188 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



traced their own lineage in ancient days through females 

 instead of males. This practice is probably also due to their 

 believing, as did the ancient Veneti (p. 104), that the dam 

 is a more important factor than the sire in the production 

 of a good progeny. From this arises the extreme difficulty 

 of procuring the best Arab mares for export, for although a 

 first-class stallion can be obtained for a heavy price in the 

 desert, it is practically impossible to purchase a mare. 



Aristotle^ was of the same opinion as the Arabs and Veneti, 

 for he says that " among solid-hoofed animals the males have 

 no teats, except those species which take after the mother, 

 as is the case with horses." Later on it will be seen from the 

 history of the English thoroughbred stock that pure-blooded 

 mares had to be imported before the real foundation of the 

 English race-horse was laid. 



Now let us trace back the history of the horses of Western 

 Asia. The horses of Anatolia and Syria w^ere well known in 

 Europe by the 16th centurj^ for in a series of engravings from 

 drawings made by the artist Stradanus (died 1603) and issued 

 under the title of Equile lohannis Duds Aiistriaci ("The 

 Stable of Don John of Austria "), a picture of ' Natolus,' here 

 reproduced (Fig. 59), is included. As we shall see that not 

 only were the horses and mares of Charles II. which laid the 

 real foundation of the English racing stock procured from 

 Smyrna, but that the famous Darley Arabian was brought 

 from Aleppo, the importance of the horses of this region in 

 relation to the English thoroughbreds will be fully realised. 



The horses used by the Persians in the Middle Ages were 

 strong enough to carry their own armour as well as their 

 mail-clad riders. The size of their horses gave the Persians 

 superiority over the Turks in the great wars of the fifteenth 

 and sixteenth centuries, as the latter were mounted on much 

 lighter horses, and had no defence except their shields^ It 

 would appear that the Persians used large, stout horses probably 

 resembling the Bagdad horses of to-day, and like the latter, 

 originally obtained by crossing the heavy-limbed Upper Asiatic 



^ H. A. II. 3. - Hamilton Smith, The Horse, p. 233. 



