ORIGIN OF SOME DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 57 
From the plains of Turkestan the horse spread in one 
direction to the Punjab and the plains of Hindustan, and 
in the other through Persia to Mesopotamia and Assyria, 
and thence westwards to Egypt and southwards to Arabia. 
Among the Arabs it soon became indispensable to its 
master; and, as already said, this intimate union between 
man and quadruped renders it difficult to believe that Arabia 
is not the original home of the horse. Uncivilised races, 
though highly conservative in some matters, in others soon 
adapt themselves to new circumstances; and the case of 
the North American Indians affords an example of the 
rapidity with which a people among whom the horse was 
unknown can develop into a race of horsemen. Had we 
not historic evidence to the contrary, there is, indeed, no 
saying but that the original subjugation of the horse might 
have been attributed to the Indian of the prairies. 
