ARABIAN HORSES. 267 



their heads were handsomer than those of the Anazeh 

 mares. The latter are built more nearly on a race- 

 horse model, having greater length of body and of 

 limb. The Nejd * horses are perhaps prettier, though 

 not so bloodlike. Unlike the Anazeh mares, they 

 stand higher at the withers than at the rump. 

 " Every horse at Hail," writes Mr. Blunt, " had its 

 tail set on in the same fashion ; in repose some- 

 thing like the tail of a rocking-horse, and yet not, as 

 has been described [by Mr. Palgrave], thrown out 

 in a perfect arch.' In motion the tail was held 

 high in the air, and looked as if it could not under 

 any circumstances be carried low." 



It has been suggested that this phenomenon is 

 partly, at least, the effect of art; that before the 

 foal is an hour old its tail is bent back over a stick, 

 the twist producing a permanent result. But this is 

 probably a slander. 



There is one family of American trotters, that of 

 the Mambrino Patchens, which alone among American- 

 bred nags is distinguished for the beautiful carriage 

 of the tail, and, as I have mentioned in a previous 

 chapter, jealous persons sometimes make the same 

 insinuation in reference to these horses that was 

 directed against the stud of the Emir of Hail. 



All Arabian horses carry their tails well, and, next 

 to the head and its setting on, the tail is the feature 

 which the Arab looks to in judging a horse. " I have 

 seen mares gallop with their tails out straight as colts, 

 and lit, as the Arabs say, to hang your cloak on," 

 Major Upton remarks. A family of horses renowned 

 in the desert is descended from a mare of whom the 



1 Nejd, a district, is the general ; Anazeh, the particular term. 



