1853] 



THE HORSE AND ITS RIDER. 



157 



pushed across from Central Asia towards the Black Sea, passed 

 to the northward of it, and crossing the Danube, fell upon 

 Thrace and Thessal}', in which country they established them- 

 selves; and for many centuries- after, the Thessalian horsemen 

 ■were among the most renowned in the world. The Pelasgian 

 race then inhabiting these countries, either had no hoi'ses or very 

 indift'erent ones, not fit for military uses; and the Centaurs were 

 probably the first horsemen they had seen. And as to the 

 ignoi-ant everything unknown is a wonder, they invented the 

 fable, which gave scope to the genius of Phidias, and to these 

 times and our own country the fiiezes of the Pai'theuon. The 

 Pelasgians wei-e not more surprised at the exti-aordinary appear- 

 ance of their Scythian invaders, than the Mexican Indians were 

 at that of the Conquistador Cortez, and his iron-dad tioopei-s. 

 If, as many ethnologists suppose, even at this early time, a part 

 of the Centaurs separated from the others at the Carpathian chain 

 and pushed onwards to the Baltic, we should at once have a clue 

 to the first arrival of that race in Northern Europe, variously 

 denominated Asia, Gotha, Scythians, Scandinavians or Teutons, 

 a part of whom at a period much nearer oui' own time, inva 

 ded India, but were routed and expelled by Vikia-Maditya, King 

 of Avanti, about 56 years before the Christian era, and who 

 recoiling, carried with them many of the Hindoo religions ele- 

 ments, thus accounting for the horsemen gods, the horse sacrifices, 

 and the mixture of Sanscrit words in the language of the 

 Scandinavians. 



The invasion of Thessaly by the Scythian Centaurs, synchro- 

 nous as I observed before with the heroic age of Greece, nearly 

 so with the expulsion of the Hyksos by Thothmes, with the 

 invasion of Asia by Ramses the Great, and of India by other 

 Scythic hordes, sufficiently marks the periods of great move- 

 ments through the whole East, and of the general appearance of 

 horses, chariots and horsemen. 



