THE noblest conquest that man ever made over the brute creation was the taming of the Horse, and adapting him to his service. He lessens the labours of man and adds to his pleasures: shares, with equal docility and cheerfulness, the fatigues of hunting or the dangers of war; and draws with appropriate strength, rapidity, or grace, the heavy ploughs and carts of the husbandman, the light vehicles of the fashionable, and the stately carriages of the aristocratic. The Horse is now bred in most parts of the world: those of Arabia, Turkey, and Persia are accounted better proportioned than many others; but the English Race-Horse may justly claim the precedence over all the other European breeds, and is not inferior to any in strength and symmetry. The beautiful Horses produced in Arabia are in general of a brown colour; their mane and tail are very short, with the hair black and tufted. The Arabs, for the most part, use the Mares in their ordinary excursions; experience having taught them that they are less vicious than the males, and more capable of sustaining abstinence and fatigue. As the Arabs have no other residence than a tent, this also serves for a stable; the husband, the wife, the child, the mare, and the foal, lie together indiscriminately, and the younger branches of the family may be often seen embracing the neck, or reposing on the body of the Mare, without any idea of fear or danger. Of the remarkable attachment which the Arabs have to these animals, St. Pierre has given an affecting instance in his Studies of Nature.--“The whole stock of a poor Arabian of the desert consisted of a beautiful Mare: this the French consul at Said offered to purchase, with an intention to send her to Louis XIV. The Arab, pressed by want, hesitated a long time, but at length consented, on condition of receiving a very considerable sum of money, which he named. The consul wrote to France for permission to close the bargain; and having obtained it, sent the information to the Arab. The man, so indigent as to possess only a miserable covering for his body, arrived with his magnificent courser: he dismounted, and first looking at the gold, then steadfastly at his Mare, heaved a sigh, ‘To whom is it,’ exclaimed he, ‘that I am going to yield thee up? To Europeans? who will tie thee close, who will beat thee, who will render thee miserable! Return with me, my beauty, my jewel! and rejoice the hearts of my children:’ as he pronounced the last words, he sprung upon her back, and was out of sight almost in a moment.”