LX 



IN feeding and watering the horse the Bedouins seem to 

 us to be equally unreasoning as in their veterinary prac- 

 tice, unless it be agreed that a horse can stand any thing- 

 he is used to, and that it is well to get him used to 

 irregular habits. The fact that the Arabian is often com- 

 pelled to go an indefinite time without food or drink 

 unquestionably makes him hardy and less apt to suffer 

 than any regularly treated animal. In every nation there 

 exists peculiar habits. In Switzerland many drivers will 

 not water on the road at all, even if the horses have thirty 

 or forty miles to do on a stretch. They are " afraid of the 

 colic," as they say. 



It is deprivation which hardens a man to deprivation. 

 I do not mean that irregular habits will tend to pro- 

 long life or give uniform good health. Neither will 

 athletics. On the contrary, the man who never overdoes 

 anything, be it in exercise or in diet, is the man who is 

 apt to live the longest and suffer the least from disease. 

 It is professors in colleges and clergymen who stand at 

 the head of the longevity tables. But what will kill the 

 professor or the clergyman is child's play to the Indian, 

 who starves for two or three days and then gorges like an 

 anaconda. The Arabian for this same reason will go all 

 day in the hot sun and never ask for water impatiently, 

 at least even in crossing a brook. He is fed and watered 

 apparently regardless of the fact that he is hot or tired 

 in a fashion which would inevitably founder any horse in 



