Читать книгу The Horse of America in His Derivation, History, and Development - John Hankins Wallace - Страница 7

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No indications that the horse was originally wild—The steppes of High Asia and Arabia not tenable as his original home—Color not sufficient evidence —Impossibility of horses existing in Arabia in a wild state—No horses in Arabia until 356 A.D.—Large forces of Armenian, Median, and Cappadocian cavalry employed more than one thousand seven hundred years B.C.—A breed of white race horses—Special adaptability of the Armenian country to the horse—Armenia a horse-exporting country before the Prophet Ezekiel—Devotion of the Armenian people to agricultural and pastoral pursuits through a period of four thousand years—All the evidences point to ancient Armenia as the center from which the horse was distributed.

In undertaking to consider and determine what particular portion of the earth was the original habitat of the horse, we must not forget that we are in a field that antedates all history, both sacred and profane. When we have gone back to the very first dawnings of historical records we are still far short of the period in which initial light can be reached. In profane history, with more or less safety, we can get back to a point about seventeen hundred years before the Christian era; and in sacred history about two hundred years less. At both of these dates the horses referred to were not in a feral state, but were the companions and servants of man.

There have been two separate theories advanced which demand some attention, because of the eminence and learning of the men who have advanced them. The first is that the original habitat of the horse was on the steppes of High Asia, east and north of the Caspian and the Black Sea. The only argument I have ever seen advanced in support of this theory is based upon the great number of wild horses that are found in that part of the world, and that so many of them are of a dun color. From the frequency of the recurrence of the dun color another theory has sprung up to the effect that the original color of the horse was dun, and hence it is argued that when the dun color appears in our own day it must be taken as evidence that the original color of the horse was dun. This reasoning is very far from being conclusive, for there are dun horses and dun tribes in all breeds, just as there are greys, and the color is just as liable to be transmitted as any other color. In the last century there were many dun horses in England, and at least one of that color was advertised very widely as “the Dun Arabian,” probably a foreign horse, but it is hardly possible that he was an Arabian. It was then the custom of the country to call all foreign horses “Arabians,” no difference from what part of the world they came. It has been stated on what seemed to be good authority that a dun horse once won the Derby, but whether the color may result from line breeding or from atavistic tendencies, the argument advanced does not seem to have any weight in it for the purpose intended.

ARMENIA, CAPPADOCIA, NORTHERN SYRIA ETC.

ABOUT 1200 B.C.

Another argument in favor of the wild and unknown regions east and north of the Caspian as the habitat of the horse has been urged with much more power and effect. It has been accepted and reiterated by so many learned men, one after another, that I doubted the wisdom of attempting to overthrow it, until I found the spot in which it was fatally weak. This view of the question seems to rest upon the fact that the successive hosts of Barbarians that overran Europe in the early centuries of the Christian era brought their horses, as well as their flocks and herds, with them, and it is assumed that these horses were the first brought into Europe. This involves a total misconception of dates; not of a few years merely, but of many centuries. All of Europe, including Britain, and all of Northern Africa, were abundantly supplied with horses, probably a thousand years before the first destructive wave of Barbarians touched Europe. Linguistic and ethnological facts clearly prove that those people came from Asia, and possibly from a part of Asia where there were horses running wild, but that does not prove that they came from the original habitat of the horse. With no dates, either definite or approximate, to support this theory, and with no specific portion of the earth fixed upon as the general locality from which they came, it resolves itself into a mere speculation with nothing to support it, except the fact that different writers have been copying it from one another, without throwing any additional light upon it, for a number of generations.

The most remarkable and at the same time the most untenable of all the claims that have been urged about the horse is that he was indigenous in Arabia. We can tolerate any number of foolish claims set up to show that the Arabian horse is superior to all others, for such assertions can be tested and disproved, as they have been a thousand times, but the claim that Arabia was the original habitat of the horse is so utterly preposterous, and yet so widely advocated by writers and others who know nothing about it, that we must consider it with some brief deliberation. When the maimed and crippled horses of De Soto were turned loose and abandoned on the plains of Texas, they had all around them the means of an abundant and healthy subsistence, and they multiplied and grew into an innumerable host that made the earth tremble when they moved in great masses. Under the same favorable conditions of water and pasture, the same results followed on the pampas of South America. Upon the early settlement of Virginia, as well probably as in some of the other colonies, and within two hundred years, many of the horses of the colonists strayed away, became wild and remained so, propagating and increasing for generations, and until the growing numbers of their former masters captured or exterminated them. The varied herbage of the forest and its grassy swales, and streams of pure water everywhere, made Virginia a paradise for the horse in his feral state.

