i66 THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE 



party that ' the Arab horsemen were mounted on 

 the fleet mares held in unbounded estimation.' Of 

 one mare he says : * Her action was so light that she 

 might, according to the Arab phrase, have galloped 

 on a woman's bosom.' Of course, a jockey or a 

 racing trainer would sneer at this, naturally : he is 

 so wise in horses — ' one of the knowing ones.' Yet 

 I think that the opinion of a French officer, often 

 dependent on his horse for his life, engaged in war, 

 with as brave warriors as there are in the world 

 facing him, might be fairly considered to be rather 

 more valuable than that of men engaged only in 

 sprinting races, as to which horse is the better for 

 the ordinary purposes of humanity, 



Mr. George Flemming, in ' Travels in Mantchu 

 Tartary,' says that the Russian courier used to ride 

 one pony 500 miles to Pekin in twelve days, rest a 

 day, and return in fifteen, on the most unfavourable 

 sort of forage. He relates that their own rides had 

 been long and without intermission, and their ponies 

 looked none the worse, though they were eight 

 or ten hours in the saddle daily, doing forty or forty- 

 five miles a day, and travelling nigh 700 miles of 

 rough country, nothing less than that average on 

 miserable fare — bran and chopped straw. 



Whether Tartar or Turkoman or Mantchu, all 

 those ponies have been indebted to the Arab cross. 



Mr. John Hill, in the Live S^oc^ Journal AlmaLnack, 

 1903, writes that he was much impressed by the 

 foals and young stock of, amongst others, the Arab 



