XXXVII 



WHOSO, when he reaches the home of the Moor or the 

 Bedouin, or stands where, scorning to live under a roof, 

 the Arab of the desert pitches his camel's-hair tent and 

 lazes away a profitless existence, eating his bread in the 

 sweat, not of his own brow, but of that of his slaving 

 wives and daughters ; where the date-palm and the olive- 

 tree or at need the Barbary fig stand between the list- 

 less son of the prophet and annual starvation ; where man 

 is literally the dust of the field, and mixes with his native 

 sod as constantly during life as after death ; where woman 

 has no soul, and is but a crude promise of the houri of the 

 hoped-for paradise ; where every instinct points to indo- 

 lence, and where man has not bettered his condition one 

 jot for fifty generations ; whoso, because he is among 

 Arabs, fondly imagines that he will find himself among 

 better horses than surround him at home, is doomed to 

 grievous disappointment. Good horse-flesh is as rare on 

 the Arabian desert as it is in England or America. There 

 are more high-grade horses in Kentucky to-day per thou- 

 sand of population than the first home of the ancestor 

 of all blooded stock has ever boasted. A faultless steed is 

 a pearl of great price ; it is difficult to be found ; and like 

 the scriptural jewel, a man must often sell all that he hath 

 to buy it. 



" Where are the Arabian horses?" you ask, on reaching 

 Morocco or Algeria. " Those are Arabians, pure blood," 

 comes the answer, with a gesture towards some diminutive 