Buffon, the French naturalist of a hundred and fifty years ago, notices the theory of the wild horses of Arabia, but he is careful not to commit himself nor indorse it in any form. In Vol. I., p. 237, he says: “According to Mannol, the Arabian horses are descended from the wild horses in the deserts of Arabia, of which, in ancient times, large studs were formed,” etc. In going further, to find where Mannol got his information, it appears that somebody, with an unpronounceable name that I have forgotten, told him so. Major Upton, a very intelligent but very credulous modern writer on what he saw and learned in the desert, says he never heard of this story of wild horses in Arabia, and pronounces it a “fallacy.” When we consider that Arabia never was conquered and the reason why, although Rome, at the very culmination of her power, followed by Assyria and Egypt, all failed of their purpose without meeting an enemy in battle, we must accept the fact that nature had interposed a barrier that military power could not surmount. The barrenness and aridity of the desert has always protected the Arabs against the most powerful armies of the mightiest nations. Now, to maintain that wild horses could not only live, but flourish and increase, in a country where there was not enough edible herbage on a thousand acres to keep a grasshopper alive, and not a running stream of water within five hundred miles, requires a measure of mental sterility that can be found nowhere but among a few of the writers on the Arabian horse. Of all the curiosities in which the literature of the Arabian horse abounds and in the multitudinous efforts to give him the primacy among horses, there seems to be nothing quite so absurd as this story about his being indigenous to the desert. Animals in a wild state are never found except in countries and districts where the conditions surrounding provide them with food and water. How long would a band of strong, healthy horses live if turned loose to seek their own subsistence in the desert of Arabia? Of all the countries on the face of the globe there is no one where the horse is so completely dependent upon, the care and support of his master as Arabia.

Fortunately, we are not left for data to unwritten traditions two thousand years old, nor to the fervid imaginations of a race of cutthroats and thieves of the very lowest order of civilization, but we can turn, with full confidence, to authentic contemporaneous history, from which we can settle this question, at once and for all time. Strabo, the great Greek geographer and philosopher, flourished in the reign of Augustus, at the very beginning of the Christian era. He describes Arabia just as we know it to-day, for all countries have changed in their boundaries and government except Arabia. He describes the people as chiefly nomadic, and as breeders of camels. The most remarkable thing in this description is the fact, found in his great work, Vol. III., p. 190, that they had no horses at that time. The exact language used in this statement will be found in the next chapter of this work. The question now arises, If there were no horses in Arabia at the beginning of the Christian era, when and how did they become possessed of them? Fortunately, again, written history supplies the answer to this question. In my next chapter will be found, quoted at some length, the circumstances bearing on this question. In brief, the facts are as follows: Philostorgius, a distinguished Greek theologian, wrote an ecclesiastical history in the fifth century which is no longer extant. Photius, at one time Patriarch of Constantinople, in the ninth century wrote an epitome of the work by Philostorgius and to this epitome we are indebted for the facts we here relate. Constantius, at the time of which Philostorgius wrote, was on the throne of the Eastern empire, and was exceedingly zealous in spreading and strengthening the Christian religion. He learned that the prince of Arabia Felix (that part of Arabia which we will designate by its modern name Yemen) was strongly disposed to come out with his people and embrace Christianity. Constantius thereupon determined to encourage both prince and people in the movement they were contemplating, and he sent them a grand embassy with many valuable presents, the most noted of which were two hundred “well-bred Cappadocian horses.” The embassy was completely successful, and Theopholis, who had been made a bishop and placed at the head of it, remained there several years. This was in the year 356 of the Christian era, and is the first intimation we have in all history of horses in Arabia. These are the facts, so far as any facts are known, upon the consideration of which I am not able to assent to the claim that either High Asia or Arabia was the original habitat of the horse.

