The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1912-01-30
BY Mark Field.

To the primeval form of the white
horse the testimony of history and OF
the quaternary deposits assigns two
original hibatations-one of them in
Europe lying north of the Black sea,
along the river Dnieper, the other
situated in high Asia to the southeast
Of the supposed seat of the ancient
Aryans, and including the regions in
which the rivers Jaxartes and Oxus,
with branch of the Indus. take rise.
At just what period the whites
were domesticated no one can tell.
But We know that they were in use by
the Equestrian conquerors of the old
world as early as 1900 B. c., and
that the first missionaries whe carried
the cross from Rome and Byzantium
far to the east and the north found
the white horse, both in aboriginal
freedom and in the service of man,
in the countries in which the records
of his tory and of the rocks have fix
ed his primal home.
Among untamed horses the whites
are the biggest, except the blacks, be
ing on the average about fourteen
hands high, and remarkably massive
in all their parts. The head is large.
the ears and eyes small the neck
short, joining the head at consider
able angle; the name short and rag
ged, the tail long, reaching below
the hooks; the shoulders rather low,
not much inclined, but very strong;
the breast deep and plump. ribbed
up; the rump steep and broad, the
quarters full and strongly muscled,
with stout STILES and gaskins: the
pasterus straight, short and strong;
leg bones large and tendous well re-
lieved, feet broad and solid. limbs
snugly iointed. and well set under the
body. The roots of the long hair of
the coat are invested with heavy
bear-like fur, which extends over the
whole surface, and there is percepti-
BILE beard under the lower jaw that
-CEs UP to the gullet.
In the seventh century, B. c.
all the religions of the Orient,
whatever their local peculiarities, con-
tanned solar mystery. And the re-
ligion of the Persians, being a dual
ism in which God (Oromasdes) was
represented by the sun. and in which
the devil (Ahriman) was represented
in everything dark, was one to which
the white horse was especially well
adapted Therefore it was not re-
E;arkable that the Persian kings and
people took to him and would have
no other. He was by them adopted as
the sacred horse. At stated intervals
he drew the car of Ormasdes before
the fires which the majians kept per-
petually burning on the mountains. He
was the horse that carried the Per-
sions to war, and that was always
used on gala days and occasions OF
state display. From the time of Cyrus
| to that of Xerxes white horses only
were employed by the Medo-Persian
princes. Darius had never less than
one hundred and sixty of them in his
own stables, and Herodotus informs
us that at one time they numbered
! at Babylon alone, in the government
breeding service, eight thousand stall
lions and sixteen thousand mares.
! In the course of time under the
care and the smart system of breed
ing to which he was subjected by the
Persians, the white horse became a
! picture of Equine, majesty, symmetry
and grandeur. He was enlarged to the
height of 16 hands, smoothed, rounded
and finished nm paitad for chow and
for easy, bareback riding there was
neither saddle nor stirrup them, and
was in every way nodded into an ideal
equally inspiring to poet painter, and
sculptor. But with all this he lacked
the gimp. the elegance, the speed, the