THE ARABIAN HORSE. 27 



who will beat thee, who will render thee miserable. Return with me, 

 my beauty, my jewel, and rejoice the hearts of my children.' As he pro- 

 nounced the last words, he sprung upon her back, and was presently out of 

 sight." 



One of our own countrymen, the enterprising traveller, Major Denham, 

 affords us a pleasing instance of the attachment with which the docility and 

 sagacity of this animal may inspire the owner. He thus relates the death of his 

 favourite Arabian, in one of the most desert spots of Central Africa. His feel- 

 ings needed no apology : we naturally honour the man in whom true sensibi- 

 lity and undaunted courage, exerted for useful purposes, were thus united. 



"There are a few situations in a man's life in which losses of this nature are 

 felt most keenly ; and this was one of them. It was not grief, but it was some- 

 thing very nearly approaching to it; and though I felt ashamed of the degree 

 of derangement I suffered from it, yet it was several days before I could get 

 over the loss. Let it, however, be remembered, that the poor animal had been 

 my support and comfort, nay, I may say, companion, through many a dreary 

 day and night ; had endured both hunger and thirst in my service ; and was 

 so docile, that he would stand still for hours in the desert while I slept between 

 his legs, his body affording me the only shelter that could be obtained from 

 the powerful influence of a noon-day sun : he was yet the fleetest of the fleet, 

 and ever foremost in the chase." 



Man, however, is an inconsistent being. The Arab who thus lives with and 

 loves his horses, regarding them as his most valuable treasure, sometimes treats 

 them with a cruelty scarcely to be credited. The severest treatment which the 

 English race-horse endures is gentleness compared with the trial of the young 

 Arabian. Probably the filly has never before been mounted. Her owner springs 

 on her back, and goads her over the sands and rocks of the desert for fifty or 

 sixty miles without one moment's respite. She is then forced, steaming and 

 panting, into water deep enough for her to swim. If, immediately after this, 

 she will eat as if nothing had occurred, her character is established, and she is 

 acknowledged to be a genuine descendant of the Kochlani breed. The Arab 

 does not think of the cruelty which he thus inflicts ; he only follows an in- 

 variable custom. 



We may not perhaps believe all that is told us of the speed and endurance of 

 the Arabian. It has been remarked, that there are on the deserts which this 

 horse traverses no mile-stones to mark the distance, or watches to calculate the 

 time; and that the Bedouin is naturally given to exaggeration, and, most of all, 

 when relating the prowess of the animal, that he loves as dearly as his children : 

 yet it cannot be denied that, at the introduction of the Arabian into the Euro- 

 pean stables, there was no horse comparable to hirn. The mare in her native 

 deserts will travel fifty miles without stopping ; she has been urged to the 

 almost incredible distance of one hundred and twenty miles, and, occasionally, 

 neither she nor her rider has tasted food for three whole days. 



Our horses would fare badly on the scanty nourishment afforded the Arabian. 

 The mare usually has but two meals in twenty -four hours. During the day 

 she is tied to the door of the tent, ready for the Bedouin to spring, at a moment's 

 warning, into the saddle ; or she is turned out before the tent ready saddled, 

 the bridle merely being taken off, and she is so trained that she immediately 

 gallops up at her master's call. At night she receives a little water ; and with 

 her scanty provender of five or six pounds of barley or beans, and sometimes a 

 little straw, she lies down content, if she is accustomed to lie down at all, in the 

 midst of her master's family. 



Burckhardt relates a story of the speed and endurance of one of them, and 

 shows with what feelings an Arab regards his quadruped friend : " A troop of 



