ENCOMIUMS ON THE ARAB TAKEN AT RANDOM 163 



wards, which states that at the great Durbar at 

 Delhi there was a ten days' polo meeting, that the 

 English ponies first gave in, the Australian lasted a 

 day or two longer, but the only ones who stayed 

 throughout the match were the Arabs ! Yet they 

 have neither staying power, courage, nor docility ! 

 O tempora, O mores ! 



And Captain Brown sums up by saying that of 

 late too little attention has been paid to the introduc- 

 tion of foreign Arab or Eastern stallions, asks 

 where can we find such horses at the present day, 

 either as racers or stallions, as Eclipse, Childers, 

 King Herod, Matchem, and others; and attributes 

 the present failure to the departure of our present 

 racers from the foreign blood — in other words, that 

 since racing men have abandoned the use of the 

 Arab their horse is failing. 



Sir Samuel Baker, in his ' Tributaries of the Nile ' 

 writes : ' Never was there a more perfect picture of a 

 wild Arab horseman than Jali on his mare. Hardly 

 was he in the saddle than away flew the mare, whilst 

 her rider, in delight, threw himself almost under her 

 belly while at full speed, picking up stones from the 

 ground. Never were there more complete centaurs 

 than these Hamran Arabs : horse and man appeared 

 to be one animal, of the most elastic nature, that 

 could twist and turn with the suppleness of a snake.' 



Further, in speaking of a particular horse Aggahr, 

 in hunting a lion, who flew along as easily as a cat, he 

 says that Aggahr's gallop was perfection, and his long 



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