254 ARAB PADS 



The Arab sits astride or sidewise, and as the pad is rarely 

 girthed at all, or at best by a slender cord, it is much like 

 walking on a tight-rope or managing a birch-bark canoe 

 to sit on it, until you " catch on." It is the reverse of our 

 trick of girthing a horse well and then sticking to the sad- 

 dle. The horse, when in the service of a native, is not un- 

 commonly equipped in the same way. Between this pad, 

 which serves equally for riding and loading, and the sad- 

 dle of the Spahi, there is a vast category of sizes and 

 styles ; all, however, much too wide. I have often seen a 

 pair of stirrups improvised by tying two bags together, 

 slinging them across the pad, turning in one corner of each, 

 and thrusting the foot into the pocket thus made. This 

 sounds ingenious, and is really so, but such a flimsy pre- 

 text for a saddle, or, in fact, all the gear used for saddle or 

 harness all over the Orient, would be cast on the dump- 

 heap by the poorest American farmer. He would not risk 

 his bones with it. 



The life of a saddle or a harness is much like that of u 

 line city vehicle. A swell, for instance, buys a five-hun- 

 dred-dollar buggy, and uses it three or four years. It 

 then goes to auction, and is bought by some one who runs 

 it in the suburbs for six or eight more. Thence it goes, 

 by another auction sale, to a countryman, who will run it 

 twenty years, unless it sooner meets with the fate of the 

 one-hoss shay. In the Orient you never see saddle or har- 

 ness in any but the latter state. They always look as if 

 they had never been new. 



