2 EARLY HISTORY OF THE HORSE. 



iiecouiitea for, except on tlie supposition that this noble animal was not 

 tlien found in Egypt, or, at least, had not been domesticated there. 



The tirst allusion to the horse, after the period of the. Flood, is a per- 

 fectly incidental one. It is said, in Genesis xxxvi. 24, of Anah, the son of 

 Zibeon, a contemporary of Isaac, who was born about the year before 

 Christ 1500 that he found the mules in the wdderness — the progeny ot 

 the ass and the horse — as he fed the asses of his father. The wilderness 

 referred to was that of Idumea or Seir. Whether these were wild horses 

 that inhabited the deserts of Idumea, or had been subjugated by man, wo 

 know not. History is altogether silent as to the period when the con- 

 nexion commenced or was renewed between the human being and this his 

 most valuable servant. „ , , , i ^ t ^ 



' Fossil remains,' says the Colonel, ' of the horse have been found m nearly 

 every part of the world. His teeth lie in the polar ice along with the 

 bones of the Siberian mammoth ; in the Himalaya Mountains with lost, 

 and but recently ascertained, genera ; in the caverns of Torquay, Ii'eland, 

 and in one instance, from Barbary, completely fossdised His bones 

 accompanied by those of the elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, and hyoena, rest 

 by thousands in the caves in Constadt,— in Sevi'on, at Argenteuil,— with 

 those of the mastodon, in Val d'Arno, and on the borders of the Kliine, 

 Nvith colossal urns. All the remains hitherto discovered appear so per- 

 fectly similar in their conformation to the domesticated horse, that they 

 can scarcely be ascribed to other species of the genus. From the commix- 

 ture of their remains, there cannot be a doubt that they have existed 

 too-ether with several great pachydermata ; but what is most deserving 

 of^'attention is, that while all the other genera and species, found under 

 the same conditions, have ceased to exist, or have removed _ to higher 

 temperatures, the horse alone has remained to the present time m the same 

 reo-ions ^vithout, it would appear, any protracted interruption, since trora 

 the circumstances which manifest deposits to be of the earliest_ era frag- 

 ments of its skeleton continue to be traced upwards m successive forma- 

 tions to the present superficial mould.' . . -r , ■ -, 



Nearly a century after this, when Jacob departed froniLaban, a singular 

 account is given, in Gen. xxxii., of the number of goats and sheep, and 

 camels and oxen, and asses which he possessed ; but no mention is made 

 of the horse. This also would lead to the conclusion that the horse was 

 either not known or was not used in Canaan at that early period. 



Another century or more passed on, and waggons— conveyances drawn 

 by animals— were sent to Canaan to bring Joseph's father into Egypt. 

 No mention is made of the kind of animals by which these vehicles were 

 drawn • but there are many fragments of the architecture of the early 

 ao-es and particularlv of the Egyptian architecture, in which the chariots, 

 even on state occasions, were drawn by oxen. We cannot, however, 

 come to any certain conclusion from this ; bat, at no distant period, while 

 Joseph and his father were still living, a famine, preceded by several 

 vears of plenty, occurred in Egypt. Joseph, who had arrived at the chief 

 ofhce in the state under Pharaoh, had availed himself of the cheapnessof 

 the corn during the plentiful years, and had accumulated great quantities 

 of it in the royal granaries, which he afterwards sold to the starving 

 people for money, as long as it lasted, and then for their cattle and horses. 

 I'his is the first certain mention of the horse in sacred or profane his- 

 tory • but it affords no clue as to the purposes to which this animal was 

 then 'devoted In a few years, however, after the cessation of this famine, 

 some elucidation of this interesting point is obtained. When Jacob lay on 

 his deathbed, he called his sons around him, and, under the influence ot 

 that inspiration which has been withheld in later times, ].rophesied what 



