218 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



any came fully up to fifteen hands : fourteen appeared to me 

 to be about their average; but they were so exquisitely well 

 shaped that want of greater size seemed hardly, if at all, a 

 defect. Remarkably full in the haunches, with a shoulder 

 of a slope so elegant as to make one, in the words of an 

 Arab poet, 'go raving mad over it'; a little, a very little 

 saddle-backed, just the curve which indicates springiness 

 without any weakness; a head broad above, and tapering 

 down to a nose fine enough to verify the phrase of ' drinking 

 from a pint-pot,' did pint-pots exist in Nejed; a most intel- 

 ligent yet singularly gentle look; full eyes; sharp, thorn-like 

 little ear; legs fore and hind that seemed as if made of ham- 

 mered iron, so clean and yet so well twisted with sinew; a 

 neat, round hoof, just the requisite for hard ground; the tail 

 set on, or rather thrown out, at a perfect arch; coat smooth, 

 shining and light; the mane long, but not overgrown or 

 heavy; and an air and step that seemed to say, 'Look at 

 me ; am I not pretty? ' Their appearance justified all repu- 

 tation, all value, all poetry. . . . But, if asked what are, 

 after all, the especially distinctive points of the Arab horse, 

 I should reply, the slope of the shoulder, the extreme clean- 

 ness of the shank, and the full, rounded haunch, — though 

 every other part, too, has a perfection and a harmony un- 

 witnessed anywhere else." 



No Arab ever dreams of tying up his horse by the neck. 

 The tether replaces the halter. A light iron ring furnished 

 with a padlock encircles the hind leg just above the pastern. 

 A rope is attached to this, and made fast to an iron peg set 

 in the ground. To make of their horse a devoted friend is 

 the end sought after by all Arabs. With them he leads, so 

 to speak, a domesticated life, in which, as in all domestic 



