BRITISH TURF. 61 



that he might recover the mare, which appeared 

 an object about which he was more sohcitous 

 than about his daughter."^ 



The poverty of the Arabs enables them to 

 afford but scanty nourishment to their horses. 

 Besides the dry aromatic herbage they may 

 chance to pick up, the Arabian horse usually 

 has but one or two meals in twenty-four hours. 

 At night it receives a little water ; and five or 

 six pounds of barley or beans and a little straw. 

 In Nedjed the horses are regularly fed on dates, 

 and the fragments of any provisions that may 

 be used by the inhabitants ; and some writers 

 have even asserted, that flesh, raw as well as 

 boiled, is given them by the wealthy people, a 

 practice in the prevalence of which we are not 

 incUned to place much faith. Very httle water 

 is given, as the Arabs conceive (and justly) that 

 much liquid injures the horse's shape and affects 



his wind. 



The colt is mounted after its second year, 

 when the Arab on all other occasions so kind to 

 his horse, puts it to a cruelly severe trial. The 

 colt, or filly, is led out to be mounted for the 

 first time ; its master springs on its back, and 

 rides at full speed for perhaps fifty miles, over 

 sand and rock of the burning desert, without one 



* Malcolm's Sketches of Persia, vol 1, p. 45. 



