he said to Dan: (1st Book of Moses, Chapter 49, "VerselT.) "There shall 

 be a serpent in the "way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse's 

 heels, so that his rider shall fall back-ward." 



The bible throws light upon the subject -which no other historical 

 records explain; that is the time, when the horse was first utilized for 

 the service of man, at least in one, and at that same time the most civ- 

 ilized part of the world, before Greece -was populated. A long- time 

 must have elapsed, before men realized the value and real use of the 

 animals that lived around them. In all probability they commenced 

 with those, which they could capture the easiest and subdue the 

 soonest. The advantages, which they derived from so doing induced 

 them to tame animals of the class of mammals, of greater importance. 

 In harmony with this the books of Moses show, that after the ox, the 

 sheep and the goat, the ass was tamed, then the camel, and last the horse; 

 but as soon as the latter had been conquered and its strength, docility 

 and sharp senses had been appreciated, the other animals were thought 

 inferior, except in Palestine, where the use of the horse was forbidden 

 by divine order; or the vast or sterile wilderness, where it could not live. 

 From Kgypt, the use of the horse spread into other and distant coun. 

 tries, and it is probable, that the horse was ransplanted there from Egypt. 

 The Greeks say, that Neptune struck the earth with his trident and so 

 caused the horse to appear. The truth is, that the Thessalians, who 

 were first and best mounted in Greece, were colonists from Kgypt. 

 Records of Natural History give another land as the nativity of the 

 horse and its equipment: In the higher regions of middle Asia, the 

 horse may have escaped destruction through the general overflow. 

 It seems, that from the high valleys of the Oxus and Cashemere this 

 species of animals and their use for the service of man, came to China, 

 India and Kgypt. It is to this last named though, that the honor is due 

 of having j udiciously cared for the horse, and to have improved its 

 breed. This is proved by the many sculptures of that time and period, 

 which not only represent horsss well bred and beautiful, but also per- 

 sons who are occupied cleaning their limbs, rubbing them, etc. All the 

 horses are represented either entirely free or hitched to chariots ; riders 

 being found only on. works of a later period. During his travels through 

 Persia and various other countries of the Orient, the British Orientalist 

 Ousely, inspected among other works of sculpture those of Persepolis,' 

 and from them drew a conclusion as to how the horses had been gradually 

 subdued; He writes: "There are no images of equestrians, although they 

 are mentioned by various travelers; one would think that the simple 

 mounting of a horse has preceeded its use before the chariot, with its 

 complicated harness; but in Persepolis no riders are to be found, and 

 we know that Homer, the Kpic Poet of Greece, describes his horses as 

 attached to chariots, from -which the warriors would, from time to time, 

 alight, for the purpose of fighting on foot, and we know, that this Poet 

 does not describe them as fighting on. horseback. The absence of mount- 

 ed images would support the presumption, that those sculptures were 

 made before the time of Cyrus (539 B. <Z.) whose example and prescrip- 



