The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1903-06-19
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
ELY TO BE FOUND IN BARB
1 BLOOD OR THE ZEBRA.


In a paper read by Professor Ridge
way before the Cambridge England
Philosophical society recently. the au-
thor said that not only, as had long
leen observed. did the Homeric Creeks
drive the horse before they rode him,
Dut that the same was true OF all an
cieat peoples-Egyptans, Canaanltes,
Assyrlans. Aryans Of Rig-Veda, Umbrl-
ans, Celts-and that the explanation
OF this was given by Herodotus who, in
speaking of the sigynnae, the only
trlb4 porth of the Danube whose name
ne new said that they had small
horses with large, fat noses and very
long hair, which, though not able to
carry man, were excellent under
chariots; wherefore they used chart.
OTIS" Dion Cassus," said Professor
Ridgeway, likewise says that the Bril-
. tons used chariots in war, because
etlr horses were small though active
ne description Of the horses of the
Saeshnae tallies exactly with the album
~ remains Of the primitive horses
oPNEurope, eaten in great quantities
and delineated on antlers by the men
OF the sto' age, He'was a small ami
NAL, about 10 hands high, with a big
head Even after domestication he
remained very small, as witness bits
of bronze and horn found in Swiss
lake dwellings, the shoes found at Sill
chester. and in camps on the Roman
wall, etc. Authorities agree that from
thA primitive horse has been devel-
% the cart horses of the continent
and these islands, while our blood
horses have come from an eastern stock
of slight build and smart appearance.
Our problem is to ascertain the orogi-
nal habitat of this superior horse, He
has not come from Upper Asia, as the
Monaghan pony is taken as the type
of the coarse, thickset horse from
which sprang the cart horse. The
Monaghan pony probably represents
the 5cythian horses, which continued
to De of a small size down to Strabo's
time, and they were derived either
from the tarpan or Prezevalsky's horse.
The Monaghan pony, though surefoot-
ed and enduring, is slow of pace. Mel
Their China, Siam nor Burmah have any
Indigenous horse answering to the
blood horse. India could never breed
Aorses, says Marco Polo, in whose time
dia was supplied either with Mon
SIN ponies from Yunnan or with
~ from south Persia, Alden and
Arabian ports. These Arabs
lbed enormous prices, equivalent to
1000. 1t has hitherto been universal
ly held that Arabia is the original
home Of the blood horse. This is
baseless assumption. In the Old Tes-
lament, the Arabs are never mentioned
as riding anything but camels and ass
es. Though the author Of Job knew of
the We horse, yet Job did not own
Single horse, his equine possessions
consisting Of 500 she asses. Herodotus
(vii, 81 enumerates the nations Tin
Guiding the Libyans) that supplied
cavalry to Xerxes' host, but the Arabs
only furnish camel corps. Agathar
chides (cited by Strabo) describes the
Arabs as camel keepers
i 'NA nally, Strabo (for. A. D. y ex-
T presslA y, states that neither the people
of Arabia Felix nor those of Arabia
Petraea bred horses. Naturally, then,
Scaurus, after defeating the Arab king
Aretas, put on his coins Aretas leading
his camel. 1t is clear, then, that down
to the, Christian era the Arabs bred
no horses. 1t is therefore clear that
though be Persian kings in the fifth
century 3. G..bred the largest and best
horses in ASH, those were not of an
Arab strain. These horses were kept
largely in Armenia, and are described
by Strabo as similar to the Parthian
horses, and as different from the horses
bred in Greece and the other kinds Of
horses known in the Roman empire
There can be little doubt that they
wera. the same horses as Marco Polo
fouh u great numbers in Armenia
127 D. known as TUrkauns, the
Turl VI ponies we'll known in Per-
STA today. The Persian horses can
not then, have been the ancestors of
the thoroughbred, though it is quite
possible that their superiority was due
tard trah aving a cross of thorough
lnds the j l. for already by 900 B. G..
lection. bIY imported horses from Egypt
Il Kings X, and so for all the kings
of Syria and for all the kings of the
Hittites' Egypt could not breed horses,
neither could she have got them from
the Arabs. who bred none even 1000
years lats But she could and did
get t6el from the Libyans, who from