LXY 



ON the Adriatic coast of Turkey, in Albania and Dal- 

 matia, the horse of the country is the same small mean 

 runt you meet with in every poverty-stricken land. He 

 is not without his advantages. He eats little, needs and 

 gets no grooming, stabling, or care ; has a vast deal of 

 endurance of blows, neglect, and ill-treatment and car- 

 ries as big a load for his size as a bronco. But the bronco 

 can run and keep it up ; the little country brute of the 

 Eastern Adriatic can barely work out of a walk ; nor has 

 he any gaits. He is a poor lot, much like the population 

 which breeds him. 



The origin of the best strain of Arabian blood has been 

 related by some romancer. While Mohammed was fight- 

 ing his way from his humble origin to greatness, he once 

 was compelled for three days to lead his corps of twenty 

 thousand cavalry without a drop of water. At last from 

 a hill-top they descried the silver streak of a distant river, 

 and after a short farther march, Mohammed ordered his 

 trumpeter to blow the call to dismount and loose the 

 horses. The poor brutes, starving for water, at once 

 sprang into a mad gallop towards the longed-for goal. 

 No sooner loosened than there came the alarm false as 

 it happened of a sudden ambush. To horse! was in- 

 stantly blown and repeated by a hundred bugles. But 

 the demand was too great; the parched throats were not 

 to be refused ; the stampede grew wilder and wilder, as 

 twenty thousand steeds pushed desperately for the river- 



