THE EXCELLENCE OF THE ARAB HORSE 123 



such a sad state of affairs as that Commission brought 

 to light be Hkely to cause the nation to invite a larger 

 exercise of the prerogative than has been usual of 

 late ? A bad King checked by a powerful press could 

 not have had matters worse ; a good King governing 

 would certainly have had them very much better. 



As to the rejection of the opinions of men like 

 those mentioned at the head of this chapter, and the 

 rejection of the testimony of the ages concerning 

 the supreme excellence of the Arab horse, which is 

 scoffed at by ' sports ' and jockey-boys, I take leave 

 to cite a passage from Sir Edward Creasy's ' Fifteen 

 Decisive Battles of the World ': ' The truth of many 

 a brilliant narrative . . . has of late years been 

 triumphantly demonstrated, and the shallowness of 

 the sceptical scoffs with which little minds have 

 carped at the good minds of antiquity has been in 

 many instances decisively exposed.' I would ask my 

 reader which he would back — Job or the jockey- 

 boy ? For half-a-mile sprint with a light weight the 

 odds would be in favour of the jockey-boy ; but for a 

 fifty or a hundred mile gallop in the desert, with a 

 horse carrying 20 to 23 stone and the enemy behind 

 him, there are few persons who would not back at 

 very long odds the favourite of Job. In fact, the 

 jockey-boy's mount would be dead before the Arab 

 had got fairly into his second wind. 



