2 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



taking of writers of fiction is apt to err in minute 

 points, and can one blame him when the lands 

 over which he travels, and the subjects of which 

 he treats, are so numerous and vary so widely ? 

 For we know from Genesis — also from certain 

 other later sources that may be depended upon 

 for accuracy — that though the prophet had 

 creatures of divers kinds bestowed upon him, 

 yet the horse probably is one of the few animals 

 he did not receive. 



Many of the important and famous victories 

 won by Rameses — Sesostris as the Greeks termed 

 him — and by other monarchs of the eighteenth 

 and nineteenth dynasties, most likely would have 

 proved crushing defeats but for the assistance 

 they obtained from horses. As it happened, 

 however, Rameses — whom recent writers declare 

 to have been a very barefaced "boomster" — 

 succeeded with the help of his horses in march- 

 ing triumphant through many of the outlying 

 territories in Africa as well as in Asia. 



We have it on the authority of Professor 

 Flinders Petrie and other distinguished historians 

 that Aahmes I. — a king of the seventeenth 

 dynasty who drove out the Hyksos — reigned 

 from 1587 to 1562 B.C., and chariots do not appear 

 to have been used in Egypt prior to his accession. 



