84 INTRODUCTION. 



From motives that may be assigned to the inten- 

 tions of Moses, or from causes operating at this 

 moment in part of Arabia Petrea, horses were not 

 permitted to be bred by the people of Israel, who 

 being intended to live isolated from other nations, 

 might not become conquerors, and destined to oc- 

 cupy a mountainous range enclosed between deserts 

 and the sea, could not come down into the plains 

 without danger, and only became predominant under 

 the kings who first disregarded the injunction. * 

 The case w r as similar on their nearest border in 

 Arabia; for even in the time of Saul, the conse- 

 quence of a victory over Arab tribes furnished the 

 Hebrews with plunder in camels, asses, and sheep, 

 but not in horses. In the Psalms, horses are gene- 

 rally noticed as used by their Canaanitish enemies : 

 David himself, in a battle where a number of priso- 

 ners were taken, ordered most of their horses to be 

 slain. But although these facts apply to Judea 



nations, that they are not themselves of the era of Sesostris, 

 Remses II. or III. ; they also indicate the region whence Egypt 

 derived horses, since, in the tribute paid by a conquered 

 people, horses, and even chariots, are represented : now, this 

 people is painted with long dresses, light complexions, brown 

 hair, and blue eyes, and named Rot-n-no. Among other objects 

 of interest there are bears, and elephants with short ears and 

 high foreheads, peculiar to the Asiatic species, all offering 

 proofs of the Rot-n-no being residents in High Asia and not 

 Africa, though it involves the difficulty of elephants being then 

 found to the west of the Indus and of Hindukoh, but it is 

 probable that they were already imported from India at a re- 

 mote period. See Wilkinson's " Ancient Egyptians," vol. i, 

 * Deuteronomy, xvii. 16. 



