34 THE HOUSE OF AMERICA. 



is found here also; the satrap of Armenia used to send annually 

 to the king of Persia twenty thousand young horses." 



The Nessaean horses, so famous for their speed, were the 

 "thoroughbreds" of their day, and there can hardly be a doubt 

 they originated in Armenia, and, just like our own * 'thorough- 

 breds," they were essentially the result of careful selection 

 through a series of generations, and of breeding only from 

 animals possessing the desired qualifications in the highest 

 degree. In the earlier days of racing in Media, it appears that 

 white was the fashionable color, but I am disposed to think that 

 grey, growing white with age, was the color intended to be ex- 

 pressed by the writers of that period. The ''albino" color is 

 abnormal and supposed to indicate tenderness and lack of stamina. 



There is one fact, in considering this question, to which I have 

 probably not given sufficient prominence and weight. So far as 

 the records go, the three countries of Armenia, Cappadocia, and 

 Media are synchronous in having mounted troops in their 

 armies seventeen hundred years before the Christian era. We 

 must, therefore, consider the conditions of these countries ante- 

 cedent to the period of 1700 B.C. Of Cappadocia we know abso- 

 lutely nothing historically until it was conquered by Cyrus, king 

 of Persia, about 588 B.C. Of Media the earliest knowledge we 

 have of a historical character does not go back further than about 

 842 B.C. It should be observed that I here speak of "historical" 

 knowledge and not of uncertain traditions of many centuries 

 earlier. Both of these nations with their distinctive nationalities 

 have, long since, been wiped off the surface of the earth. 



When we reach Armenia, we reach a people with a most re- 

 markable history, extending back for more than four thousand 

 years. This history, although not wholly free from criticism or 

 doubt, seems to be honestly written and worthy of a liberal 

 measure of confidence. That the children of Japheth should 

 have settled at the foot of the mountains of Ararat strikes every 

 one as a very natural event, but that their descendants should still 

 be there, through all the triumphs and oppressions of four thou- 

 sand years, is one of the most stupendous facts in the history of 

 the world. From the very first we know of them they seem to 

 have been an agricultural people, strongly attached to their 

 native soil. When they ruled over the land from the Caspian to 

 the Mediterranean, they built no great cities, but adhered stead- 

 fastly to the rural pursuits of their fathers, and this, probably, 



