ON THE ORIGIN OF TI1E HORSE. 
131 
« How firm the manag’d war Iiorsc keeps his ground, 
Nor breaks his order, though the trumpets sound ; 
With fearless eye the glittVing host surveys, 
And glares directly at the helmet’s blaze: 
The master’s word, the laws of war he knows, 
And when to stop, and when to charge the foes*;” 
but likewise for the more noble and generous pleasures of the 
chase, from his comparing him with the ostrich, or camel-bird, as 
the Arabs call it: “ What time she lifteth herself on high” (or as 
it may otherwise be translated, when she raiseth herself up to run 
away, viz. from her pursuers) “ she scorneth (or laughs at) the 
horse and his riderf.” 
We are not singular in the opinion we have formed. Almost 
every traveller or naturalist who has written on'the subject, gives 
Arabia the credit of being the genuine and original country of the 
horse. “It is a climate,” says Gibbon “the most propitious, 
not indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness of that ge¬ 
nerous animal.” Buffon, D’Arvieux, and Niebuhr, coincide in 
this opinion: the last named author, the most judicious of any of 
our Syrian travellers, says “some (animals) appear to be origi¬ 
nally natives of the country (Arabia), for they are not common 
through the other regions of the East; they retain their primary 
instincts in higher perfection, and are more eminently distin¬ 
guished by strength and beauty here than elsewhere ; such are 
the horse, the ass, and the camel.” 
We have described Arabia as once being a powerful nation, 
» 
“ When hearts within thy valleys bred 
The fiery souls that might have led 
Thy sons to deeds sublime.” 
Many circumstances might be related which would account for 
their present debasement, having always been famed for their 
robberies, revenge, ravages, and murders; such, to use the words 
of a Roman historian, “ as one would neither wish his friends 
nor his foesit became the interest, therefore, of every con¬ 
queror to endeavour to root them out; and it is observable, that 
almost every noted conqueror pushed his conquests to their very 
borders, and yet left them unsubdued :— 
“ ‘ Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, 
Each step from splendour to-.” 
We cannot add though, with the poet, “ disgrace:” for, although 
generations and ages have rolled away, they have never yet sub- 
* Oppian’s Imitation of Job’s description of the horse, chap, xxxix. 
f Calmet, apud xxxix, chap. Job. 
