458 EGYPTIAN AND ARABIAN HORSES. 



shown to be made up entirely of foot soldiers and no trace of any 

 bas-relief or painting representing horses, cavalrj^, or war chariots 

 is to be found on these monuments. This tends very strongly to make 

 one believe that the horse was not known to the Egyptians before the 

 close of the twelfth dj'nasty, after the campaigns of Osortassin in 

 Asia. Without doubt it was with the invading shepherds that the 

 horse first made its appearance and became naturalized in the valley 

 of the Nile. 



A searching study of these Pharonic palaces enables us to state 

 positively that there is not a single representation of a horse on any of 

 the Egyptian edifices erected before the invasion of the Ilyksos. 

 Only after the overthrow, and more generally after the expulsion of 

 these Asiatic conquerors, do we find depicted on the Egyptian monu- 

 ments military scenes in which horses and war chariots play a con- 

 siderable part in determining the great changes in the tactics of the 

 Egyptian army. Moreover, the ancient historians, like Herodotus, 

 Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo, are unanimous in omitting any mention 

 of the appearance of this noble animal prior to the epoch of the 

 Hyksos invasion. 



Had the horse been indigenous to the valley of the Nile the early 

 Egyptians, who were accustomed to deify the more remarkable ani- 

 mals and plants of their country, would certainl}^ not have neglected 

 to give to one of their gods the head of the hardy and spirited courser 

 who shared with man the dangers of the battlefield. 



If the}^ did not raise altars to him, as the}" did to so many sacred 

 beasts, it is only because they held in abhorrence the j^eople to whom 

 Ihe introduction of the beautiful animal was due. 



Finally, if the first Egyptians did not institute sacrifices of horses, 

 like the assouame' d' ha '^ of the Hindoos, it was because the flesh was 

 tabooed on account of the inveterate hatred that the customs of the 

 Hyksos had left among the earlier inhabitants of the land. Never- 

 theless, the Egyptians esteemed the horse too highly to employ him in 

 agriculture, and never, except in one little bas-relief on the temple of 

 Khons '' at Karnak, do we find horses harnessed to a plow. 



After the expulsion of the Hyksos, about two thousand two hundred 

 years before the Christian era, the Egyptians began to give much 

 attention to the ecpiine race, and the care they lavished upon their 

 breeding soon resulted in a great numerical increase. 



a The sacrifice of the horse, assouame' d' ha, is one of the oldest rites men- 

 tioned in the Hindoo hooks. It was considered very efficacious and always had 

 a phice in the honoring of the Hindoo trinity. 



In some other sacrifices — known as the balidava — the Hindoos likewise offered 

 horses, but instead of burning the flesh on the altar, they presenteil it raw to 

 the gods. 



* See, in any of the principal lil)raries. Monuments Egyptlens, by Prisse 

 d'Avennes, large folio, Paris, 1847, pis. 35, figs. 2. 



