456 THE HORSE. 



regions of snow, which appear to stretch across the Conti- 

 nent, from the high lands of Abyssinia, until they terminate 

 towards the pestilential shores of the Atlantic. 



From one or more of the wild of the species, whether of 

 Africa, Asia, or Europe, must be supposed to be derived 

 those innumerable varieties of the Horse which have been 

 subjected to human power. Whether those varieties are to 

 be regarded as a single species, or as several, depends upon 

 the meaning which we attach to our terms. If we include, 

 under the same specific type, all the characters presented by 

 the domesticated varieties, of colour and external form, then 

 all the subjugated horses are of one species, just as all the 

 varieties of the human race are of one species. But, admit- 

 ting that all the subjugated as well as wild horses are 

 specifically the same, which it is most consonant with our 

 ideas of natural classification to admit, the question still 

 arises, whether all Horses have been originally placed in one 

 region of the globe, or in more than one I for, as has been 

 before observed, we are not entitled to assume that the like 

 species may not have been called into existence in different 

 parts of the world, either at the same or at different periods. 

 We may either suppose, then, that the Horse, descended 

 from a single pair or family, was produced in some spot of 

 earth, whence he has been diffused, as from a common centre, 

 to all the parts of the earth which he inhabits ; or that he 

 has been called forth in different parts of the earth's surface, 

 whence he has been diffused, as from different centres. If we 

 shall decide in favour of the former opinion, namely, that all 

 the Horses of the world have descended from a single pair or 

 family, and been dispersed from some one spot on the earth's 

 surface, then we may amuse our fancy by conjecturing where 

 this favoured spot is, whether in Central Asia, where the 

 animal so abounds, or on the banks of the Euphrates, whence 

 we believe our own species to have been dispersed, or in the 

 valley of the Nile, where we first hear of chariots of war, or 

 in Arabia, as some naturalists have maintained* or at the 



