36 THE HORSE IN AMERICA 



these horses can go on scant rations and small 

 quantities of water seem incredible, while that 

 they can carry heavy weight without inconven- 

 ience is entirely true, for I have tried them. But 

 we have heard wierd stories of them from the Ara- 

 bic poets themselves, and also from the English 

 who have used what they could get for their 

 sports in India, where pony racing has ever been, 

 since the English occupation, a most attractive 

 diversion. A frequent expression that one comes 

 across in old books of life in India is that some 

 named Arab horse had a head so small that it 

 could be put in a quart cup. That, of course, was 

 an absurd exaggeration, but they undoubtedly 

 have very small and handsome heads. Their 

 heads, I am sure, were never so small nor their 

 necks so long as the painters have represented 

 the heads and necks of the Darley Arabian and 

 the Godolphin Barb to have been. At that time in 

 England, however, the painters even took the lib- 

 erty of exaggerating the length of neck and di- 

 minutiveness of head of the women who sat to 

 them. It was the fashion of the time, and to that 

 fashion we owe the loss of correct likenesses of 



