THE PONT. 



•fhat SO noble and invaluable a creattfre as the horse should 

 be associated with mythological lore, and the supetstitious rites 

 and ceremonies pertaining to remote ages, is by no means sur- 

 prising. Horses were anciently sacrificed to the sun in difiFerent 

 nations, their swiftness being supposed to render them an ap- 

 propriate offering to that luminary. In the religious processions 

 of the sun-woi'shippers, foremost among whom stood the ancient 

 Persians, horses were largely employed. According to Herodotus, 

 the Scythians sacrificed horses, as well as human beings, to the 

 god of war. The animal was first strangled by the priests, then 

 flayed and cut up, the flesh being broUed on a fire made of the 

 bonus. When a Scythian king died, the body was embalmed 

 and laid upon a bed surrolinded by spears in a great grave. 

 One of his wives, a groom, a cupbearer, a waiter, a messenger, 

 and several horses were slain and laid in the same grave, to- 

 gether with various vessels of precious metal. The mouth of 

 the pit was then covered,- and a high tumulus erected over it. 

 This, however, did not terminate the funeral rites. After mourn- 

 ing a year, his dead majesty's faithful subjects " select such 

 servants as they judge most useful out of the rest of the king's 

 household, which consists only of native Scythians, for the 

 king is never served by men bought with money. These offi- 

 cers, fifty in number, they strangle, and with them, fifty 

 beautiful horses. After they have eviscerated the bodies, they 

 fill them with straw, and sew them Up. They then lay two 

 planks of a semicircular form upon four pieces of timber (posts) 

 placed at a convenient distance ; and when they have erected 

 a sufficient number of these frames, they set the horses upon 

 them, first spitting them with a strong pole through the body 

 to the neck ; one semicircle supports the shoulders or chest of 

 the horse, the other his flank, and the legs are suspended in 

 the air. After this they bridle the horses, and, hanging the 

 reins at full length upon posts erected for the purpose, mount 

 one of the fifty young men they have strangled upon each 

 horse, fixing him in his seat by spitting the body up the spine 

 with a straight stick which is received in a socket in the beam 

 that spits the horse. Then they place these horsemen round 

 the timbers and depart." Awfiilly grand must have been the 

 spectacle of these silent and ghastly sentinels guarding the dead 

 monarch. 



So it is throughout ancient history, sacred and proiane; 

 and hundreds of instances might be qi^.oted showing the omni- 

 presence of the animal, and how that he always shared in the 



