LIX 



THE Bedouin is full of horse superstitions. His horse- 

 lore is much like that of our old-fashioned liveryman of a 

 past generation. I don't refer to the intelligent Yankee 

 breeder; I mean the humdrum, half-v^, half -trader, who 

 knew of but one cure for the staggers, and that was to sell 

 the horse. The Bedouin, like this happily extinct horse- 

 man, knows a horse's habits and diseases by observation 

 solely ; he has no idea of anatomy. Every species of wind 

 trouble to which the horse is subject he merely describes 

 as " having something wrong inside him." He treats a 

 horse on a system of old saws. For lameness he has but 

 one remedy, the hot iron. His horse will work to twenty 

 or even twenty -five years old, but he thinks that he 

 " grows weaker " after twelve. In buying he looks more 

 at marks than points. I have never yet seen an Arab 

 critically examine a horse from head to heel as we do, 

 each point in proper succession. Probably they satisfy 

 themselves as to a horse's race and general soundness, and 

 then only give heed to marks. But they talk marks more 

 than points. Soundness is assumed, and as a rule exists in 

 this exceptionally hardy race. 



One very intelligent Arab sheik with whom I sat down 

 at the old, old Jordan ford east of Jericho, where all the 

 pilgrims bathe, and with whom I conversed for hours 

 during the mid -day heat, when I asked him what he 

 looked for first in a horse he was going to buy, told me 

 with the utmost gravity the " color of his feet." He 



