The Horse and His Rider: Or, Sketches and Anecdotes of the Noble Quadruped, and of Equestrian NationsSpringfield, Rollo
History
The Horse and His Rider: Or, Sketches and Anecdotes of the Noble Quadruped, and of Equestrian Nations
Springfield, Rollo
Horsemen and horsewomen; Horses; Horses -- Anecdotes
A bet against time was won in July, 1840, by an Arab horse at Bungalore,
in the presidency of Madras, to run four hundred miles in four
consecutive days. Mr. Frazer relates, in his “Tartar Journeys,” a still
more striking instance of the speed and bottom of the Arab: a horse of
that breed carried him from Shiraz to Teheran, five hundred and
twenty-two miles in six days, remained three at rest, went back in five
days, remained nine at Shiraz, and returned again to Teheran in seven
days. Another high-blooded Arabian carried Mr. Frazer from Teheran to
Koom, eighty-four miles, in about ten hours. A courier, whom Major
Keppel fell in with between Kermanshaw and Hamadan, places one hundred
and twenty miles distant from each other, performed that journey, over a
rugged mountainous tract, in little more than twenty-four hours; and the
next morning set off on the same horse for Teheran, two hundred miles
further, expecting to reach it on the second day.
It is, of course, among the wild races inhabiting vast level tracts,
such as are suitable to the habits and constitution of the horse, that
the power of holding out long in the saddle is most assiduously and most
generally cultivated. There are tribes and nations who may be said to
spend the greater part of their lives on horseback:—the Kirghis, for
instance, in Central Asia; the Gauchos, or countryfolk of European
descent, who inhabit the immense Pampas, or plains of South America;
and, in a still higher degree, the Indians of the same regions. The
Pampas, though fertile, are totally uncultivated, and yield the
scattered inhabitants no other nourishment than water, and the flesh of
the unappropriated herds of cattle and horses, that roam over them in
countless multitudes. Their hardy inhabitants are thus portrayed by Sir
Francis Head:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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