458 EGYPTIAN AND ARABIAN HORSES. 



shown to be iiuule up entiivly of I'oot soldiers and no trace of any 

 bas-relief or painting representing horses, cavalr}^, 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 dynasty, after the campaigns of Osortassin in 

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

 horse first made its ai)i)earance 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 p]gyptian 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 ummimous in omitting any mention 

 of the appearance of this nol)le 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, Avould certainly 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 they did not raise altars to him, as they did to so many sacred 

 beasts, it is only because they held in abhorrence the people to whom 

 the 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 Ilyksos, about two thousand two lumdred 

 years before the Christian era, the p]gyptians began to give nmch 

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

 breeding soon resulted in a great numerical increase. 



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

 tioned in tlie Hindoo iioolcs. It was considered very efficacious and always had 

 a place in tlie lionoring of the Hindoo trinity. 



In some other sacrifices — Ivnown as tlie balidava — the Hindoos likewise offered 

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

 the gods. 



b See, in any of the principal libraries. Monuments Egyptiens, by Prisse 

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



