hern Asia.
The time when this feat was accomplished antedates our records. The
creature may first have come into possession of the Tartar tribes,
but it quickly passed over Asia and Europe and shortly became the
mainstay of the Aryan and Semitic folk. None other of our
domesticated forms has been disseminated with like rapidity, or at
the outset with as little change in its original features. From the
first the horse seems to have been mainly used as a saddle and pack
animal. It has never served in any considerable measure for food. The
failure to make use of the flesh of this animal appears to be common
to most of the savage or barbaric people who keep horses, and has been
transmitted in a singularly definite way to all civilized folk. The
origin of such a prejudice, despite the fact that the flesh of the
horse is of excellent quality, can only be explained through the
sympathetic motives common to all men. Their association with the
horse, as with the dog, is so intimate as to make the use of these
animals in the form of food more or less repugnant. In a small though
unimportant way, mares have been used for milk, and there seems no
reason to doubt that, if they had been carefully bred for this purpose,
they might have been as serviceable as the cow. It may be that the
failure to use the milk of the horse is to be accounted for on the
same ground as the dislike to its flesh.

The horse was probably at first most valued for its use in war. The
peoples which possessed it certainly had a great advantage over their
less well provided neighbors. In fact the development of the military
art, as distinguished from the mere fighting of savages, was made easy
by the strength, endurance, fleetness, and measure of bravery
characterizing this creature. In the wide range of species which have
been domesticated or might be won to companionship with man, there is
none other which so completely supplements the imperfect human body,
making it fit for great deeds. If the horse had been much smaller or
larger than he is, he would have been far less serviceable to man. It
was a most fortunate accident that the creature came to us with the
proportions which insured a high measure of utility in various lines
of activity. The elephant has been found too large for agricultural
uses, and too powerful to be controlled by the will and force of his
master under conditions of excitement.

[Illustration: Mare and Foal]

Those peoples which earl