lo EARLY WORKS 



The Greeks were indisputably artistic. The 

 Romans were thoroughly practical ; horses were 

 used by them for war and for purposes of luxury 

 and ostentation. The Greeks wrote with clever, 

 half-sarcastic brightness about their hacks, chariot 

 horses, and chargers ; the Romans in a more 

 matter-of-fact vein, until wealth, with its accom- 

 panying splendour, made "The Mistress of the 

 World " resemble a leviathan Athens, and the 

 writings of its authors a blend. 



What strikes us as being remarkable when 

 studying this interesting subject is the intel- 

 lectual gap between the ancients and our own 

 period. We notice in bits and bitting, in 

 grooming, in carriages, in fact in everything 

 connected with horses that, during the Middle 

 Ages, inventions such as we have grown ac- 

 customed to in modern stables appear to have 

 stagnated. 



The Egyptians, according to high authorities, 

 were conquered by Arab cavalry. They were 

 panic-stricken when they saw imaginary monsters, 

 who in reality were only men galloping at them 

 on horses. 



Even supposing at that very early period the 

 Egyptians were used to cavalry^ — for one recog- 

 nised historian will write one statement and 

 another make an exactly opposite one — yet there 

 can be no doubt whatsoever that eventually they 

 learnt to understand them thoroughly well, and 

 had fine studs long before the ancient Greeks, 

 Romans, and Persians used chargers. This is 

 indisputable! It makes the stagnation in the 



