424 THE HORSE. 



late period that the Arabs used horses. At a time when Solomon 

 was receiving various treasures from Arabia, it was from Egypt 

 only that he obtained his immense number of horses. Hero- 

 dotus expressly states, that Xerxes obtained a portion of his 

 cavalry from Ethiopia, and that he was joined by a body of 

 native Indians, some on horseback, and others in war-chariots. 



The primitive habits, contour, and colour of the horse, in a 

 purely natural state, cannot be said to be known with certainty, 

 for it is highly probable that it has long ceased to exist in such 

 a state. As all the wild horses which now exist in various parts 

 of the world appear to have sprung from a domesticated stock, 

 they afford no clue to the elucidation of the points in question. 

 The numerous herds of wild horses existing on the plains 

 of Tartary, do not appear to have been originally indigenous 

 to that country ; and the still greater numbers which inhabit 

 South America, are very clearly traced to the horses which the 

 Spaniards first introduced into that continent from Europe - } 

 and old writers tell us, that when the natives at that period 

 saw a man on horseback, they thought the man and horse to 

 be one individual creature, a sort of centaur. 



" He grew unto his seat, 



As he had been incorps'd and demi-natur'd 



With the brave beast." (Hamlet.) 



To describe the horse as we find him at present, it may be 

 said that he is distinguished from all other solid-hoofed animals 

 of his order, by the possession of callous wart-like protuberances 

 on the hind-legs as well as the fore, and of a flowing tail ; and 

 by the absence of a dark stripe along the back.* Every body 

 knows that horses vary greatly, not only in size and colour, 

 but in shape ; the principal breeds even exhibiting sensible 



* Mr. Macdonald, in a paper read before the Royal Society in June 1839, 

 stated that in Scotland there is a breed of horses, called the eel-back dun, and 

 that many of this breed have the back and legs marked like those of the 

 zebra. Walker, however, in his History of the Hebrides (vol. ii. p. 158), merely 

 says that the horses of the Scottish Highlands and of Norway have a mark, 

 resembling an eel, extending from the shoulder along the ride of the back to 

 the rump. 



