Ill 



THE HORSE 



I. The Lanh of his Okic.in and his 

 Ancestors 



miirc for his good qualities when at last he 

 resigned himself and understood what was 

 It is from the vast steppes of northern Asia, wanted of him. His speed made the first great 

 where the tempests rage and man can scarcely impression upon man ; in fact, there are coun- 

 live, that the horse has come. I le did not come tries where his name comes to him from that 

 (if himself, nor has he ever given himself wholly quality. In Hebrew, in Egyptian, and in some 

 to man, like the dog. On the contrary, even other ancient languages the word s//s stands 

 now in his civilized state, he turns his back, and for "horse" and for "swallow." The Greek 

 sometimes his heels, on those he does not recog- Avord hippos signifies "rapid." When the horse 

 nize, if the)- come too near him. was seen for the first time at Malacca he \\'as 



Feeding on those illimitable plains, the wild called kiida-baivng, the horse bird, 

 horse learned to ])erceive at a great distance The people of the steppes finally identified 



themselves wholly with their steeds. The 

 Mongols, horsemen from time immemorial, 

 show it in their shape and their atti- 

 tude ; they have made, so to speak, 

 \ the horseman type, — curved legs 

 and the upper part of the body 

 bending forward. They sleep on 

 their horses, live with them, boast 

 of them, and lo\'e them more than 

 wife or child. 



The wild horse still exists, how- 

 ever ; he can be found in the 

 southern regions of Siberia, on the 

 plains of Mongolia, among the Ural 

 Mountains, and in America, where he 

 is a descendant of the horse stock brought 

 marrow, and brains served as food to the o\'er by the Spanish explorers. As late as the 

 dwellers in those ca\'erns. second half of the twelfth century he was 



It was probably not until much later that hunted in Spain, in the Belgian Ardennes, in 

 the horse was tamed and subjected to the will Italy, and in the south and east of what is 

 of man. The peojDle of the steppes, surrf)unded now Germany. I.jater still wild horses inhabited 

 by wild animals of all kinds, learned to capture the forests of Russia, and in the seventeenth 

 the laggards and straggleis, and from this century were hunted in Poland and in Lithu- 

 dates a memorable ejioch in the relations of ania. Those that were captured alive were 

 man to the animal kingdom. In all probability kept like cattle in inclosures, where they 

 a number of the smaller animals had sub- were trained for either riding or draft, chiefly 

 mitted, while the great horse still protested for the former purpose. Mare's milk, which 

 vehemently against enslavement. It is likely is still greatly esteemed for cheese or whey 

 that it was not by gentleness (as in our day) (koumiss) among the Tartars, was a chief 

 that he was first subdued, which says all the article of food. 



96 



the approach of his enemies, the wild beasts. 

 The cjuick ears pricked, a short neigh 

 sounded, and the horde dashed away ,/ 

 with the speed of the wind. He fled 

 before all strange life, and conse 

 quentl)' before man, who sought 

 to ca]nure him for his flesh and 

 his skin. Here we come upon 

 the great natural motive, the 

 first cause of the drawing to- 

 gether of man and animals, — 

 hunger and its satisfying. This 

 is proved by the enormous C|uan- 

 tity of horses' bones found in the 

 caves of prehistoric man. The skull 

 and the cleft bones show that flesh 



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