FAMOUS ARABIAN HORSES 33 



imagined in any four-footed animal, he was fleet as the 

 wind, graceful as the antelope, trained to every agile move- 

 ment, and with an endurance inconceivable. In dis 

 position faultless, kind, gentle, caressing and obedient, he 

 had never known whip or spur, or even a harsh word, 

 giving always the best he knew. He was alive when last I 

 heard of him, having carried the Empress of Austria during 

 her journeyings through Ireland. He is now forty years 

 old, and still in his prime, as the Arab horses are nearly as 

 long-lived as a man.' 



Do they make good war-horses ? 



' Ah, yes. In battle their extraordinary evolutions re- 

 mind one of the gyratory movements of the swallow when 

 it flies. They turn and wheel with such rapidity that it is 

 almost impossible to get a shot at them, and if they run, 

 nothing can catch them, their wonderful wisdom and 

 cunning leading them and their riders out of difficulties the 

 most serious. They come from Mecca, Medina, Palestine, 

 and the Persian Gulf, the Nedj and Osman. They have 

 the Abdalla race in the Atlas Mountains, as well as between 

 Afghanistan and the Persian Mountains, where live also the 

 Dakir and Mohammed breeds. These horses descend as 

 heirlooms from father to son, and no possession is so 

 precious as these exquisite animals. Then they also can 

 prove a long ancestry, for their pedigree is carefully pre- 

 served with that of the family's own, and their names 

 descend as do those of the generations of kings. Some- 

 times many or all the members of a tribe will be each a 

 part sharer in a horse, and this horse is left by will to a suc- 

 cessor. One cannot sell his share without permission from 

 the rest, be he ever so much in need ; and it must be a most 

 unusual circumstance which could gain such permission. 



