14 THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE 



sent me to Adelaide, thirty-two miles off, to get to 

 the bank before three, and started me without dinner, 

 because the matter was of importance. I got into 

 the bank at Adelaide comfortably before three, and 

 got home again comfortably before dark. I rode 

 my stock-horse fresh off the run — there were no 

 paddocks then — and with a good feed the old horse 

 could have repeated the journey before morning. 

 This fine old beast was half Arab from Tasmania. 

 I loved him almost as well as any human being, 

 except my own family — better, indeed, than I loved 

 some people. 



It is strange, but it seems to me that the Arab 

 and the half-bred Arab, where he takes after the 

 Arab ancestor, has a singular capacity for winning 

 the affection of his rider. Dr. Wills, in his ' Modern 

 Persia,' says that Periam, in telling the story of his 

 horse being killed, left off ' with wet eyes.' 



Mr. C. B. Fisher, a very old colonist of this 

 State and a grand old English gentleman, universally 

 respected beyond most men in Australia, importer of 

 Fisherman, and one of the best breeders, importers, 

 racers, and amateur riders of racehorses, who ever 

 lived in Australia (after whom the C. B. Fisher race 

 is named), says ' unhesitatingly ' [South Australian 

 Register, September i8, 1902) that you don't get 

 horses to go now seventy, eighty, or ninety miles 

 straight out of the paddock as you used ; that he 

 once took a horse out of the paddock with his belly 

 full of grass, and rode him sixty-four miles in 



