As the result of these investigations, the breadth and scope of this volume will be greatly widened, touching upon the originals of most of the lighter types of horses, and many of the idols of the imagination will be demolished. The objective point is the history of the Trotting Horse, but before reaching that point we must consider the beginnings of, practically, nearly all the varieties of horses in the world. The assistance that I may be able to gain from modern writers will be very limited, and restricted Haicus, the great grandson of Japheth, became the ruler of his people. Descending from him, in the direct male line, there were five or six long reigns before the dynasty was overthrown by the Assyrians. They were largely an agricultural people, and the ancient historians have told us they were famous for the great numbers and fine quality of the horses they produced. The market for their horses, the prophet Ezekiel tells us, was in the great commercial city of Tyre, whence they were carried “in the ships of Tarshish” by the Phœnician merchants to all portions of the known world. Having here reached back to the Noachic period and country, with all that this implies, I will leave the problem, with the more extended consideration that will be given it in the chapter on the general distribution of horses in all parts of the commercial world. Horsemen of average intelligence and writers on the horse, oftentimes much below average intelligence in horse matters, all seem to unite on the Arabian horse as their fetish, when in fact they know nothing about him. The songs of the poets and the stories of the novelists have taken the place, in the minds of the people of all nations, of solid history and sober experience. When a story writer wishes to depict an athletic and daring hero, he never fails to mount him upon an “Arab steed,” when some blood-curdling adventures are to be disclosed. When Admiral Rous, the great racing authority in England, announced some years ago, that the English race horse was purely descended from the horses of Arabia Deserta, without one drop of plebeian blood, all England believed him, and this rash and groundless dictum has served all writers as conclusive evidence ever since. Now, it is not probable that more than two or at most three per cent. of the blood of the English race horse as he stands to-day is Arabian blood. The greatness and value of the Arabian horse is purely mythical. He has been tested hundreds of times, both on the course and in the stud, and in every single instance he has proved a failure. This is what all history and experience teach. There are but few horses bred in Arabia and there are, comparatively, but few there now. From the time of their first introduction into Yemen—Arabia Felix—up to the time of Mohammed, about two hundred and seventy years, they were still very scarce. Mohammed was not a horseman nor a horse breeder, nor is it