2 THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE 



improve the horse in Australia. I was the more 

 induced to try Arabs because there is in the 

 Australian interior very much of the same sort of 

 dry country as is found on the borders of the Sahara 

 and in Egypt and Arabia. I had learned, when 

 stock-riding in the Bush in the forties, what a cross 

 of the Arab blood was capable of. I thought that 

 Arabs were more adapted for such a country than 

 the larger, softer-bred English thoroughbred. As 

 no one else, so far as I knew, had attempted 

 breeding pure Arabs, 1 started the breeding — as I 

 have said, principally as an amusement. Of 

 course it has grown on me, as I suppose most 

 hobbies do. 



I had no mere sentiment about the matter. I 

 joined with the racing gentlemen in laughing at the 

 idea that the once fashionable song of the Arab 

 steed was an authoritative exposition as to the Arab's 

 excellence ; all the same, it is founded, as was the 

 adventure of Kenneth and Saladin in Sir Walter's 

 Scott's ' Talisman,' upon the belief of forty centuries 

 of men who knew — a belief which was well founded, 

 which is again coming into vogue, and would 

 never have been weakened but for the bookmaker 

 and sprinting breeders. These have for some 

 years past had the ear of a large section of the 

 public in Australia, whose gambling propensities led 

 them greedily to absorb the cult of the bookmakers, 

 when there were very few found to say anything to 

 the contrary, the encomiums on the Arab having been 



