30 THE HORSE. 



thau any other of the pure Greek States, also excelled, com- 

 paratively speaking, in their cavalry. 



To the same cause, doubtless, must be ascribed the deficiency 

 or rather total absence of cavalry among the Israelites, a singu- 

 larly brave, warlike and conquering people, who, nevertheless, 

 60 totally neglected the horse, for which animal their rocky, 

 precipitous and stony country is especially unsuited, that it was 

 not even used among them for purposes of state or show, the 

 ass, on the contrary, being the saddle-animal of their patriarchs, 

 their princes, and their prophets, and the beast, on which the 

 Saviour of the Universe entered the streets of Jerusalem, palm 

 branches stre\vn beneath his feet, amid Hosannahs, hailing him 

 King of the Jews.* 



The first Greek, who seems to have ^^aid particular attention 

 to the horse, on which he wrote an admirable treatise, is Xeno- 

 plion, the celebrated captain of the retreat of the ten thousand, 

 who was, no less deservedl}-, famous as a horseman and a hunter, 

 than he was as a soldier and a statesman. Of this work I shall 

 have occasion to speak hereafter, when treating of the Greek 

 horse as a special variety. 



We have seen thus far, that so late as the early Persian, 

 and, I may add, during the Peloponnesian wars, the cavalry of 



* It is well worthy of especial remark, as is observed, I think originally in Mr. 

 Winter's excellent work on the horse, that the attributing the adoption of this 

 animal, on the occasion of the triumphal entry of the Saviour into Jerusalem, 

 " meekly riding on an ass," to /lumility, is an error on the part of modern divines, 

 not supported by any fact, but wholly at variance with the ancient and even the 

 present usage of the inhabitants of tlie Holy Land. 



"Asses," he says "were once more highly esteemed in Palestine than horses, for 

 reasons before stated, and people of the first quality there commonly rode on them. 

 Deborah, in her song, describes the great and powerful of Israel by the expression, 

 ' Ye that ride on white asses.' At the present day, a breed of white asses, cele- 

 brated for its excellence, is found near Bussorah. This race is cultivated with the 

 greatest attention, and is supposed by Lieut. Col. Smith to be as ancient as the time 

 of the kings of Judah. Jair of Gilead had thirty sons, who rode upon as many 

 asses, and commanded in thirty cities. Abdon, one of the judges of Israel, had 

 forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy asses. 



" Moses had previously forbidden the use of horses, on account of their being 

 more unfitted to the country than asses." 



This unfitness consists principally in the flexibility of the pastern, flatness of the 

 hoof, and thinness of the horny crust, in the horse, as compared with the upright, 

 rigid, and hard foot of the ass, especially before the use of horse-shoes. 



