158 THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE 



Tartars ' it is stated that Tukuhum of Koko-nor, 

 one of their rulers, who reigned in the sixth century, 

 obtained a number of splendid Persian mares for 

 breeding purposes, and their young obtained great 

 repute for swiftness. Of course, these were 

 ' Eastern horses,' and yet not up to the level of the 

 pure desert-bred Arab. 



Mr. W. B. Harris, in his 'Journey through Yemen,' 

 states that the Arabian King Tubba-el-Akran took 

 an expedition to Samarcand, and afterwards, in 

 A.D. 206, Abou Kariba, another Arabian King, 

 invaded Chaldea, and defeated the Tartars of 

 Adubijan, so that all this country from Arabia to 

 China was saturated with the blood of Arabian 

 horses. 



I see by the London Daily Telegraph, February 6, 

 1904, that the Sultan of Morocco sent a present of 

 six pure Arabs to President Rooseveldt from Fez, 

 one for the President himself, the others for his wife 

 and children, the one for himself being a pure white 

 thoroughbred. In ancient times white horses were 

 most esteemed ; e.g., Herodotus says that the 

 Sicilians paid an annual tribute of 360 white horses, 

 Arabs or i\rab crosses, to Darius, King of Persia. 

 Sicilian horses, of course, came from Africa 

 (Barbary, etc.), just opposite. Other instances 

 are given of the preference for white horses ; Arab 

 horses have always been deemed worthy of being 

 gifts from royalty to royalty. Incidentally several 

 instances appear in this little work. I may summarize 



