This education continued for fifteen years, commencing when the boy was five, and terminating when he reached the age of twenty.
The effect of this training was to render the Persian an excellent soldier and a most accomplished horseman.

Accustomed from early boyhood to pass the greater part of every day in the saddle, he never felt so much at home as when mounted upon a prancing steed.

On horseback he pursued the stag, the boar, the antelope, even occasionally the bear or the lion, and shot his arrows, or slung his stones, or hurled his javelin at them with deadly aim, never pausing for a moment in his career.

[PLATE XXXVII., Fig.

2.] Only when the brute turned on his pursuers, and stood at bay, or charged them in its furious despair, they would sometimes descend from their coursers, and receive the attack, or deal the _coup de grace_ on foot, using for the purpose a short but strong hunting-spear.