I have been surprised at the number of coincidences that seem to point to ancient Armenia as the first habitation of the horse. This country at one time was a very powerful kingdom, extending from the mountains of Caucasus on the north to Media or Assyria on the south, and from the Caspian Sea on the east to the Euphrates on the west, and at one time even to the Mediterranean. It was intersected by several ranges of mountains and not only gave rise to the Euphrates and the Tigris, but to a number of smaller rivers. It was well watered everywhere, and produced in great abundance all varieties of herbage, cereals, and fruits. It was originally called Ararat by the Hebrews, probably after a range of mountains about central to the territory embraced, and because Noah’s Ark rested somewhere “on the mountains of Ararat.” It is also called Togarmah in Scripture, after Torgom, son of Gomer, who was the son of Japheth, the son of Noah. Japheth seems to have been the oldest son of Noah, and he chose this fruitful region as the future home of his descendants. The Rev. Michael Chamich, a native Armenian, went back into the old Armenian records, translated the language as originally used, and wrote a history of the country from its first settlement; and this history has been Englished by Johannes Adval, another native Armenian, and published in Calcutta in 1827. This work seems to be worthy of credence, and it clearly establishes the lineal descent of the governing family back to Japheth, the son of Noah. The order of succession as the head of the tribe continues through several generations unbroken, from father to son. Gomer, the son of Japheth, was succeeded by his son Togarmah, then followed Haicus, Armenac, Aramais, Amassia, Gelam, Harma, Aram, Arah, who was slain in battle, his son Cardus (at twelve years old), Anushaven, who died without issue and was succeeded by Paret, who reigned fifty years and during his reign the patriarch Joseph died in Egypt, B.C. 1635. These princes all had long reigns. Haicus was the first of the line to assume the title of king, and he was greatly distinguished for extending the boundaries of his kingdom. Gelam extended his borders to the Caspian. Aram was fifty-eight years on the throne, during which time he had a war with the Medes, and also with the Cappadocians, in both of which he had a large force of cavalry in the field. This was about seventeen hundred years before the Christian era, and is the first mention of cavalry that I have found in history, either sacred or profane. In both these wars his cavalry was met by the cavalry of the enemy, equal to or greater than his in numbers. How long before this troops may have been mounted on horses it is impossible to say, but from the numbers so used at that period of the world by the neighboring nations and tribes, as the Medes, the Cappadocians, etc., it is fair to conclude that the horse had then been an important factor in all military movements for many generations. When we consider two opposing armies, each provided with divisions of five thousand cavalry, the period being about B.C. 1700, with no dates beyond that are known as relating to the horse, we are shut up to our own reasoning as to the number of centuries that may have been required to produce these great numbers. It must have been at least one century, or it may have been three or four, and this would carry us back to the head of the house of Japheth.

If we accept Egyptian chronology, which still lacks much of being reliable, one of the Pharaohs, named Thutmosis I., invaded Syria, passing up through Palestine till he reached the latitude of Aleppo, and then turned eastward and crossed the Euphrates. His campaign was successful; he fought many battles and returned laden with spoils, especially horses and chariots of war. This was before the Israelites reached the promised land, and before Joshua’s battle with the “Northern kings,” in which they had “horsemen and chariots very many,” and which is the earliest Scriptural instance in which horses were employed in battle.

The territory embracing the ancient countries of Eastern Asia Minor, bounded on the north by the Black Sea and the Caucasian mountains, on the south by the thirty-seventh degree of north latitude, and extending to the Caspian Sea, has always been remarkable for the variety, value, and abundance of its agricultural products. Many of the very early historians have noted the fact that each one of the countries embraced in this territory was distinguished for the excellence and numbers of horses produced, and they appear in about the following order, namely, Armenia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Media. The last-named country embraced what is now the northern part of Persia, and as between the “Medes” and the “Persians” there is no little confusion in the public mind, as sometimes one was on top and sometimes the other. Then, to add to the confusion, the Assyrians came in, occupying the same country and the same capitals. For our present purposes it is not necessary to enter into the consideration of these successive dynasties. The Medes were comparatively newcomers, and as they were a great military people their prominence in horse history resulted more from the spoils of war and the tribute in horses that they collected from their neighbors than from their own production. Kitto says that in the time of the Persian empire the plain of Nissæum was celebrated for its horses and horse races. This plain was near the city of Nissæa, around which were fine pasture lands, producing excellent clover. The horses were “entirely white” (probably grey) and of extraordinary height and beauty, as well as speed. They constituted part of the luxury of the great, and a tribute in kind was paid from them to the monarch, who, like all Eastern sovereigns, used to delight in equestrian display. Some idea of the opulence of the country may be had when it is known that, independently of imposts rendered in money, Media (then the undermost dog), paid a yearly tribute of not less than three thousand horses, four thousand mules, and nearly one hundred thousand sheep. The races, once celebrated through the world, seem to exist no more.

