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. CHAPTER III. EARLY DISTRIBUTION OF HORSES. First evidences of horses in Egypt about 1700 B.C.—Supported by Egyptian records and history—The Patriarch Job had no horses—Solomon’s great cavalry force organized—Arabia as described by Strabo at the beginning of our era—No horses then in Arabia—Constantius sends two hundred Cappadocian horses into Arabia A.D. 356—Arabia the last country to be supplied with horses—The ancient Phœnician merchants and their colonies —Hannibal’s cavalry forces in the Punic Wars—Distant ramifications of Phœnician trade and colonization—Commerce reached as far as Britain and the Baltic—Probable source of Britain’s earliest horses. Having considered the different theories or opinions as to the original habitat of the horse and the means and facilities by which distribution to the different portions of the earth may have been effected, I have omitted land migration, which will be self-evident to all as an important factor in the problem. It is now in order, therefore, to consider such dates and facts as are pertinent and may be gleaned from history, sacred and profane. [Illustration: PHŒNICIAN COLONIES ABOUT 1200 B.C.]