REMINISCENCES OF SONEPORE. 15 



vious to this, that the first properly organised Calcutta Turf 

 Club was started by thirty-six gentlemen. Messrs. Stainforth, 

 Beckwith, Grey, Grant and Fergusson, being the members of 

 committee, Mr. James Hume the Able East of the Sporting 

 Review, Secretary; the racing Stewards for the year were 

 J. Beckwith, G. Bushby, W. Grey, Captain Lang, and last, 

 but not least, debonair, Charley Marten, brightest, cheeriest, 

 and straightest of sportsmen. One of the most conspicuous 

 figures on Bengal, and Behar race courses, at the time we write 

 of, was the famous Calcutta Arab horse Commission Agent 

 Sheik Ibrahim Bin-Alee, a native of the Nedsjed, who came 

 to India about 1820, accompanying a Colonel Lithfield, who 

 had been sent to Arabia to buy horses on Government account. 

 He went back to his native land, and brought to Bombay, 

 and Madras, several shipments of horses, with which, being 

 a born judge, he did well. Meanwhile Colonel Lithfield had 

 established a depot at Bussorah and in connection with a 

 Doctor Todd, and a Colonel Taylor, got up some races. The 

 wily Sheik scented plunder in the air, and wending his way 

 thither won every race, on a single horse of his own selection, 

 meeting in most cases fresh animals. Four or five years after- 

 wards he came to Calcutta, and was at first located at Messrs 

 Cook and Company's. A dealer he could scarcely be termed, 

 as for the major portion of his career, he acted merely as a 

 Commission Agent. But the influx of Australian racing stock 

 to the Calcutta market, ruined the Arab trade, and broke up 

 the Sheik's business, his courteous and equally straight partner 

 Esau Bin Courtas leaving for Bombay about twenty years ago, 

 where he died, to the regret of many Calcutta European friends 

 who could like and respect one who, though merely an Arab 

 of the desert, was every inch a man, a gentleman and a 

 sportsman. 



