Ii8 HORSE- BACK RIDING. 



the firf^t chapter of the Book of Job, we read also 

 that this faithful servant of God was the owner of 

 ** seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five 

 hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses;" 

 but hearing nothing of horses, we infer accordingly 

 that throughout the East they were employed very 

 little, if at all. But to return to Bellerophon. His 

 encounter with the Chimaera took place in Lycia, 

 whither he had been sent by Proetus, with the design 

 of causing his death ; and the fame of his adventures 

 being quickly diffused in all the adjacent regions, im- 

 mediately there sprang up among the princes and 

 heroes of Greece an eager rivalry in regard to horses, 

 each endeavoring to become the possessor and raiser 

 of as large a number as possible. Many a city grew 

 into wealth and renown through this new object of 

 interest, but from their manifest superiority, the 

 breeding horses of Epirus, Argos, and Mycenae soon 

 bore away the palm from all competitors. The 

 Thessalians, a tribe settled both in Greece and Mace- 

 donia, acquired at this period an enviable reputation 

 as equestrians ; mounted on perfectly tamed steeds, 

 they fearlessly encountered wild bulls, from which 

 circumstance they derived their name of Centaurs. 



The Lapithae, another people of Thessaly, ex- 

 celled not only in manufacture of beautiful saddles 

 and every variety of caparison, but in the more diffi- 

 cult art of training and managing horses. 



Thirty years after Endymion, Pelops celebrated 



