THE HORSE 69 



great extent, won by horse-power rather than by their own 

 physical strength. Thus equipped by their able servants, 

 they have pressed outward from their ancient realms and 

 have in a way overridden the tribes which were unmounted. 



So imposing is the effect of the horsed man on all peoples 

 who are without previous knowledge of the united creatures, 

 that it always carries fear to their hearts. To such folk the 

 combination appears as a single terrible being. The ease 

 with which the Spaniards conquered Mexico and Peru can, 

 to a great extent, be attributed to the awe carried into the 

 ranks of the savage footmen by their mail-clad horses. The 

 Greeks, who were wont to represent the forces of nature and 

 the accomplishments of man by skilfully constructed myths, 

 have left a record showing their appreciation of the strength 

 derived from the union of horse and man, in their fable of 

 the Centaur, which possibly grew up in a time before their 

 people had won the use of the animal, and when they only 

 knew the creature by chance encounters with enemies who 

 were mounted upon them. Although the naturalist of to-day 

 perceives the impossibility of there ever having been on this 

 earth a form uniting the trunk and fore-limbs of a quadruped 

 to the upper part of a man's body, such scientific conceptions 

 are a part of our modern, recently acquired store of knowl- 

 edge. To the Greeks of the myth-making age the creature, 

 half man, half horse, added but one more wonder to the vast 

 store the world already contained. The currency of this 

 fable shows us very clearly how great was the impression 

 which the horse made upon primitive peoples. 



To perceive the value of the horse in those ancient con- 

 tests which opened the paths of civilization, we must note 

 the fact that, until the invention of gunpowder, success in 



