20 HISTORY OF THE HORSE. 



the parent country of the Zebra and the Quagga — in some 

 sort his kin. 



It is questionable whether the horse is still to be found in a 

 state of nature in Arabia ; although it is asserted that they 

 exist thinly scattered in the deserts, and that they are hunted 

 by the Bedouins for their flesh, and also for the purpose of 

 improving their inferior breeds by a different kind of blood. 

 In central Africa, however, whence the horse is supposed to 

 have been first introduced into Egypt, and thence into Arabia, 

 Europe, and the East, wild horses still roam untamed far to 

 the southward of the great desert of Sahara, where they were 

 seen by Mungo Park in large droves. 



At the period of the first Roman invasion, the horse was 

 domesticated in Britain, and in such numbers, that a large 

 portion of the forces which resisted the invaders were chariot- 

 eers and cavalry. 



In Europe, however, with but few exceptions, the horse, 

 for purposes of warfare, was slowly, and not till the lapse of 

 ages, brought into use : even the Spartans, the Athenians, 

 and the Thebans, when at the height of their military renown, 

 having but inferior and scanty cavalry services. 



In the oldest sculptures probably in existence, — those re- 

 moved by Layard from the ruins of Nineveh, and illustrative 

 of almost every phase of regal and military life, — the horse is 

 uniformly represented as a remarkably high-crested, large- 

 headed, heavy-shouldered animal : rather long-bodied ; power- 

 fully limbed ; his neck clothed with volumes of shaggy mane, 

 often plaited into regular and fanciful braids ; and his tail 

 coarse and abundant, frequently ornamented similarly to his 

 own mane and to the beard and hair of his driver — an ani- 



