"So also the offspring are sold in a similar manner; sometimes only the first-born, sometimes the first three; and then it occasionally happens that two or three members of the foal are, as it were, mortgaged. Consequently, any one who is ignorant of this custom may find that, after he has paid the price of the mare to her supposed owner, a third person arises who demands to be paid the value of his part; and, if the purchaser refuse to comply, he may find himself in a very unpleasant situation, without any possibility of obtaining help from the local government. Whoever sells his mare entirely, without reserving to himself one or two parts, must be on good terms with the confederate chiefs in the neighbourhood, and must have obtained their formal sanction, otherwise they would universally despise him, and perhaps lie in wait to kill him, so that his only hope of escape would be a disgraceful flight, just as if he had committed some great crime. It is an easier matter to purchase a stallion; but even in this case the above formalities must be observed. [Illustration: BUYING AN ARAB HORSE.] "These remarks only apply to buying horses of the purest blood; those of inferior race are obtained without difficulty, and at fair prices." For some reason, perhaps the total severance of the Israelites from the people among whom they had lived so long in captivity, the use of the Horse, or, at all events, the breeding of it, was forbidden to the Israelites; see Deut. xvi. 16. After prophesying that the Israelites, when they had settled themselves in the Promised Land, would want a king, the inspired writer next ordains that the new king must be chosen by Divine command, and must belong to one of the twelve tribes. He then proceeds as follows:--"But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way." The foresight of this prophetical writer was afterwards shown by the fact that many kings of Israel did send to Egypt for Horses, Egypt being the chief source from which these animals were obtained. And, judging from the monuments to which reference has been made, the Horse of Egypt was precisely the same animal as the Arab Horse of the present day, and was probably obtained from nomad breeders. In spite of the prohibitory edict, both David and Solomon used Horses in battle, and the latter supplied himself largely from Egypt, disregarding as utterly the interdict against plurality of Horses as that against plurality of wives, which immediately follows.