XL] THE HORSE AND HIS STABLE. 117 



barley and straw ; and the terseness of structure of the 

 Arab may be said to be the result of three thousand years 

 of hard food, if we reckon only from the modern horse - 

 keeper King Solomon. Fuerant autem in Egypto semper 

 praestantissimi equi. And, shades of Bunsen ! how 

 many thousand years of hard food shall we add to the 

 account for our horses' Egyptian ancestry ? Moses and 

 Miriam sang their dirge on the shore of the Red Sea, in 

 the reign of a mediceval Pharaoh, but their " early pro- 

 genitors," as Mr. Darwin would phrase it, might have 

 enjoyed the barley of the ancient King Menes. To hard 

 food we must add early work, for the Arab is worked 

 at two years old. 



Our thorough-bred horse, the descendant of the Arab, So is our 



thorough- 



has been bred under the same natural conditions some- bred horse - 

 what improved ; that is, he has had better hard food in 

 unlimited quantity, he is earlier trained, the goodness 

 of both sire and dam are proved to an ounce, and 

 performance only is bred from. What is the consequence ? 

 In Evelyn's days Arabs and barbs raced at Newmarket. 



