34 ANATOMICAL CONSIDERATION'S. 



Anatomy also discovers another important function proper to the eye 

 of the horse, which equally indicates a sandy plain to have been the 

 original habitat of the tribe. 



The soft sand of the Southern region would form a soil over which 

 the equine foot could safely travel. The horn, in an unprotected state, 

 was created to journey over so yielding and so dry a surface. Harder 

 groimd is poorly suited to the tread of the animal, a fact well established 

 by the brittle hoof being among the recognized diseases of this coun- 

 try ; while a wet soil is by no means advantageous, which circumstance 

 is amply illustrated by the weak horn characteristic of those animals 

 reared on the fens of Lincolnshire. The level of the desert presented 

 that combination of qualities which could render the exhibition of its 

 speed a delight to the unbroken quadruped ; while the warmth of the 

 climate would afford the medium in which a lustrous coat testifies to 

 the health of a beautiful body. 



In opposition to the above inference is the recorded fact that, when 

 English horses were transported as cavalry into Egypt, the dryness of 

 the climate frequently caused the hoofs so to crack as to render the 

 animals totally useless. This circumstance, when first learned, appears 

 to weigh heavily against the conclusion toward which the author's 

 arguments were tending. In reality, however, it establishes nothing ; 

 it fades before rational investigation. A life, after having left its native 

 country, does not necessarily thrive when it revisits the land of its 

 origin. Englishmen, who have spent their youth in India, generally 

 return to the variableness and to the humidity of this climate, and com- 

 plain of the country which, when it was quitted, appeared to be cursed 

 with no evil properties. Negroes captured by British cruisers, and set 

 free on the far-famed colony of emancipation, are ascertained to perish 

 the more rapidly on their return to Africa. These poor people are said 

 to sink more speedily than even Europeans succumb before the clime of 

 flame. 



The speed of the horse would enable the quadruped to travel with 

 comparative ease between those remote spots of verdure which lie scat- 

 tered throughout the desert. The distance which divides the'se luxuriant 

 localities could present no insurmountable obstacle to the unburdened 

 steed, since the domesticated animal has carried its rider more than one 

 hundred miles. The horse can endure long fasts, and even sustain 

 severe thirst — the colon being a portion of the bowel generally devoted 

 to the store of liquid nutriment; but the distance must have been 

 accomplished in a cloud of sand sufficiently dense to blind the creature 

 which traveled in the center of a moving herd. 



The eye of the horse, however, is by nature provided with a protec- 



