A BIG JUMP 297 



formly good, whenever a horse shows blemishes or strains 

 in them he is considered unsafe to buy. With us a horse 

 with a few wind-puffs or a splint or two is by no means 

 to be condemned. The Arabians rarely interfere, but 

 often overreach when taught to trot, as they now are by 

 the English, or for the English by the Arabs. The foot is 

 neither too much like the mule's nor too fiat. It is round, 

 rather high, and with naturally a good wide frog. That 

 horror of our climate, scratches, are not often seen in the 

 dry air of Egypt, but the practice of hobbling often scores 

 the fetlocks permanently. The shoe of the Arab horse in 

 Egypt is the plate with a small hole in the middle — a 

 bungling apology for a shoe. In Cairo the European shoe 

 is gaining in use ; among the Arabs the old plate still pre- 

 vails, but it is less bad than among the Syrian Bedouins. 

 The cut shows a very fair type of the average Arabian 

 bought by the English officers or residents in Cairo. For 

 his inches he is hard to beat. The officer's seat is just a 

 trifle long, but excellent. It is a hunting rather than a 

 military seat, bar toes. 



The Arabian is unquestionably good as a goer ; but in 

 a country where there is neither fence, hedge, ditch, nor 

 other division of the fields, we can scarcely expect a horse 

 to jump. There is, however, a leap recorded to have been 

 taken by one Eagh-Ap {alias Amin Bey) at the time of 

 the massacre of the Mamelukes, which in these days of 

 prize-jumping is certainly worth a notice, whether credited 

 or not. In order to escape from the massacre, this man 

 headed his Arabian for the edge of the clift" where now 

 stands the Citadel of Cairo. The noble animal never 

 paused, but conscious of his master's peril took the leap, a 

 most prodigious one, and landed — the fact is well authen- 

 ticated by the footprints in the stone shown by the pious 

 and horse- loving Moslem of to-day — eighty feet below, 



