LVIII 



There is, as I have been told and have already stated, 

 a curious equine distinction between the African and 

 Asiatic Arabs, in that the latter ride mares, while the for- 

 mer use stallions for saddle-work. I have reason to be- 

 lieve that far out on the Libyan Desert proper the same 

 rule as to the preference for mares prevails ; but on the 

 edge of the desert the stallion is apparently the most 

 used. Among the Syrian Bedouins the stallion is an alto- 

 gether secondary animal. The mare is the darling of the 

 sheik, the pet of the family. She is treated as a child, far 

 better really than the children. One or two of the most 

 promising of the stallions are kept, the rest are sent into 

 the cities for sale. A mare is never sold. This accounts 

 for the fact that the tourist, who never gets far beyond 

 the cities, sees only stallions. The price paid for a good 

 average four-year-old horse delivered in Damascus or Jeru- 

 salem runs from thirty to fifty dollars ; a fine horse costs 

 seventy to one hundred dollars ; there is no price put on a 

 "stunner;" you must negotiate for him as for a homestead 

 — perhaps as you would for a wife. 



The high-bred Arabian Desert mares seem always to 

 be kept in condition. They are spare, and their naturally 

 small frame makes them appear more so. "■ You raise 

 buffaloes, not horses !" an Arab of the desert will sneer- 

 ingly say to the owner of a fine, well-rounded, picture-book 

 stallion. The splendid beauty of the Arabian, as we un- 

 derstand it, is to him an utter delusion. lie has but one 



