No One Had
Ever Heard Of Horses Being Used For Drawing A Carriage In This Part
Of The World, But Necessity Is The Mother Of Innovation As Well As
Of Invention.
I was fully justified, I think, in arguing that
there were numerous instances of horses being used for that
Purpose
in our own country - that the laws of nature are uniform in their
operation over all the world (except Ireland) - that that which was
true in Piccadilly, must be true in Adrianople - that the matter
could not fairly be treated as an ecclesiastical question, for that
the circumstance of Methley's going on to Stamboul in an araba
drawn by horses, when calmly and dispassionately considered, would
appear to be perfectly consistent with the maintenance of the
Mahometan religion as by law established. Thus poor, dear, patient
Reason would have fought her slow battle against Asiatic prejudice,
and I am convinced that she would have established the possibility
(and perhaps even the propriety) of harnessing horses in a hundred
and fifty years; but in the meantime Mysseri, well seconded by our
Tatar, put a very quick end to the controversy by having the horses
put to.
It was a sore thing for me to see my poor comrade brought to this,
for young though he was, he was a veteran in travel. When scarcely
yet of age he had invaded India from the frontiers of Russia, and
that so swiftly, that measuring by the time of his flight the broad
dominions of the king of kings were shrivelled up to a dukedom and
now, poor fellow, he was to be poked into an araba:
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