When Darius the Mede had extended his empire over the whole of Western Asia and Egypt, he exacted heavy tribute in horses from all subjugated provinces. This was about 520 B.C., and antedated the racing referred to above. In all parts of his extended empire he built roads and established lines of couriers, mounted on fleet horses, that there might be no delay in receiving at his capital and sending out again intelligence of what was transpiring in any part of his dominions. For this service the best and fleetest horses were required, and the only guide we have to determine how these horses were selected we find in the fact that the tribute collected from the little kingdom of Cilicia, formerly a part of Cappadocia, was, in addition to a stated sum of money, one white horse for every day in the year. It is possible that these white Cilician horses may have been the progenitors of the white (grey) race horses spoken of in Media.

In describing the general fruitfulness of Cappadocia, Strabo says: “Cappadocia was also rich in herds and flocks, but more particularly celebrated for its breed of horses.” Strabo speaks of this as a leading characteristic of the country and doubtless it had held pre-eminence in this respect for generations before he wrote. Three hundred and fifty-six years later, when Constantius was selecting his presents of horses for the prince and people of Yemen, in Arabia, he knew just where to look, in all his dominions, for the best of their kind, and selected two hundred “well-bred” ones for Arabia. Sir R. Wilson, in discussing the quality of the Russian cavalry horses about 1810, had evidently heard of this Cappadocian origin of the Arabian horse, but, unfortunately, he got all the parties badly mixed in his reference. He makes Constantine instead of Constantius the donor of three hundred Cappadocian horses, instead of two hundred, and they are given to one of the African princes, instead of to an Arabian prince. The African traveler, Bruce, found some excellent horses in Nubia, Africa, and from their high quality and unusually large size he seems to have jumped to the conclusion that these were the descendants of the three hundred from Constantine.

After glancing over all the different countries in this great zone as defined above, and extending from the Bosphorus to the Caspian Sea, one cannot fail to be impressed with its special adaptation to the production and sustenance of all varieties of domestic animals, in their greatest perfection. Here the country seems to have been made for the horse, and the horse for the country. Here was a country suited to his nativity, and here we find records of his existence centuries earlier than in any other country. The wild ass flourished in this country, but I have not been able to find any evidence or indication that the horse was not always the companion and servant of man. Wherever he is found in a feral state reasons that are amply satisfactory are never wanting to account for that state. Ancient historians have specially noted each of the principal countries embraced in this zone for the superiority and numbers of its horses, but no one has made any allusion to wild horses, nor suggested that there may have been a time when their ancestors were wild.

Now, as we have designated a long and wide region of Western Asia, embracing a number of different nationalities and governments, as the probable original habitat of the horse, can we go further and designate the particular nationality or government in which was his original home and from which he was distributed to adjoining nations or peoples? In answer to this question, we cannot present any dates of record earlier than about 1700 B.C., and this date will apply as well to Media and Cappadocia as to Armenia. We must, therefore, consider it in the light of other facts and circumstances, not dependent upon specific dates. In the first place, and taking the Mosaic account of the deluge as the starting point, “the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat.” This is the original name of a country, intersected by a mountain range, and that range took its name from the country in which it was found. “Mount Ararat” was simply a very high peak in that range. The distinction should be observed here between “the mountains of Ararat” and “Mount Ararat.” In the second place, it is clearly established by all history that near the base of this mountain range Japheth and his descendants had their homes. His son Gomer was highly distinguished in his day, and his grandson, Togarmah, son of Gomer, became a powerful chief. To such prominence did he rise in the affairs of his age that for centuries after his day his country was called “Togarmah.” Hence we have the three names, Ararat, Togarmah and Armenia applied in sacred and profane history to the same country that we are now considering.

