[11]The Mediterranean or Egyptian wheat is said to have this origin.

[12]At the time of Buddha’s birth there seemed to be no mean between the Chakravartin or absolute monarch and the recluse who had renounced all ordinary duties and enjoyments, and was subjecting himself to all deprivations and sufferings.  Buddha taught the middle course of diligence in daily duties and universal love.

[13]I am aware that some Buddhist authors whom Arnold has followed in his “Light of Asia” make Buddha but little better than a stale prisoner, and would have us believe that the glimpses he got of the ills that flesh is heir to were gained in spite of all precautions, as he was occasionally taken out of his rose embowered, damsel filled prison-house, and not as any prince of high intelligence and tender sensibilities who loved his people and mingled freely with them would gain a knowledge of suffering and sorrow; but we are justified in passing all such fancies, not only on account of their intrinsic improbability, but because the great Asvaghosha, who wrote about the beginning of our era, knew nothing of them.

[14]To suppose that the Aryan races when they emigrated to India or Europe left behind them their most valuable possession, the Nisaean horse, is to suppose them lacking in the qualities of thrift and shrewdness which have distinguished their descendants.  That the Nisaean horse of the table-lands of Asia was the horse of the armored knights of the middle ages and substantially the Percheron horse of France, I had a curious proof:  In Layard’s Nineveh is a picture of a Nisaean horse found among the ruins, which would have been taken as a good picture Of a Percheron stallion I once owned, who stood for the picture here drawn of what I regard as his undoubted ancestor.

[15]Marco Polo speaks of the breed of horses here attempted to be described as “excellent, large, strong and swift, said to be of the race of Alexander’s Bucephalus.”

[16]It is said that the Mongolians in their career of conquest could move an army of 500,000 fifty miles a day, a speed out of the question with all the facilities of modern warfare.

[17]See Bret Harte’s beautiful poem, “Sell Patchin,” and also an article on the “Horses of the Plains,” in The Century, January, 1889.

BOOK II.

  She passed along, and then the king and prince
  With their attendants wheeled in line and moved
  Down to the royal stand, each to his place.

  The trumpets sound, and now the games begin.

  But see the scornful curl of Culture’s lip
  At such low sports!  Dyspeptic preachers hear
  Harangue the sleepers on their sinfulness! 
  Hear grave philosophers, so limp and frail
  They scarce can walk God’s earth to breathe his air,
  Talk of the waste of time!  Short-sighted men! 
  God made the body just to fit the mind,
  Each part exact, no scrimping and no waste—­
  Neglect the body and you cramp the soul.