INTRODUCTION. 89 



the bridle or the saddle, and with less adaptation of 

 the arts of Asia than the modern Patagonians have 

 copied from those of Europe. Egypt was not a 

 country for wild horses; we have already seen 

 when the domestic first appear there : and surely it 

 was not from Nubia that the elements of progres- 

 sive civilization were taken, but from Asia, whence 

 the people came, and to which alone they acknow- 

 ledged affinity. 



Even in that quarter of the globe there was a 

 difference respecting horses : in the northern half, 

 the whole male and occasionally the female popula- 

 tion have used the saddle ever since human records 

 began ; in the southern, within the commencement 

 of profane history only, the better classes alone are 

 mounted, and riding tribes, such as the Kyale 

 Arabs, formerly sate on swift camels (hedjeens), 

 and until now, on many occasions, continue to pre- 

 fer them to horses. 



With regard to primitive Arabia, it should be re- 

 marked that its geographical limits are very indefi- 

 nite ; Hira and Gassan, or a great part of Western 

 Persia, and all Eastern Syria and Palestine, being 

 occasionally claimed as part of the national domain 

 in ancient times, and since the Hejira, they have 

 been extended eastward far beyond the Euphrates, 

 and west to Morocco. Ancient Egypt similarly 

 comprised, at times, part of Arabia, of Syria, and 

 all Palestine, which, with the Ethnic nations, was 

 always viewed as a province more or less under 

 Persia or Egypt. When, therefore, a question is 



