194 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



province of Yannam, in Arabia Felix/' The prestige 

 of these children of the desert was even then (1771) 

 on the wane; but we have it from General Clarke, the 

 oldest surviving Indian officer, that, some few years 

 before the close of the century, the native dealers 

 brought a coarse- shouldered bay Arab to the Madras 

 bazaar, and sturdily set their price at 10,000. Only 

 one nabob- elect was found bold enough to bid a 

 tenth of that sum ; and back went the dusky owners, 

 in. a state of great dudgeon, to the hill-country, won- 

 dering what could have come to the whites. At the 

 recent Stuttgardt fair, the highest prices were for a 

 white ten-year-old stallion, about 240, and for a 

 four-year-old mare, 190. The* late Mr. Attwood 

 retained his love of the " delicate Arab arch" in his 

 racer's necks longer than any man on the English turf; 

 but their inability to stand " squeezing," in a strong 

 finish, cost him many a pound and many a pang. 

 The present Mr. Attwood's Glints mare is still credited 

 year after year in the stud-book, with foals to a 

 grey, bay, or chesnut Barb, and it was but the other 

 day we were invited by advertisement to see a " true 

 Seglavee Djederanee ;" and, reading on, we found 

 him to be " a horse of such surpassing swiftness, 

 that Omar Pacha specially selected him to carry 

 the news of the raising of the siege of Silistria to 

 Varna \" Hugh Capet sent several German run- 

 ning horses to Athelstane early in the ninth century ; 

 the Spanish horse came in with William the Con- 

 queror, and the first Arabian on record was introduced 

 to the English isles by Alexander, King of Scotland, 

 who presented it and its furniture to the Church ! 

 A writer on this subject in The Field informs us 

 that 



" The Arabs, as well as the Turks and Persians, look upon those 

 portions of a horse's coat, which seem to grow in a contrary direction 

 here and there, as a certain means of determining its value. Any 

 unlucky sign will immediately take away from the horse two-thirds 



