them than

of

any other sorts of horses. The best sorts he observes come from Cordoue, in Andalusia, where the King of Spain has a stud. Endeavouring to establish the superiority of his favourite sort of horse, he mentions that an old nobleman, who served under Henry IV, told him in France, that he had often seen barbs upset the heavy Flemish horses in a tilt; "and I have taken," he continues, "the bone of the leg of a barb, and found it to be almost solid, having a hollow scarcely large enough for a straw; while, on the other hand, in the same bone of a Flanders horse, you may almost insert your finger." He further recommends

barb stallions to be put to English mares, with fine skins and good shapes for breeding.

We will conclude this chapter with translations of the word horse into the most celebrated languages of the earth.

The horse, in Hebrew, is called Sus, and the mare Susah; in Syriac, he is called Rekesh and Soucias; by the Arabians, Bagel, by the Chaldeans, Ramakin and Susuatha; by the Persians Asbaca; by the ancient Greeks, Hippos, and in the modern Greek, Alogo; in the Latin Equus and Caballus; in Italian and Spanish, Cavallo ; in French, Cheval; in German Pferd and Kossz; by the Bohemians, Kun; and by the Dutch, Paard.

BRITISH TURF.

43

CHAPTER III.

On the Arabian and other Eastern horses.

THE history of the British horse may be divided into three distinct epochs, the first and second of which we have treated of in the preceding chapter.

The first epoch consists in the ages of chivalry, when a strong, heavy horse, partaking largely both in shape and qualities, of the Flemish and cart horse breed, was required by the knights in their numerous wars, who not only carried heavy armour themselves, but loaded their chargers with it also. We remember to have seen this description of horse admirably illustrated in a very old Dutch painting, of the drowning of the Egyptian host in the Red Sea. The woodcut given below is taken from this painting, from which it would appear that Mynheer the artist evidently made the cart-horse

looking animal of his own country and day stand as the model for the light Barb and Arabian coursers which no doubt formed the cavalry of Pharoah's host.

The second epoch we would assign to the period when the invention of gunpowder, gradually abolishing the use of armour, together with the introduction of racing, caused stud owners to turn their attention to the breeding of a lighter and fleeter animal, more fitted to the demands of the changed times. In the reign of James I this may be said to have been finally effected; and we have given a facsimile of the horse in general use in the reign of Charles I, as represented in the forty-two plates of the Duke

of Newcastle's Treatise on Horsemanship, which we consider forms a fair specimen of the improvement which had already manirested itself in the second epoch.

As we purpose treating fully in another place of the thorough bred horse which forms the third and last epoch, according to the theory we have ventured to lay down, we will now proceed to the consideration of the Arabian and other Eastern horses, which laid the foundation of our present racing breed.

The extensive country called Arabia, celebrated in all ages for freedom and independence,