204 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



valley and rejoiceth in his strength, who goeth on to meet the 

 armed men, who mocketh at fear and is not affrighted, neither 

 turneth he back from the sword, who swalloweth the ground 

 with fierceness and rage, who smelleth the battle afar off, the 

 thunder of the captains and the shouting \" But even 

 supposing that the writer lived in Arabia Petrae^, there is no 

 need for assuming that he knew the horse in his own land, as 

 he would have had ample opportunities of becoming acquainted 

 with that animal in the contiguous regions of Palestine and 

 Babylonia. 



When Terah, Abraham and Lot went forth from Ur of 

 the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan, and came to 

 Haran 2 , although they appear to have been very wealthy, they 

 did not possess horses. For though Abraham had gold, silver, 

 cattle, sheep, camels, and slaves, he had not a single horse, not 

 even after his sojourn in Egypt, where Pharaoh had given him 

 for the sake of Sarah " sheep and oxen, and he-asses, and men- 

 servants and maidservants, and she-asses and camels 3 ." So 

 was it too with Abraham's kindred in Haran, for neither when 

 Eliezer the servant of Abraham was sent with ten camels to 

 seek a wife at Haran for Isaac, nor when later Jacob fled from 

 his brother Esau and kept the flocks of Laban, is there any 

 mention of the horse amongst the numerous possessions of his 

 father-in-law nor himself, although he had much cattle, and 

 maidservants and menservants, and camels and asses 4 . Again, 

 when Jacob sent a present of all the best that he possessed to 

 assuage the wrath of Esau, he selected " two hundred she-goats 

 and twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 

 thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine, and ten bulls, 

 twenty she-asses, and ten foals 5 /' but not a single horse, and 

 on the other hand when Esau came to meet Jacob with four 

 hundred fighting men we hear of no horse 6 . 



The literary records are in complete harmony with the 

 evidence obtained by modern research from the monuments of 

 Mesopotamia. According to the latest authorities "the horse 



1 Job xxxix. 1925. 2 Gen. xi. 31; cf. xxiv. 35. 



3 Gen. xii. 16. 4 Ibid. xxx. 43. 



5 Ibid, xxxii. 14, 15. 6 Ibid, xxxiii. 1. 



