BRITISH TURF. 



camels, oxen, sheep, and asses are particularly 

 enumerated. Even at the time when Jeru- 

 salem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, the 

 Arabians serving in the host of that conqueror 

 appear to have derived their horses from the 

 plains of Mesopotamia.^ The nature of the 

 country, moreover, is in favor of this scriptural 

 evidence. The scanty herbage of its desert 

 plains affords no facility for the breeding and 

 rearing of horses ; and it appears more probable 

 that the Arabian horse, and in like manner the 

 thorough bred horse in our native country, are 

 indebted, chiefly if not entirely, to the great 

 skill and constant attention of their breeders, 

 for the just celebrity which they have attained. 



The horse formed a prominent feature in the 

 fabulous, but in many instances beautiful, tales 

 of the heathen mythology. Neptune, we are 

 told, created the horse, by striking the earth 

 with his trident ; and Pluto carried off Proser- 

 pine in a chariot drawn by four horses, whose 

 names are given in these records of superstition. 



* The 2nd Chronicles, chap, ix, which alludes to King Solomon 

 obtaining gold and silver from that country, while it informs us 

 that they brought unto Solomon horses out of Egypt and out of 

 all lands, makes no express mention of Arabia ; which would 

 scarcely have been the case, had they come originally from that 

 part of Asia 



