THE EXCELLENCE OF THE ARAB HORSE 99 



to be useful in such a hunt ? And how would a 

 jockey-boy like to be deprived of his breakfast until 

 he had played the teaser to a charging elephant ? 

 And how long before a Hamran Arab could be 

 persuaded to attempt the feat on an English 

 thoroughbred ? And how would he be likely to 

 manage if he did ? 



Many writers have alluded to this extraordinary 

 gift of turning and twisting. Mr. Walter B. Harris, 

 in his book ' The Land of an African Sultan," 

 describes in two or three places the charging and 

 turning of the Moors. To make one quotation : 

 ' Sometimes the sons of horsemen seemed as if they 

 were charging straight at our tent, and as it was 

 they passed within a few feet of the ropes. Again 

 and again they charged, saluted, fired, and stopped 

 short, after making their horses rear till they seemed 

 as though they must fall back with the cruel 

 Moorish bit.' Contrast this readiness to the rider's 

 wishes with the start of English thoroughbreds for 

 a race ! 



The London Times of January, 1904, in an 

 account of the reception of Lord Curzon, the 

 Viceroy of India, by the Chief of Koweit, on the 

 Arab side of the Persian Gulf, speaks of the cloud 

 of horsemen galloping wildly ahead, hurling their 

 spears, curvetting, pirouetting, and going through 

 all the time-honoured evolutions of an Arab field- 

 day, on their spirited Arab steeds — riders ready to 

 fight on these horses day by day. 



7—2 



