BORSES. 



495 



a distinct species. It is of dun colour, becoming darker on the back, where, how- 

 ever, there is no distinct stripe, and nearly white on the under-parts. Although 

 agreeing in most respects with the horse, it differs by the mane being erect and 

 without a forelock on the forehead, and by the hairs on the tail being confined to 

 the lower half. Sir W. H. Flower suggests that this animal may prove to be a 

 hybrid between the tarpan and the kiang 



We have seen that in Europe the horse was probably domesticated 

 during the prehistoric period ; and we turn now to the evidence 

 afforded by the Egyptian monuments as to the date of its first use in that ancient 

 country. It appears that no pictorial representations of the animal occur in the 

 frescoes of the so-called old kingdom ; and that such are seen for the first time at 

 about the 18th dynasty (1800 or 1900 B.C.), when the reign of the Asiatic 

 Hyksos, or shepherd-kings, who had for so long a period ruled over the valley of 

 the Nile, came to an end. At this period the horse seems to have only been used 

 in war; and it is possible that it may have been introduced by the kings of the 

 18th dynasty from Syria. Both in Egypt and in Europe it was only at a com- 

 paratively late period that the horse replaced the ox as a beast of draught. 



In regard to Western Asia, it appears that the horse is of comparatively recent 

 introduction into Arabia, the earliest accounts of the nomads of the Arabian deserts 

 referring only to their possessing camels and asses ; while the Arabs in the army 

 of Xerxes are stated to have been mounted on camels. The sculptures of Nineveh 

 show, however, that the war-horse was known at a very early date in Assyria ; 

 and it is hence probable that it was from Mesopotamia that the horse was intro- 

 duced at first to the Syrians on the Mediterranean, and from them to the Egyptians 

 in the valley of the Nile. It is a somewhat curious circumstance that in all the 

 Assyrian sculptures in which mounted warriors armed with the bow are depicted, 

 the horse is invariably led by a second horseman, thus suggesting that at this date 

 the Assyrians were by no means such good riders as the Persians and Parthians 

 subsequently became. The Greeks may have derived their war-horses from the 

 same Asiatic stock : and from Greece and Italy these Asiatic . horses probably 

 became intermingled with the native breed originally domesticated in Western 

 Em-ope. From Mesopotamia the horse probably spread westwards as a domesti- 

 cated animal into Persia and India, in neither of which countries is there any 

 evidence of the existence of an original wild breed. 



Apart from the question whether an indigenous species may have 

 In America. . . . ° . 



still lingered on in Argentina, at the time of the Spanish conquest 



horses were unknown in at least the greater part of America. When introduced, 



from Europe, they soon multiplied, and reverted to a semi-wild condition, and 



spread over large areas of the country, where they now exist in vast numbers in 



the open plains. Mr. W. H. Hudson states, however, that in certain parts of 



Patagonia wild horses are unable to exist owing to the number of pumas ; and he 



suggests that it may have been these animals which led to the practical if not 



total extinction of the indigenous horses of the New World. In the Falkland 



Islands the horses introduced by the French in 1764 have become thoroughly wild, 



and have multiplied to a considerable extent, although not so much so as might 



have been expected. At the time of Darwin's visit these wild horses were, for 



