+ THE HORSE, 
writers; but I have already given the reasons for the contrary conclusion. 
The dry nature of the country, and the scantiness of herbage, show that 
in a wild state the horse could hardly exist there, and that it is only by 
the care and superintendence of man that the Arabian horse has become 
so famous. 
EGYPTIAN, LIBYAN, NUMIDIAN, AND MOORISH HORSES. 
Tur Ecyrt1an Horss is handed down to us on some of the sculptures 
found in the ruins of Nineveh; the carvings of which are in a high state 
of preservation, and are very elaborate and spirited. Even the superficial 
‘veins are carefully rendered; and hence we may place some reliance upon 
the fidelity ofthe portraiture. In all these bas-reliefs the animal is 
represented with a large and coarse head, a hich crest, and a heavy, 
lumbering body, not very dissimilar to the Flemish horse of the nine- 
teenth century. 
Or THE Lisyan, Numipran, and Moorisu horses. which are alluded to 
by classic writers, we know little beyond the cursory description of 
ASlian, who says that they were slenderly made, and carried no flesh. 
THE ORIGINAL BRITISH HORSE. 
THE NATURE OF THE ORIGINAL STOCK which formed the foundation of the 
modern European horse is extremely doubtful. In Great Britain horses’ 
bones are found in caves which are of exireme antiquity, but they do not 
define with any certainty the form of the original British horse, nor can 
we, with certainty, arrive at the exact era at which the animals to which 
they belonged lived and died. It is, however, an ascertained fact that 
when the Romans invaded Great Britain they found the people in posses- 
sion of horses, and using them for their chariots as well as for the purposes 
of riding. After the irruption of the Goths, and the commencement of 
the dark ages, we have no reliable history to guide us, and we are lett to 
grope in the dark from the fourth century, when Vegetius wrote on the 
veterinary art, until the time of the Stuarts, when attention was first paid 
to the improvement of the breed of horses in this country. 
ANCIENT METHODS OF USING THE HORSE 
THE MODE OF usine the horse adopted by the ancients was at first by 
harnessing him to a rude chariot, without springs. In course of time, the 
grooms who took care of him found that they could manage him while on 
his back without the aid of the saddle and bridle, which are comparatively 
modern inventions. Hence, we see the horse represented in the Elgin 
marbles as ridden without either the one or the other; and there is also 
abundant written testimony in support of this mode of equitation being 
practised by the early Greeks. This ingenious people, however, invented 
the snaffle-bridle, and both rode and drove with its aid, after the esta- 
blishment of the Olympian games, in which chariot races formed an 
essential feature. The curb-bit was invented by the Romans, or, at all 
events, was first used by them; but both that people and the Greeks 
were ignorant of the use of the stirrup, and either vaulted on their horses, 
or used the back of a slave as a stepping-stone, or sometimes had recourse 
to a short ladder for the purpose. The earliest period when it can be 
proved that the stirrup was in use was in the time of the Norman 
invasion of this country. The incidents of this event in history were 
