ENCOMIUMS ON THE ARAB TAKEN AT RANDOM 145 



PelHssier, writing in 1844 on this Crusade, says that 

 the Arabs attacked the French Crusaders every day, 

 and that ' if one pursued them they fled ; but when 

 the French returned to their quarters, tired out by a 

 bootless chase, the Arabs turned round and assailed 

 their pursuers with arrows and javelins. This is 

 exactly how they treat us to-day.' 



In the latter sentence he referred to the Arabs 

 under Abd-el-Kader in Algiers. It was as bootless 

 a chase for the French cavalry to try to catch the 

 Arab horses in Algiers in 1840 as it was for the 

 same cavalry to try to catch the Arab horses in 

 Tunis in 1270; 600 years had not lessened the 

 difference in merit between the two breeds : the 

 Arab was st'iW /aci/e princess. 



General De Wet could furnish instances yet sixty 

 years later of other European cavalry having bootless 

 chases after Arab horses. In 1535 the Emperor 

 Charles V. attacked Tunis with success, and amongst 

 the terms of the treaty of peace which was made it 

 was provided that the suzerainty of Spain was to be 

 recognised by a yearly present of twelve horses. No 

 such term would have been made unless the horses 

 had been known to have been of unusual excellence. 

 You don't take coals to Newcastle nor Arab horses 

 to Arabia. But you send them elsewhere. Another 

 Bey of Tunis, Ahmed Bey, in 1842, sent, amongst 

 other things, a present of an Arabian horse to Louis 

 Philippe, King of the French. So that we have 

 three Kings of France in three far-apart periods re- 



10 



