The Horse of America in His Derivation, History, and DevelopmentWallace, John Hankins
History
The Horse of America in His Derivation, History, and Development
Wallace, John Hankins
Horse breeds -- History; Horses -- Breeding -- United States; Horses -- United States -- History
When Abraham, with Sarah his wife, visited Egypt about 1920 B.C., the
Pharaoh for her sake bestowed upon him many gifts: “Sheep and oxen and
he asses and men servants and maid servants and she asses and camels.”
Among these great gifts there were no horses, evidently because Egypt
had no horses at that time. There is no mention nor reference to horses
in Egypt till Joseph became prime minister two hundred years later,
when there were a few horses, and they were traded or sold to Joseph by
their owners in exchange for food, not in droves, but as individuals.
These scriptural facts in the experiences of Abraham and Joseph seem
to be circumstantially sustained by the discoveries of those learned
Egyptologists who, in late years and with the spade in their hands,
have resurrected so much of history that had been buried for thousands
of years. It was during the reign of the Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings,
that Abraham and Joseph were in Egypt, and in order to approximate the
time when horses were first introduced, we must glance at a few facts
in connection with what is known of the Hyksos. Some have claimed they
were from Chaldea, some from Northern Syria and Asia Minor, and some
again from Phœnicia, and it is one of the strangest things in history
that a great nation should be overthrown and held in subjection for over
five hundred years and nobody know who did it. Then again, it is equally
incomprehensible that any nation should have subdued Egypt and held it
in bondage so long and yet never have claimed the honor of having done
so. Still another mystery remains that never has been solved, and that
is, what became of the Shepherds and their followers when they were
driven out? At the period of the conquest the governing class was rent by
factions and under a weak and tyrannical king. The Delta and the Valley
of the Nile were crowded with slaves, many of them of Asiatic origin.
The elevated plains and mountain sides were covered with fierce and
intractable nomads, all of Asiatic origin, tending their flocks. Some
brave and skillful shepherd organized the shepherds and the slaves and at
their head swept down upon the government with a power that was so mighty
as to be irresistible. Manetho, the great Egyptian historian of more
than two thousand years ago, thus describes the event: “Under this king,
then, I know not wherefore, the god caused to blow upon us a baleful
wind, and in the face of all probability bands from the East, people of
ignoble race, came upon us unawares, attacked the country and subdued it
easily and without fighting.” In remarking upon this same event Professor
Maspero, who stands at the very head of the Egyptologists, says: “It
is possible that they (the shepherds) owed this rapid victory to the
presence in their armies of a factor hitherto unknown to the Africans—the
war chariot—and before the horse and his driver the Egyptians gave way in
a body.” In view of the direct declaration of Manetho that the question
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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