268 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 



following tradition exists. Her owner was once fly- 

 ing from the enemy, and, being hard pressed, he cast 

 off his cloak in order to relieve the mare of that un- 

 necessary weight. But when, having distanced his 

 pursuers, he halted, what was his surprise to find 

 that his cloak had lodged on the mare's outstretched 

 tail and still hung there ! From this incident, the 

 heroine of the story has figured ever since in the un- 

 written pedigrees of the desert as "the Arab of the 

 Cloak." 



Occasionally, though not often, one sees an Ameri- 

 can-bred horse, especially if it be a colt, galloping in 

 the pasture with its tail carried so high that the hair 

 divides and falls forward like a streamer. This is a 

 very common sight in the desert. "I have seen a 

 mare, an Abayan Sherakh," writes Major Upton, 

 " galloping loose, with both head and tail high to an 

 extent such as I could hardly have believed had I 

 not seen it. Her tail was not only high, but seemed 

 to be right over her back, and, besides streaming out 

 behind like a flag, covered her loins and quarters. It 

 was a splendid sight to one who can appreciate a 

 horse." A single horseman mounted on a mare that 

 carried her tail in this superb manner, and galloping 

 in the distance, away from the spectator, has often 

 been mistaken in the desert for three horsemen riding 

 abreast. 



What does an Arabian horse look like, — a mare of 

 the desert, of noble birth, belonging, we will say. to 

 the tribe Gomussa, of the clan Anazeh, and valued 

 for her high descent from Xejd to the Euphrates, 

 from Damascus to Bagdad ? Let us imagine her 

 coming forward at a walk. She advances with a 



