CAUSE OF DETERIORATION 69 



might indeed tend to improve the breed of horses. 

 There would be less gambling on races like that. 

 It would, at all events, soon weed out your pam- 

 pered jades that ' ought not to be in the Stud- 

 Book. ' These Kirghiz horses are certainly Eastern, 

 with probably a large dash of Arab blood, for about 

 A.D. 120 the Arabs sent an expedition to Samarcand, 

 and thence into China. In a.d. 206 Abu Kauba, 

 one of the South Arabian Kings, invaded Chaldea, 

 and defeated the Tartars there. The whole of this 

 country has been overrun by Arabs and with Arab 

 horses. What almost certain grounds there are for 

 crediting Arabs with being the cause of excellence 

 to these Asiatic horses will more fully appear in 

 Chapter VII. 



The celebrated traveller, Captain Wood, writes 

 that the Tartars were scattered by the Arab sword, 

 and that Islam transformed the face of the continent 

 and established the Mohammedan power by the end 

 of the eighth century almost up to the verge of the 

 Pamir. 



Following up Chief Justice Way's observations, 

 the Rev. Mr. Howard, of Adelaide, was driven to 

 say in the pulpit on November i, 1903, anent the 

 great Melbourne Cup race, that the gambling spirit 

 was not confined to the sterner sex, for many a fair 

 hand would hold the field-glass with trembling grasp 

 because of money staked ; many a fair form would 

 quiver with unwomanly excitement, and many a fair 

 face would betray the influence of the gambling 



