Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-03-17
THE HORSE.
Why That Animal w Driven Before It
 Was R;t len.


 Was R, len.
 Canon Taylor, in ' at most interest ing book, "Tnc Orig of the Aryans," has raised once moro a question which has often attracted the attention of scholars, especially { ose interested iii the Homeric poems. lys the Academy. Why is it that in thr arlicst records of the Creeks, Egyl. ans, Assyrians, Indians, and Celts ' find the horse used for drawing eli, 'iots, but not yet for riding?
 Canon Taylor rcma ks: Ut is curious to notice at how late ;, period men first venturcd to mount u swift one:'" and he goes on to say that there is nothing in the Rig Veda" to how that the art of riding was prart cd, and that our first notice of it is in he ''Zcnd Avesta." The IIomeric Grec'ls employed the horse almost exc tsively for the chariot, riding being nnly alluded to in some two or three isu ated passages, as when Odysseus and Oiomedcs rode to the ships the horses of RhcSus which they had captured. This, however, shows that it was hardly from fear that the Greeks did not habitually ride instead of drive their steeds. The
 
 Britons, who, according to the ancient accounts, performed wonderful fcats of agility ill running out and standing upon the pole of the chariot.
 The true solution may probably be this: The primitive horse that ranged over the plains of Europe and Asia was too small when he was first domcsti- cated to carry a man for any great I jet l,; of course, would render him practically useless for warfare. There is ample evidence to prove that the primitive wild horse was of very diminutive size. Probably of all his descendants the Shetland pony is his best represent ative. Canon Taylor says (speaking of the enormous deposit of their bones found at Solutre, near Macon, which contains from twenty thousand to forty thousand slleletons)
 "This primitive horse was a diminu- tive animal, not much larger than an ass, standing about thirteen hands high, the largest specimens not exceed ing fourteen hands. But the head was of disproportionate size, and the teeth were very powerful. He resembled the tarpan or wild horse of the Caspian steppes."
 Even long after he had been domesti- cated he remained very small, as is proved by the bits II ade of bronze and staghorn which have been found at Mo ringen and Auvernit 2, which belong to the latest bronze az. "These bits are only three and on, half inches wide, l and could now be hardly used for a child's pony"
 Nk t,> speaking of the unli; own regions to the | north of the Danube, he says that the only people he can earn of as inhab- iting the region arc called Sigyannae, I who wear the cost: me of the Medes, and whose horses a. e shaggy all over | the body, being GOV, rcd with hair to a | depth of five fingers. and are small and | fiat nosed and inc2 oable of carrying | men, but when vol cd under chariots they are very swift. and that the na- tives accordingly dr.ve chariots. This description of the c, ternal appearance | of the little horses c the Sigyannae of central Europe agr, as very we'll with that of the sl1etche found near Ma con. The simous s lape of the head tallies we'll with the ugly shaped skull and powerful jaws of the bone de- | posits.
 We can hardly doubt that we have here primitive horses such as those whose diminutive bit have been found in the later lake dwe lings of Switzer- land. It seems to me then that the reason Herodotus here assigns for the fact that this tribe of central Europe drove their horses instead of riding them is the true explanation why all early peoples alike employed the horse for driving long before they ever habit
 ually practiced riding. It was only
 after generations of domestication that,
 under careful feeding and breeding, the
 horse became of sufficient size to carry
 a man on his back with ease. That
 size was held to be of great importance
 by the Homeric Greeks is proved by
 Iliad x, 4G6.