THE CALMUCK HORSE. 145

with extraordinary skill. The ceremony of
marriage, among the Calmucks, is performed
on horseback. <A girl is first mounted, who
rides off at full speed. Her lover pursues, and
if he overtakes her she becomes his wife, and
returns, with him to his tent. But it sometimes
happens that the woman does not wish to marry
the person by whom she is pursued, in which
case she will not suffer him to overtake her;
and we are assured that no instance occurs of a
Calmuck girl being thus caught, unless she has
a partiality for her pursuer.

“That is a very curious sort of marriage,
Uncle Thomas. Is the speed of those Calmucks
much greater than that of the English horse?”

“In endurance, Harry, there is no compa-
rison between the English horses and the Cal-
mucks or Toorkomans, though, in one instance,
in which two of them were matched against two
English race-horses, they were fairly distanced.

‘A trial of this sort took place at St. Peters-
burgh, between certain horses of the Calmuck

L