482 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EQUITATION [CH. 



Where the bow was not the national weapon it was long 

 before man was able to develop weapons adapted for horseback, 

 the warrior simply used the chariot and horses as means of 

 rapid locomotion to meet the foe, whom once reached, he dis- 

 mounted in order to do battle with the arms long used before 

 the advent of the horse. 



Such seems to have been the case not only in Europe but 

 also in Africa, whilst it seems equally true of the peoples of 

 Asia Minor and of the Vedic Indians, though it is possible that 

 the Turko-Tartaric tribes of Upper Asia may have ridden the 

 horse from the outset. Yet as the Scythians down to the 

 fifth century and later lived in waggons drawn by oxen, it is 

 not improbable that they once lived in waggons drawn by 

 horses, and that it was only when they got cattle at a later 

 time they yoked the more patient and steady-going ox instead. 

 Though indeed the Sarmatians, both men and women, rode on 

 horseback it must not be assumed that they never had passed 

 through a previous waggon-living stage like that of the 

 Scythians, for although the Libyans, men and women alike, all 

 rode on horseback in later times, yet it is certain that in 

 the earlier period they habitually used chariots. The Sarma- 

 tians may therefore once have used the horse under the chariot, 

 as did the Vedic Indians and the Libyans. 



The Sledge. Hitherto it has been a generally received 

 article of faith that wheeled vehicles and the modern spoked- 

 wheel have had an evolutionary history much as follows. First 

 men fastened to poles their scanty household goods and either 

 themselves dragged them along (or more probably made their 

 wives do so), when they shifted from one camp to another ; in 

 some cases they may have utilised their dogs for this purpose, 

 as was perhaps the practice of certain North American Indians 

 before they had tamed the feral horses of the prairies, an 

 event which wrought a marvellous revolution in the social 

 life of the Indians of the West, who from being feeble com- 

 munities, dwelling along the banks of the great rivers, which 

 yielded them abundance of fish, and who but rarely could kill a 

 bison, were suddenly metamorphosed into powerful tribes of 

 horsemen faring well on the flesh of the vast herds of bison, 



