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