CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 10. SOLIDUNGULA. 



601 



THE ARABIAN HORSE. 



ASIATIC AND AFRICAN BREEDS. 



The Arabian Horse, according to our theory, is a race which sprang up among the Saracens 

 after the seventh century. The vast country which lies east of the Caspian Sea, the ancient 

 home of the Scythians and the site of modern Tartary, we suppose to have been first over- 

 spread by the horse. From this point we conceive it to have been extended southward into 

 Persia, Media, Armenia, and Asia Minor, and northward and westward into Siberia and Europe. 

 Cappadocia, contiguous to Scythia, was anciently the most noted horse-market in the East : from 

 this region we are told that the Greeks obtained their horses, or a part of them, and a curious 

 confirmation of this is found in the Elgin marbles, the horses of which have in their outline, and 

 especially their head, a wonderful resemblance to the Tartar horses of the present day. Egypt, 

 directly or indirectly, we suppose to have received its horses from the same source. 



The finest of the Tartar horses, thus transported through the markets of Asia Minor to the 

 civilized and luxurious countries lying around the entire borders of the Mediterranean Sea, influ- 

 enced for ages alike by climate and breeding, resulted in spreading over those countries a race of 

 animals of the highest order of beauty in form, and the most excellent in all other noble qualities. 

 The followers of Mahomet, between the years 632 and 640, conquered the whole of Arabia, Syria, 

 Persia, and Egypt. They made spoil of every thing that came in their way ; the finest breeds of 

 horses in the world were thus at their disposal, and as they were especially needed, inasmuch as their 

 troops were all or nearly all mounted, and swept over the countries they invaded like a whirlwind, 

 no doubt these animals were greedily accepted. The horse was one of the chief instruments of 

 the amazing success of these restless fanatics. Taught by experience to prize this animal above 

 every other possession, and beginning with the finest breed in the world, and moreover, aided by a 

 pure, elastic, and spiritualizing climate, it is not surprising that the Saracens or Arabs should have 

 produced that race which, all things considered, may be regarded as its fiuest type. This superi- 

 ority does not consist in surpassing all others in speed, strength, and endurance, for in these respects 

 it must yield to the English Thoroughbred, but in the fact that, while having these qualities in a 

 high degree, in breeding with others it uniformly stamps its progeny with improvement. 



The Arab Horse is not, perhaps, the handsomest, according to our ideas. Its frontal line is 



Vol. I.— *76. 



