HORSE BACK RIDING. II7 



as a prize in similar exercises. These races, like the 

 earliest, were both foot-races. It was not until some 

 time after this, that Bellerophon, the young hero, 

 impregnable in courage and virtue, appeared in 

 Greece, discovered the art of taming the steed after- 

 wards famous in legend and story under the name of 

 Pegasus, and employed it in his triumphant combat 

 with the Chimsera. 



Now, as Bellerophon, son of Glaucus and grandson 

 of Sisyphus, was the sixth in direct descent from 

 Deucalion, and lived during the time that Ehud 

 judged Israel, we must infer that the equestrian art 

 began to be practised in Greece about 2650 A.M., 

 thirteen or fourteen centuries before the Christian 

 era. In Egypt, on the contrary, the horse had long 

 been a domestic animal. Pharaoh, who, while pur- 

 suing the Israelites, was engulfed in the Red Sea, 

 had with him, according to the Sacred Word, besides 

 " horsemen, six hundred chosen chariots, and all the 

 chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of 

 them." The Israelites, therefore, could not have 

 been ignorant of the uses of the horse, although they 

 themselves probably employed it only to a limited 

 extent. ** Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's 

 house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor 

 his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, 

 nor his ass," says Moses in the Decalogue ; he does 

 not mention the horse, for the simple reason, un- 

 doubtedly, that it was not yet in common use. In 



