280 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 



Often, indeed, it requires the eye of a skilled horse- 

 man to detect the merit and high breeding of a mare 

 fresh from the desert, in her winter coat and winter 

 condition. An old traveller relates how such a mare, 

 sent by a ^"edji prince to an Egyptian Pasha, was 

 criticised by those who saw her : " Merry were these 

 men of settled countries, used to stout hackneys. 

 ' The carrion ! ' cried one, for indeed she was lean 

 and uncurried. 'The Pasha would not accept her/ 

 said another. But a Syrian who stood by quietly 

 remarked, • A month at Shem, and she will se'em 

 better than now.' And some Bedouins who were 

 present declared her worth to be thirty camels." 



It is true, as this traveller sagely declared, that 

 men of " settled countries, used to stout hackneys," 

 often prefer an inferior horse to the pure-bred Ara- 

 bian. The Barb, for example, has a bigger crest and 

 is more on the prancing order. 



I have touched already upon the views of the 

 Arabo-maniacs. With them the problem of horse- 

 breeding is a very simple one, the solution being to 

 discard all other breeds as mongrels, and to go back 

 to ''the primitive horse." the horse of the desert. 

 On the other hand, most practical men engaged in 

 the business deride this notion. "I cannot help 

 thinking," writes one such, " that of all insane ideas 

 the maddest is that which some enthusiasts have of 

 permanently improving English race horses by an 

 admixture of Arab blood, as if the difference between 

 the various breeds of horses were not the result of 

 climate, selection, stable management, work, and 

 training." It is, I believe, a fact — so malleable 

 is horseflesh — that a thoroughbred foal, born in 



