FARMERS" REGISTER— HISTORY OF THE HORSE. 



641 



cated. 1920 years beforR the birth of Christ, when 

 Abraliam, liaving left Harar, in obedience, to the 

 divine command, was driven into Egypt by the 

 liimine which raged in Canaan,* Pharoh offered 

 him slieep and oxen, and asses and camels. Horses 

 would doubtless have been added, had they then 

 existed, or had they been subdued in Egyj)!. 



When, fitly years afterwards, Abraham jour- 

 neyed to Mount Moriah, to offer up his only son, 

 lie rode upon an ass, which, with all his wealth 

 and power, he would scarcely have done, had the 

 horse been known. t 



Thirty years later, when Jacob returned to Isaac 

 with Rachel and Leah, an account is givenj of 

 the number of oxen, sheep, camels, goats, and 

 asses, which he sent to appease the anger of Esau, 

 but not one horse is mentioned. 



It is not until twenty-four years after this, when 

 the fiimine devastated Canaan, || and Jacob sent 

 into E":ypt to buy corn, that horses are first heard 

 of. "Waggons,'" probably carriages drawn by 

 horses, were sent by Joseph into Canaan to bring 

 his iather to Egypt, [t would seem, however, 

 that horses had been but lately introduced, and 

 were not numerous, or not used as beasts of bur- 

 den; lor the whole of the corn, which was to be 

 conveyed some hundred miles, and was to afford 

 subsistence tor Jacob's large household, was car- 

 ried on asses. 



It appears, then, that about 1740 years before 

 Christ, horses were first used in Egypt; but they 

 soon afterwards became so numerous as to form a 

 considerable proportion of the Egyptian army: 

 and when the Israelites returned into Canaan, the 

 horse had been introduced and naturalized there; 

 for the Canaanites "went out to fight against Isra- 

 el with horses and chariots very many."§ 



The s;icred volume, therefore, clears up a point 

 upon which no other record throws any light — 

 namely, the period when the horse first became 

 the servant oi" man, at least in one part of the 

 world, and that the most advanced in civilization, 

 and bei<3re Greece was peopled. A long time must 

 have elapsed before n»an was able to ascertain the 

 value and peculiar use of the animals that sur- 

 rounded him. He Avould begin with the more 

 subordinate — those which were most easily 

 caught, and moet readily subdued; and the bene- 

 fits which he derived ffora their labors would in- 

 duce him to attempt the conqest of superior quad- 

 rupeds. In accordance with this, the writings of 

 Moses shew us that, after the ox, the sheep, and 

 the goat, man subdued the ass, and then the cam- 

 el, and, last of all, the horse became his servant: 

 and no sooner was he subdued, and his strength 

 and docility and sagacity ap.nreciated, than the 

 others were comparatively disregarded, except in 

 Palestine, where the use of the horse was forbid- 

 den by divine authority, and on extensive and bar- 

 ren deserts, where he could not liv^e.lT 



*Gen. xii. 16. fGen. xxii. 3. :{Gen. xxxii. 14. 



||Gen. xlv. 19. §Joshua xi. 4. 



IT When Sir Gore Ouseley travelled through Persia, 

 and the different countries of the east, he examined, 

 amonj other relics of antiquity, the sculptures on the 

 ruins of Persepolis, and he draws from thorn a curious 

 and interesting conclusion as to the manner in which 

 the horse was gradually subdued. "There are no fig- 

 ures," says he, "mounted on horseback, although 

 some travellers have mentioned horsemen amon? those 



From Egypt the use of the horse was propagated 

 to other and ilistant lands; and, probaljly, the horse 

 hunself was first transndtled Irom Egypt to several 

 countries. The Greeks allirm, that Neptune struck 

 the earth whh his trident, andahorse appeared. The 

 truth is, that the Thessalians, the first and most 

 expert of the Grecian horsemen, and likewise the 

 inhabitants of Argos and of Athens, were colonists 

 Ironi Egypt. 



The Bible likewise decides another point, that 

 Arabia, by whose breed ol" horses those of other 

 countries have been so much improved, was not 

 the native place of the horse. Six hundred years 

 after the time just referred to, Arabia had no horses. 

 Solomon imjmrted spices, gold, and silver, from 

 Arabia;* but all the horses tor his own cavalry and 

 chariots, and those with which he supplied the 

 Phoenician monarchs, he procured from Egypt. f 



In the seventh century after Christ, when Ma- 

 homet attacked the Koreishnear Mecca, he had but 

 two horses in his whole army; and at the close of 

 his murderous camj^aign, although he drove off 

 twenty-four thousand camels, and forty thousand 

 sheep, and carried away twenty-four thousand 

 ounces of silver, not one horse appears in the list 

 of plunder. 



There is a curious record of the commerce of 

 different countries at the close of the second centu- 

 ry. Among the articles exported from Egy])t to 

 Arabia, and i)articularly as presents to reigning 

 monarchs, were horses. 



In the tburlh century two hundred Cappadocian 

 horses were sent bj' the Roman emperor, as the 

 most acceptable present he could offer a powerful 

 prince of Arabia. 



So late as the seventh century, the Arabs had 

 lew horses, and those of little value. These cir- 

 cumstances sufficiently prove that, however supe- 

 rior may be the present breed, it is comparatively 

 lately that the horse was naturalized in Arabia. 



The horses of Arabia itself, and of the south- 

 eastern parts of Europe, are clearly derived from 

 Egypt; but whether tliey were there bred, or im- 

 ported from the south-western regions of Asia, or, 

 as is more probable, brought from the interior, or 

 northern coast of Africa, cannot with certainty be 

 determined. 



sculptures. One would think that the simple act of 

 mounting on a horse's back would naturally have pre- 

 ceded the use of wheel-carriages and their complicated 

 harness; yet no horsemen are found at Persepolis; and 

 we know Homer's horses are represented in chariots 

 from which the warriors sometimes descended to com- 

 bat on foot, but the poet has not described them as 

 fighting on horseback. The absence of mounted fig- 

 ures might authorize an opinion that those sculptures 

 had been executed before the time of Cyrus, whose 

 precepts and example first inspired the Persians with 

 a love of equestrian exercises, of which, before his 

 time, they were wholly ignorant." — vol. ii. p. 276, 



*2Chron. ix. 14. 



fThe historian gives us the price of the horse and 

 the chariot at that time. A horse brought from Eo-j'pt 

 including, probably, the expense of the journey, cost 

 one hundred and fifty shekels of silver, vvhich, at two 

 shillings, three pence, and one half farthing, each, 

 amounts to about seventeen pounds two shillings. A 

 chariot cost six hundred shekels, or sixty-ejgbt pounds, 

 eight shillings; a most enormous sum at that early pe- 

 riod, but little to him who expended more than thirty- 

 five millions of pounds, in gold alone, to ornament the 

 Temple which he had built, t 2 Chron. i. 17. 



