HORSE OF CONQUEST AND CEREMONY 



" swept wherever the Arabian horse and his armed 

 rider could tread, and no further. Other peoples had 

 pushed their conquests by sea, as well as by land, 

 but by the horse and on the horse the Mohammedan 

 conquests were made; the horse was the real stand- 

 ard bearer of the Crescent, and where the Oriental 

 war horse was stopped the spread of Mohammedan- 

 ism was stayed. The Moors went through Spain 

 on their Barb horses, and, when they were driven 

 back after several centuries of occupation, it was the 

 men, not the horses, that went back. Their blood 

 remained, and made the Spanish horse the most noted 

 of Europe, and what part they played in the wars 

 of the times is the theme of many a Spanish ballad. 

 When the Spanish horse was at its best, then Spain 

 was at her height among nations, and, as her best 

 horses declined, her glory waned. The Spanish ad- 

 venturers brought their horses to America, and what 

 part they played in the conquest of Peru and Mexico 

 forms one of the most picturesque features of those 

 cruel days. These Spanish horses were the progen- 

 itors of the wild and half-wild breeds which later 

 spread from Patagonia and the plains of the Plata 

 on the south to the West Indies on the east, and 

 the valleys of California on the north. The Span- 

 ish horses were carried to England to improve her 

 breed of war horses, and were an important element 

 in the rise of British power. And they went to Hol- 

 land and France, and, wherever they went, they 

 helped increase national power and national wealth." 



241 



