THE HORSE. 



CHAPTER I. 



ITS EARLY HISTORY. 



THAT this animal existed before the Flood, the researches of geologists 

 afford abundant proof. There is not a portion of Europe, nor scarcely any 

 part of the globe, from the tropical plains of India to the frozen regions of 

 Siberia from the northern extremities of the New World to the very southern 

 point of America, in which the fossil remains of the horse have not been found 

 mingled with the bones of the hippopotamus, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the 

 bear, the tiger, the deer, and various other animals, some of which, like the 

 mastodon, have passed away. 



There is scarcely a district in Great Britain in which the fossil remains of this 

 animal have not been discovered. In the majority of cases the bones are of nearly 

 the same size with those of the common breed of horses at the present day ; 

 but in South America the bones of horses of a gigantic size have been dug up. 



Whether the horse had then become the servant of man, or for what purpose 

 he was used, we know not. Every record of him was swept away by the gene- 

 ral inundation, except that the ark of Noah preserved a remnant of the race for 

 the future use of man *. 



In the sacred volume, which, beside its higher claims to stand at the head of 

 " The Farmer's Library," contains the oldest authentic history of past transac- 

 tions, an enumeration is made of certain valuable gifts that were presented 

 to Abraham by Pharaoh, the monarch of Egypt. They consisted of sheep, 

 oxen, asses male and female, camels, men-servants and maid-servants ; but the 

 horse is not mentioned t. This can scarcely be accounted for, except on the 

 supposition that this noble animal was not then found in Egypt, or, at least, had 

 not been domesticated there. 



The first allusion to the horse, after the period of the Flood, is a perfectly 

 incidental one. It is said of Anah, the son of Zibeon, a contemporary of Isaac, 

 who was born about the year before Christ 1590, that he found the mules in the 

 wilderness the progeny of the ass and the horse as he fed the asses of his 

 father J. The wilderness referred to was that of Idumea or Seir. Whether 

 these were wild horses that inhabited the deserts of Idumea, or had been sub- 

 jugated by man, we know not. History is altogether silent as to the period 

 when the connexion commenced or was renewed between the human being and 

 this his most valuable servant . 



* An interesting account of the history of *f* Gen. xii. 16. J Gen. xxxvi. 24. 

 the horse, from the earliest period, by Col. Colonel Hamilton Smith has the fallow- 

 Hamilton Smith, will he found in the 12th ing interesting observations on the early history 

 volume of the "Naturalist's Library." Mr. of the horse : " We know so littlo of the 

 Karbeck has also some valuable remarks on primitive seat of civilisation, the original centre, 

 the same subject, in the 14th volume of the perhaps in Bactria, in the highei valleys of the 

 " Veterinarian." B 



