298 NOT "STUNNERS" 



and something over a quarter of a mile distant. What, 

 after that, becomes of our paltry seven feet three of horse- 

 show timbre? 



By -the -way, speaking of the fenceless condition of 

 the country, did it ever occur to you what a queerly 

 shaped land Egypt is? Fancy a country one thousand 

 miles long by scarcely ten miles wide. And yet this is 

 the shape of agricultural Egypt from Cairo to the first 

 cataract. The rest of the land is mere desert. The whole 

 country is likened to an open lotus (the Delta) with a long 

 stem and one single bud, the Fayum. 



The Egyptian Arabian is fed on barley, beans, and 

 clover -hay which is sweet and abundant in the Nile 

 region or the green clover for the early two or three 

 months of the year. The first growth is cut down and fed 

 green; it is a sort of " spring medicine," our Hood's Sarsa- 

 parilla ; the second is allowed to grow up for hay. 



The average of the Arabian saddle-beasts here as else- 

 where is undeniably high. The variety of type which 

 we see in the well-bred saddle-horse at home cannot be 

 found; but that the Arabian is serviceable and satis- 

 factory as a mount is not to be questioned. His good- 

 nature is uniform, his gaits are fair, and he can stay. I 

 have heard it said by English people that you cannot run 

 him as far and fast as a good hack at home ; but this is, I 

 take it, a matter of feed rather than endurance. The saddle- 

 beast held by a sai's, or outrunner, is the type of a lighter 

 kind of horse, not up to quite so much weight. And yet 

 he will surprise you by his activity under two hundred 

 pounds. But while, in the streets of Cairo, or on the 

 Gezireh drive, one sees plenty of neat -turned saddle- 

 beasts whose lines and action are very taking, it is rare 

 that one is attracted by a " stunner " by a horse all life, 

 all action, all ambition. I have seen vastly more splendid 



