THE CHARIOT 139 



great son Alexander swept like a whirlwind 

 across the Eastward deserts to where the 

 monsoon rains made India populous. By this 

 time cavalry had replaced the chariot. At the 

 era of the Christ a chariot was still used when 

 a victorious general entered a city in triumph. 

 But the use of chariotry in war was limited to 

 remote barbaric tribes such as the British. 



The chariot for practical purposes was 

 extinct before a single horse had found his way 

 over the long dry marches leading out of the 

 world to the remote oases of Arabia. Strabo 

 the geographer, who at the era of our Lord made 

 a survey of the known world, found that the 

 horse had not yet entered Arabia. A land 

 indeed where no water can be had except from 

 wells was not a possible range for pastured 

 horses, and the horse has not sufficient thirst 

 endurance to be of much use for transport 

 between the oases, whereas asses and camels 

 were to be had much cheaper. 



It was in the earliest Christian centuries that 

 Arabian chiefs began to import Bay horses 

 from Egypt. It seems likely that the begin- 

 ning of their sea-trade enabled them to do so. 

 While almost all nations of Europe and Asia 

 were compelled by the need for heavy war 

 horses to feed grain and to cross the imported 



