THE ARAB HORSE OF AFRICA; 



WE are about to give our readers some new notions 

 regarding the origin and treatment of the noblest of 

 our domesticated animals, the horse. Our information is 

 derived from a singular book, the most remarkable por- 

 tions of which are furnished by the Emir Abd-el-Kader, 

 whose protracted resistance to the French in Algiers, 

 followed by long captivity in France, excited such com- 

 passion, and whose release, opposed by politicians for 

 reasons of public security, was at length effected by 

 personal appeals to the generosity of the Emperor. 



The book is not only interesting in itself as a valu- 

 able contribution to the natural history of the horse, it 

 also possesses a peculiar charm to the philosophical 

 student of human nature. Its main subject, no doubt, 

 is the genus equus ; but, quite unintentionally on the 

 part of the French general and the Arab chief, the 

 genus homo stands out prominently, and under aspects 

 so diversified as to afford a most striking exhibition of 

 the many-sidedness of the human being as modified by 

 climate and religion those influences which so power- 

 fully affect his physical condition and the extent of his 

 mental development. 



* * The Horses of the Sahara, and the Manners of the Desert.' 

 By E. Daumas, General of Division commanding at Bordeaux, 

 Senator, &c. &c. With Commentaries by the Emir Abd-el-Kader. 

 Translated from the French by James Hutton. W. M. H. Allen 

 & Co., London, 1863. 



