Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/84

 CHAPTER VIII.

THE HORSE IN CHINA.

China pony plays so important a part in the life of foreigners in the East that a short account of the antecedents of this famous animal in past ages may not be without its interest to our readers. In spite of the general inferiority it presents to its confrères of Arabia and the West, its culture has always been an object of considerable attention and solicitude among the Chinese; and though no one who sees the shaggy, unkempt brutes, with their tawdry garniture and jingling necklaces of bells, which are used by the gentry, soldiery, and mandarindom of the empire, is likely to form a very high idea of either the value set upon the animals or the care bestowed upon their welfare, the fact remains that they occupy a high place in the national esteem, and inherit all the prestige which four thousand years of national existence can confer upon them.

Now, apart from the assertion—which we are in no way bound to believe—that horses existed as early as the time of Fu Hsi, there is ample evidence in the Classics that they were both known and used in that golden age of China's history immediately preceding the establishment of the dynasty of Hsia. We read in the Shu Ching of the milk-white steeds which were harnessed