102 Time's Revenges [1904 



George and Dunraven enthusiastic in their praises to me of William 

 O'Brien. Who would have thought it possible fifteen years ago, and 

 to me, but Time has strange revenges. 



" lyth June. — A large dinner in Park Lane. I had some talk with 

 Lord Percy after dinner about Arabian matters, he being Under 

 Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He is an intelligent young man, but 

 without genius it seemed to me, or special wit, inferior for instance to 

 Winston Churchill. There were also at dinner Lord Manners, a 

 Dowager of Westminster, Percy and Madeline Wyndham, with Doro- 

 thy, Charles Gatty, Paget, a young Mahaffy, and Hugh Lane. George 

 much bored between two dowagers. 



" 2.0th June. — Madeline Wyndham's birthday dinner, always to me 

 the pleasantest of anniversaries. Each guest's name, there were 

 twenty-two of them, was written on a card with a heart and wings. 

 I had some talk after dinner with Bendor about South Africa and the 

 land he bought there three years ago. It consists of 60,000 acres close 

 to the Basuto frontier, and he is letting it in 300 acre lots to farmers 

 he is bringing out from England. He has six thoroughbred stallions 

 there from the Eaton Stud, and spoke in high praise of the Arabs, 

 wanting me to go out and see it all. 



" 24th June. — To see Dr. Andrews, of the Natural History Museum 

 at Kensington, who showed me fossil bones of primaeval horses, and 

 other ancient beasts, also the new Okapi stuffed. It is a miniature 

 Giraffe, striped on the hind quarters like a Zebra. Andrews is a queer, 

 rough little man, but a good fellow, who knows his trade, and mocks 

 at conventionalities. Lunched afterwards with Amir Ali and his Eng- 

 lish wife. He has retired from the Indian service, and is domiciled 

 now permanently in England, bringing up his children at schools and 

 universities as Englishmen. 



" 28th June. — To Yeats' Irish play, ' Where there is Nothing,' a very 

 poor piece, without either wit or sense. 



" 30th June. — Gave a scientific luncheon to Andrews, Lydekker, 

 Cockerell and his scientific brother from America, to discuss the origin 

 of the horse. This we did pretty thoroughly, deciding that it was 

 quite possible the Arab was a separate wild breed, that there might be 

 aboriginal wild horses in Africa, and also on an island in South Amer- 

 ica, Chiloe. Lydekker considers both the existing Prevalsky horse and 

 the Tarpan to be wild breeds, though probably crossed with feral 

 stallions. Andrews believes that a heavy horse of the shire type 

 existed once wild in the Thames valley. All agree, I think, that the 

 origin of the wild horse was multiple. Andrews attaches much im- 

 portance, as indicating a separate wild origin for the Arab, to the 

 depression found in their skulls to receive the tear gland as also to the 

 high setting on of their tails level with the croup. 