During the continuance of the dynasty of King Haic or Haicus, the son of Togarmah, the Armenians became a very prosperous and powerful people. They did not seem to be an aggressive or warlike people, although their boundaries were greatly extended, but a thrifty agricultural and industrious people. Breeding and marketing horses seem to have been their leading employments. In the twenty-seventh chapter of the Prophet Ezekiel he gives a catalogue of the different peoples trading with the great Phœnician merchants and the products of their countries, in which they traded. This catalogue was written five hundred and fifty-eight years before the Christian era, and is very remarkable for its extent and completeness. It not only shows what the Phœnicians carried away to the West, in their “Ships of Tarshish,” but also what they brought back for distribution among their customers in Western Asia. I will quote, from the revised version, two or three of the classes of articles enumerated, embracing both import and export trade. Of foreign imports he says: “Tarshish” (Spain and beyond) “was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded for thy wares.” Of articles for export he says: “They of the house of Togarmah traded for thy wares with horses and war-horses and mules.” “Togarmah” here means “Armenia,” and this is the only instance in which horses are mentioned in the catalogue. I will give another quotation, not because it is conclusive in itself, but because it is confirmatory of Strabo’s statement that there were no horses in Arabia in his day. He says: “Arabia and all the princes of Kedar, they were the merchants of thy hand; in lambs, and rams, and goats, in these were they thy merchants.” Other products from more southern portions of Arabia are enumerated, but no horses. This is the initial step toward the general distribution of horses, by the Phœnician merchants, which will be developed in the next chapter.

In speaking of Media (Vol. II., p. 265), Strabo says: “The country is peculiarly adapted, as well as Armenia, to the breeding of horses.” Of one district not far from the Caspian he remarks: “Here, it is said, fifty thousand mares were pastured in the time of the Persians, and were the king’s stud. The Nessæan horses, the best and the largest in the king’s province, were of this breed, according to some writers, but according to others they were from Armenia.” Again he says: “Cappadocia paid to the Persians, yearly, in addition to a tribute in silver, one thousand five hundred horses, two thousand mules, and fifty thousand sheep, and the Medes contributed nearly double this amount.”

Of Armenia he says, p. 271: “The country is so well adapted, being nothing inferior in this respect to Media, for breeding horses that the race of Nessæan horses, which the king of Persia used, is found here also; the satrap of Armenia used to send annually to the king of Persia twenty thousand young horses.”

The Nessæan horses, so famous for their speed, were the “thoroughbreds” of their day, and there can hardly be a doubt they originated in Armenia, and, just like our own “thoroughbreds,” they were essentially the result of careful selection through a series of generations, and of breeding only from animals possessing the desired qualifications in the highest degree. In the earlier days of racing in Media, it appears that white was the fashionable color, but I am disposed to think that grey, growing white with age, was the color intended to be expressed by the writers of that period. The “albino” color is abnormal and supposed to indicate tenderness and lack of stamina.

There is one fact, in considering this question, to which I have probably not given sufficient prominence and weight. So far as the records go, the three countries of Armenia, Cappadocia, and Media are synchronous in having mounted troops in their armies seventeen hundred years before the Christian era. We must, therefore, consider the conditions of these countries antecedent to the period of 1700 B.C. Of Cappadocia we know absolutely nothing historically until it was conquered by Cyrus, king of Persia, about 588 B.C. Of Media the earliest knowledge we have of a historical character does not go back further than about 842 B.C. It should be observed that I here speak of “historical” knowledge and not of uncertain traditions of many centuries earlier. Both of these nations with their distinctive nationalities have, long since, been wiped off the surface of the earth.

When we reach Armenia, we reach a people with a most remarkable history, extending back for more than four thousand years. This history, although not wholly free from criticism or doubt, seems to be honestly written and worthy of a liberal measure of confidence. That the children of Japheth should have settled at the foot of the mountains of Ararat strikes every one as a very natural event, but that their descendants should still be there, through all the triumphs and oppressions of four thousand years, is one of the most stupendous facts in the history of the world. From the very first we know of them they seem to have been an agricultural people, strongly attached to their native soil. When they ruled over the land from the Caspian to the Mediterranean, they built no great cities, but adhered steadfastly to the rural pursuits of their fathers, and this, probably, was the chief cause of their weakness. Their wealth and sources of wealth were chiefly in their horses, and these they sold to the merchants of Sidon and Tyre, who carried them to all the nations of Europe and Africa, commencing with Egypt, and supplying all wants as far as Spain and Morocco, and beyond, probably, as far as Britain. The Phœnician merchants were the first to open commercial transactions with Europe and Africa, and they were in control of the commerce of the world long before King Solomon entered into commercial partnership with Hiram, king of Tyre. Armenia had horses to sell long before they had horses in Egypt, and Phœnicia had ships and enterprise to carry them there. There is a fitting of interests here that seems to point to Armenia as the great original source of supply, and as the original habitat of the horse.