ARAB NOTIONS. 323 



To French politesse, finesse, or lightfingeredness, or 

 to French success in war among the tribes of the desert, 

 must we look, then, for pure specimens of the horse, 

 which the Arab identifies with himself and his religion. 



** The love of the horse," General Daumas writes, 

 " has passed into the Arab blood. That noble animal 

 is the friend and comrade of the chief of the tent. He 

 is one of the servants of the family. His habits, his 

 requirements, are made an object of study. He is the 

 burden of their songs, the favourite topic of conversa- 

 tion. It is thus that the Arabs acquire that knowledge 

 of horse-flesh which we are so astonished to meet with 

 in the humblest horseman of a desert tribe." 



In regard to their belief that in intelligence the horse 

 approaches the nearest to man, the General asks, "May 

 it not be that the Arabs, by living on such intimate 

 terms with the horse, have succeeded in developing 

 faculties the very existence of which is unknown to 

 us, who accord to that animal only the instinct of 

 memory?" 



At all events, it is manifest that Arab notions regard- 

 ing horses are worthy of attention, and that special re- 

 spect is due to the opinions of Abd-el-Kader, because 

 of his exalted rank in Mussulman society, and his 

 science and skill as a horseman. As we have already 

 said, he insists on the fact that the horse of Arabia, and 

 the Barb or horse of North Africa, are identical. More- 

 over, the Barbary horse, so far from degenerating from 

 the Arab, is actually his superior, and is the very perfec- 

 tion of a war-horse. The French in Algiers have good 

 reason for being of the same opinion. A chasseur 

 d'Afrique, setting out on an expedition fully armed, takes 

 with him coffee, sugar, beans, rice, pressed hay, barley, 

 for five days, along with four horse-shoes, and several 

 things besides, so that the total weight carried by his 

 horse is twenty-five stone ; whereas the English light 

 dragoon, accoutred in marching 6rder, weighs nearly 

 nineteen stone. So that well may General Daumas 



