38 THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE 



cavalry in Africa, mentioned by General Daumas ; 

 but the ' big hungry chargers ' — i.e., the English 

 horses — couldn't carry the load nor do the work, so 

 they had to be left behind. 



The Syrian horses are certainly Eastern horses, 

 and have been described as Arabs — inferior Arabs. 

 Could there be found a more damning reference to 

 the deterioration of the English horses than this ? 

 So utterly useless were they in the field that the 

 ' big hungry ' brutes had perforce to be left behind 

 in Cairo ? Could there be more eloquent testimony 

 in favour of the Arab than this, that the little Syrian 

 Arab had to be called in to do the work that 

 the English horse was incompetent to do ? Then 

 Mr. Steevens gives the lesson which he derived from 

 the incident, which he says was a better lecture in 

 cavalry than many text-books. Part of the lesson 

 was that it is not the weapons that make the 

 cavalry-man, but the mobility ; not the lance he 

 charges with, but the horse that carries him. The 

 lesson, alas ! was lost upon the gentlemen who 

 played polo at Ladysmith, the ' dandies ' of Major 

 Arthur Griffiths ; so the Boers for two years 

 laughed us to scorn. 



The Windsor Magazine, January, 1903, has it 

 that the enemy was always getting away when he 

 ought to have been caught, because our horses 

 were unequal to the work required of them. Many 

 a victory was not followed up because the horses 

 could not be called upon for the further exertion 



