The horses of the Assyrians, so far as we can judge from the sculptures, were well formed and apparently of noble blood. It has been doubted whether the breed for which Mesopotamia and the neighboring deserts of Arabia are now celebrated, existed in the same vast plains at a remote period; or whether it was introduced shortly before the Mohammedan conquest.

Although we have no mention in the sacred writings of a trade actually carried on in horses with Assyria, as with Egypt, yet it may be inferred from several passages that it did exist.* Horses, it will be remembered, were offered to the Jews, by the general of the Assyrian king, as an acceptable present;† and in the statistical tablet of Karnak, they are mentioned amongst the objects of tribute brought by the people of Naharaina (Mesopotamia) and the neighboring countries to the Egyptians. We may judge, therefore, that the Assyrian horses were celebrated at a very early period. The Egyptians, indeed, appear to have been chiefly indebted to the countries. watered by the Tigris and Euphrates for their horses, no representation of this animal occurring, I believe, on Egyptian monuments earlier than the eighteenth dynasty. However that may be, no one can look at the horses of the early Assyrian sculptures without being convinced that they were drawn from the finest models.§ The head is small and well-shaped, the nostrils large and high, the neck arched, the body long, and the legs slender and sinewy. Their horses are swifter than the leopards, and more fierce than the evening wolves," exclaims the prophet, of the horses of the Chaldæans. That the Assyrians faithfully portrayed animals, is shown by the lions,

Kings, x. 28, 29. + 2 Kings, xviii. 23. "Now therefore, I pray thee, give pledges to my lord the king of Assyria, and I will deliver thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them." It may be inferred from this passage, that cavalry was not extensively used by the Jews. The horses alluded to in the 3d verse of the 14th chapter of Hosea, are probably to be taken in connection with Assyria, menioned in the previous part of the verse. "Asshur shall not save us; we will not ide upon horses." It is remarkable that there is no mention in the Bible of Arab orses, afterwards so celebrated. The Arabs in the army of Xerxes were mounted on camels, and were placed in the rear, because, says Herodotus, the camels frightened the horses (lib. vii. c. 87).

Birch's Statistical Tablet of Karnak, p. 32.

The magnificent description of the war-horse in Job (ch. xxxix.), shows that horses of the noblest breed were, at a very early period, not only known in Syria, but used in battle.

Habakkuk, i. 8.

A HORSEMAN PURSUED BY ASSYRIAN WARRIORS. Kouyunjik.

(From a cast in the British Museum.)

p. 276. vol. 2.