4 THE HORSE. 



From Egypt the use of tlie horse was propagated to other and distant 

 lands ; and, probably, the horse himself was first transmitted from Egypt 

 to several countries. The Greeks affirm, that Neptune struck the earth 

 with his trident, and a horse appeared. The truth is, that the Thessalians, 

 the first and most expert of the Grecian horsemen, and likewise the inha- 

 bitants of Argos and of Athens, were colonists from Egypt. 



The Bible hkewise decides another point, that Arabia, by whose breed 

 of horses those of other countries have been so much improved, was not the 

 native place of the horse. Six hundred years after the time just referred 

 to, Arabia had no horses. Solomon imported spices, gold, and silver, 

 from Arabia*; but all the horses for his own cavalry and chariots, and 

 those with which he supplied the Phoenician monarchs, he procured from 

 Egypt t- 



In the seventh century after Christ, when Mahomet attacked the Koreish 

 near Mecca, he had but two horses in his whole army ; and at the close of 

 his murderous campaign, although he drove off twenty-four thousand 

 camels, and forty thousand sheep, and carried away twenty-four thousand 

 ounces of silver, not one horse appears in the list of plunder. 



There is a curious record of the commerce of ditferent countries at the 

 close of the second century. Among the articles exported from Egypt to 

 Arabia, and particularly as presents to reigning monarchs, were horses. 



In the fourth century two himdred Cappadocian horses were sent by the 

 Roman emperor, as the most acceptable present he could offer a powerful 

 prince of Arabia. 



So late as the seventh century, the Arabs had few horses, and those of 

 little value. These circumstances sufficiently prove that, however superior 

 may be the present breed, it is comparatively lately that the horse was 

 naturalized in Arabia. 



The horses of Arabia itself, and of the south-eastern parts of Europe, are 

 clearly derived from Egypt ; but whether they were there bred, or im- 

 ported from the south-w estern regions of Asia, or, as is more probable, 

 brought from the interior, or northern coasts of Africa, cannot with cer- 

 tainty be determined. 



polls, and he draws from them a curious and interesting conclusion as to the manner in 

 wliich the horse was gradually subdued. " There are no figures," says he, •' moxuited on 

 horseback, although some travellers have mentioned horsemen among those sculptures. 

 One v/ould think that the simple act of mounting on a horse's back would naturally have 

 preceded the use of wheel-carriages and their complicated harness ; yet no horsemen are 

 found at Persepolis ; and we know Homer's horses are represented in chariots from which 

 the warriors sometimes descended to combat on foot, but the poet has not described them 

 as fighting on horseback. The absence of mounted figures might authorize an opinion 

 that those sculptures had been executed before the time of Cyrus, whose precepts and 

 example first inspired the Persians with a love of equestrian exercises, of which, before 

 his time, they were wholly ignorant." — vol. ii. p. 27G. 



* 2 Chron.ix. 14. f 2 Chron. i. 17. 



I The historian gives us the price of the horse and the chariot at that time. A horse 

 brought from Egypt, including, probably, the expense of the joiu-ney, cost one hundred and 

 fifty shekels of silver, which, at two shillings, three pence, and one half farthing each, 

 amounts to about seventeen pounds two shillings. A chariot cost six hundred shekels, or 

 sixty-eight pounds, eight shillings; a most enormous sum at that early period, but little to 

 him who expended more than thirty-five millions of pounds, in gold alone, to ornament 

 the Temple which he had built. 



