ENCOMIUMS ON THE ARAB TAKEN AT RANDOM 147 



Arab enthusiast, affirms that the Arab is in many 

 respects entitled to take the lead among all breeds 

 of horses ; that his pace is rapid and graceful ; that he 

 is hardy, and can continue travelling at the rate of 

 from fifty to sixty miles a day ; that it is proved 

 beyond doubt that for slow, continued work the Arab 

 is immeasurably superior to his English brethren. 

 That distance is the mileage that one of Mr. Quin's 

 Arabs at Tarella, New South Wales, bought of me, 

 went day after day during the great drought about 

 the end of the nineteenth century, with, I believe, 

 only native grass, or what was left of it. Is that 

 properly to be called ' slow ? 



' Thormanby ' can, clearly, have meant ' slow' only 

 as opposed to short sprinting with light weights ; in 

 fact, he admits as much in almost the very words 

 that I heard applied to Mr. Quin's stallion, that an 

 Arab seems at his own pace to be able to go for 

 ever. But 1 deny that his pace is slow ; it is very 

 fast, as many a defeated army has discovered. 

 ' Thormanby ' describes two Arab horses sent to him 

 from Bombay to Lucknow, which did not reach him 

 for five months, having marched continuously, with 

 many vicissitudes, continual forced marches, and 

 irregularly and scantily fed, still arriving in perfect 

 trim, and continuing to do fast work throughout the 

 hot season. I note particularly the word ' fast,' 

 which is the author's. ' Thormanby ' might therefore 

 have said more in the previous passage than to say 

 the Arab was immeasurably superior for ' slow ' con- 



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