Blood Sires. 187 



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 io,ooo/. 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 

 Stuttgardt fair of '55, the highest prices were for a 

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

 four-year-old mare, IQO/. The late Mr. Attwood 

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

 racers' 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. 

 Mr. Attwood's Glints mare is credited year after 

 year in the stud-book with foals to a grey, bay, 

 or chestnut Barb, and shortly after the Crimean war 

 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 un- 

 lucky sign will immediately take away from the horse two-thirds of its 

 worth, and sometimes more. Nearly all the Nedjdi Arab horses intro- 

 duced into Europe are those considered imperfect by their owners. It 



