178 With Count Potocki in Poland [^95 



beauty or action, and are worse than the worst we have ever bred at 

 Crabbet. They have not even the merit, if it is one, of exceptional size. 

 Of the six stallions he showed me there was but one preserving the 

 Arab type, a dark chestnut with four white legs, ' Iflah,' a four-year-old 

 with nice action, bred by a horse he had from the Babolna stud called 

 ' Zarif,' out of a fine old mare, ' Khanjar.' The rest were not worth 

 looking at. ' Euclid ' himself, who has been re-chistened ' Obeyan,' 

 is a horse not unlike ' Kars,' with a fine fore-hand and good points, too, 

 in the quarter, but with a plain head (Kars had a fine one) of the con- 

 vex type, and lacking distinction all through. It is only another proof 

 of the mistake of breeding from a winner of races if you want to get 

 handsome Arab stock. The fastest horses are, I believe, never, among 

 Arabians, the best sires. The mares, which we looked over in the 

 afternoon, are far better and deserve a better sire. There are a dozen 

 really good ones — the rest inferior — but the dozen are enough to 

 refound the stud, though several of the best are old. I regret im- 

 mensely having sold ' Shahwan ' to America, as he would have been 

 well employed here, and, except ' Ahmar,' whom I cannot well spare, 

 I have nothing old enough left to give. The mares I admired most 

 were ' Druha ' and her daughter ' Nerissa,' ' Zalotna,' ' Luba,' ' Khiva,' 

 ' Poppeia,' and ' Khalifa,' the dam of ' Iflah.' But most of them had 

 unworthy foals to foot by ' Euclid.' On the whole it was a disappoint- 

 ing spectacle, and I spoke frankly to Potocki, or at least as frankly as 

 it is possible to speak in such cases. I found him well aware of 

 ' Euclid's ' failure. Then Countess Potocka drove me round the oak 

 wood and through the grounds, which have been newly laid out and 

 very well. 



' 13th Sept. — I have had much interesting talk with Potocki about 

 Polish history, and the great part played in it by his ancestors, who 

 were many of them military leaders. His cousins, the Sangusckos, 

 were independent princes in Lithuania 400 years ago ; and these lands at 

 Antonin and Schepetowka lay on the high road — it is still called the 

 'black road' — of the Tartar invasions as late as 150 years ago. To 

 come to later times, he talked of the famous Princess Czartoriska, his 

 great-grandmother, who was the beloved of Lauzun, and he has given 

 me Maugras' book to read, which has just come out. It is founded on 

 Lauzun's memoirs, which Potocki assures me are authentic, and the 

 original of which, privately printed, he has had in his hands. I asked 

 him why Maugras, instead of giving a Bowdlerised rechauffe of it, had 

 not quoted the original, and he said it entered into quite impossible 

 details, unfit for publication. I would give a great deal to read the 

 original as it stands, for nothing strikes me more strongly than the 

 identity of the highly cultivated society of our day in London with 



that of Versailles then. Not, I think, that we are so corrupt in money 



