ORIGIN OF SOME DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 55 
of apparently similar type to the tarpan wandered over a 
great part of Europe and Western Asia, as is attested by 
their fossilised remains; and from other evidence it is 
probable that at the epoch in question the physical con- 
dition of much of Europe was similar to that of the Asiatic 
steppes at the present day. Such conditions would seem, 
indeed, to be essential for the existence of wild horses, 
which are animals specially adapted for a life on the open 
plains, where they find safety in flight. It is true that 
wild horses were found in parts of Europe at a much later 
epoch, when the country had become forest-clad ; but it is 
quite possible that these were really feral races. When we 
come to the consideration of the place and time of the first 
domestication of the horse, the usual difference of opinion 
prevails among those most capable of forming a judgment. 
It was at one time considered that the horse was first 
domesticated in the East, but later authorities are more 
inclined to think that the wild horse was also subjugated 
by the stone-implement makers of Western Europe. This 
race is considered to have given rise to the ordinary 
European breeds; but thoroughbred horses are probably 
of Eastern origin. We naturally look to Arabia as the 
ancestral home of the Eastern breed; but this is a 
mistake, as the horse is known to be a comparatively late 
introduction into that country, the Arabs even as late as 
the time of Strabo having neither horses nor asses, and 
going to battle mounted on camels. 
In the early days of Egypt—that is to say, during the 
period known as the “old kingdom”—the horse was un- 
known in the Nile Valley ; the animal not making its appear- 
ance in the frescoes till about the year 1800 B.c. Probably 
the horse entered Egypt vi@ Mesopotamia and Syria, where, 
as we learn from the Nineveh sculptures, it had long been 