J alluded in the earlier part of this lecture to certain philologi- 

 cal reasons for believing that Central Asia was peculiai-ly the 

 land of the indigenous horse. Philology means an inquiry into 

 the origin and construction of language, and in the work of a 

 very celebrated naturalist, we find a most elaborate argument to 

 prove that by a strict enquiry into the names bestowed upon the 

 horse in the most ancient known languages, much light may be 

 thrown both on its primitive seat and period of domestication, 

 and here perhaps will be the proper place to give you the sub- 

 stance of his statements. In Hebrew, the oldest of the Semitic 

 languages now studied, many terms are applied to the horse and 

 its congener, the ass; of these, if we take the words pra, para, 

 pered and perdak, to mean an ass, or mule, or more properly 

 any beast to ride on, and compare them with the words pares, 

 horses, and parasim, Pereians or Parthians, that is, horsemen, 

 we see that the original root of the word must be sought for 

 farther east, and that it belongs to the language of a nation of 

 cavalry ; and in a secondary sense, an exalted people — that it 

 is in i-eality a word of Zendic or Sanscrit origin, probably allied 

 in dialect with the Moso-Gothic or Teutonic words pherd, perd 

 and paert, which word is also the root of Latin word ferro, to 

 carry, phra or pher, literally meaning the " car-borne" the 

 " chariot-rider r We may therefore suspect that these, with 

 many other words of Scythic or Indo-German origin, to be found 

 in Arabic and Hebrew, and other Semitic languages, were bor- 

 rowed from the horsemen invaders of Egypt and Arabia. It is 

 the same word that is one of the titles of the Sun-God — the 

 charioteer or image of gloiy and beauty ; and in tha Scandina- 

 vian mythology is synonymous with freya, or beauty and pre- 

 eminence. In Babylonish we have the words ninus and ninnus, 

 and in the Greek, Oinnus from an old Asiatic root always 

 meaning a young foal ; and in Persia or Parthian we have pful, 

 a horse, or a sun-beam — or a horee consecrated to the sun — now 

 one of the Centaur Scythians, whom we have spoken of, was 



named, Pholus, which seems to be identified with this word pfiil, 

 — asp, is another Parthian name of the h.orse, and this word and 

 pful were both applied as epithets to a long line of Kings and 

 Princes, and in many Greek authors we find the names of Aspii 

 and Arimaspii horsemen, and mountain hoisemtii, applied to two 

 very ancient nations of Central Asia, another strong pi'oof that it 

 was the original habitat of the hoi-se. Whatever the term may 

 be, the origmal idea or root seems always to have a reference to 

 convej'ance, and is ever associated with elevation, grandeur and 

 velocity. In the Arabic languages alone theie aie some hun- 

 dreds of words of Scythian or Northein Asiatic dei-i\ation, — 

 most likely derived from an unknown parent stock in Zend, and 

 closely allied to Gothic and Sanscrit. The Indo Saca?, and Jndo- 

 Germani, had long previously gone south, before, at a much 

 later period they removed westwaid, and consequently their pas- 

 sage through Arabia or the adjacent countries bordeiing on the 

 Western Caucasian range would have had but little efi'ect on any 

 Semitic languages. Eveiy expression that we find points to the 

 far East as the land of horses, and hoisenien ; that land being 

 distant from Arabia, as the Lord thieatens the Isi-aelit€S that he 

 would bring on them " a nation from afar, from the end of the 

 earth, as swift as the eagle flieth." And it is moreover distinct- 

 ly said, " a nation whose tongue thou shalt not undeistand." 

 Who then so likely to have been the means of ingraitiiig as it 

 were these words of Northern origin on the Arabic and other 

 Semitic languages, as the giant t)'ibes of Scytliian nomads, in 

 the far oft" mythological periods, or the later Hyksos, the iShep- 

 herd Kings? In the Sanscrit hmguages, amonsr the old names 

 of the horse we find none at ail distinctly sounding pjra or perd, 

 the epithets being aswa and turanga — the former of these being 

 most probably the root of asp, and the other of tiiran, the land 

 of the swilt, the ancient appellation of Bokhara, significantly 

 denominated the "Highland of God," or the valley of the Jaxart- 

 es, a river in the Hindu mythology, always represented as issu- 

 ing from a hoise's mouth, another cei-tain indication of the quar^ 

 ter whence horses became known to Sonthein Asia. It is be- 

 lieved that both asp and aswa are deiived from some still older 

 word, which is also most probably the root of the Gieek hippos 

 and the Latin, eqmts, by Pelasgian modifications, as are also the 

 Finnic words vppo and lipping so commonly met with in Nor- 

 way and Sweden. A similar slight change marks the Hebrew' 

 word ramach and the Celtic-Scythic word march, a horse or 

 mare. 



Tne Tuskish name for a horee is derived from a woid fignify- 

 ing red or bay, and this very word bay, in Latin baclivs, and in 

 Teutonic bayard, may be of Arabic origin, when bei/a means (he 

 same animal, or this may be perhaps merely a coincidence, from 

 the Arabic, Pelasgic and Teutonic, having the same root. There- 

 fore, seeing that the root or original of all these words, in what- 

 ever language they occur, may still be traced to a Scythic origin 

 or language. It is concluded from this philosophical fact, that 

 the horee came to Egypt and the adjacent countries, as well as 

 into Hindostan, already domesticated, fi'om the noith-east, and 

 that is the reason why we find no mention of it till the time of 

 Josjph. In Asia we find that the northern half of the whole 

 male popuhition, and even sometimes the female population have 

 used the saddle ever since human tradition began ; while in the 

 southern half the better classes onl}-, since the commencement of 

 profane history, have used the horse, and to this day man}' of the 

 wandering tribes of Southern Asia prefer the camel to the horse. 

 There is no evidence whatever, written or traditionary, that tlieie 

 ever were wild hoi'ses in any part of Arabia, every portion of the 

 counti-y has been accessible from the earliest periods, and visited' 

 by wandering tribes, and there is no wheie any dis'r'.ct or cover 

 fit for the propagation of horees in a wild state. It is therefore 

 fair to conclude that the hoise was unknown in Arabia, until 

 conquerors of the giant race, Scythians or Hyksos, brought them; 



