ARAB AND BARB HORSES 35 



to hardships, so that in emergency he may sub- 

 sist on scant food and little water. Every one has 

 heard it said that an Arab would give his last 

 crust to his horse rather than eat it himself. I 

 readily grant that in some cases he would do so, 

 and so would any other man of sense in a like pre- 

 dicament. The Arabs are great robbers and won- 

 derful chaps to run away. In the desert they do 

 not have telegraphs and telephones to intercept 

 a fleeing thief. There it is a question of the fastest 

 and longest enduring horse. So of course, a fleeing 

 Arab, with his pursuers hot on his track, would 

 give his last crust to his horse rather than eat it 

 himself. He would be a fool if he did not. That 

 last crust might be the very fuel that would keep 

 life and strength in his engine of escape. The 

 Arab is not a sentimentalist except when he talks 

 or makes poetry. In his words he exhausts his 

 whole supply. Beneath them he is a very shrewd, 

 cold and able man of affairs. 



In his horses the Arab has immemorially had 

 the means to gratify his vanity, to give him his 

 best beloved sport, to enable him to make war, 

 and, above all, to run away. The distances that 



