1889.] PUBLIC DOCUIVIENT — No. 4. 221 



pasha's, are magnificent creatures, wholly or in part of Arab 

 blood. But the larger proportion of the horses met with 

 are of a very inferior breed. The Turkish cavalry is well 

 mounted, but the horses are far lighter and smaller than 

 those in the English or French service ; and during the 

 Crimean war there was nothing attracted so much admira- 

 tion as the splendid horses of the allies. The sultan, and, 

 indeed, the whole Turkish government, jealously guard the 

 Arab race of horses, that no infidel foreigner may ever pos- 

 sess the pure breed. The pure-blooded Arab mare is never 

 to be sold or given away to a foreigner, nor can the Moslem 

 take her with him outside of the country. It may be doubted 

 whether it ever has been done, and whether, in the cases 

 claimed, the blood is pure and the pedigree sure. 



Perhaps no one is better qualified to speak of the Arab 

 horses than the traveler Palgrave, whose command of tbc 

 Eastern languages was such, that, in the guise of a native, 

 he penetrated into the very heart of Arabia, and lived for 

 months unsuspected among the people. Nay, in one of his 

 journeys in Turkey, he actually ofliciated in one of the 

 mosques in place of the regular priest, who had been taken 

 sick. Practicing as a physician in the Nejed district, where 

 the race of horses is the purest, and having been permitted 

 to see and examine the stud of the sultan, he says : 

 " Never had I seen or imagined so lovely a collection. Their 

 stature was, indeed, somewhat low, — I do not think that 

 any came fully up to fifteen hands, fourteen appeared to me 

 to be about their average ; but they were so exquisitely well 

 shaped that want of greater size seemed hardly, if at all, a 

 defect. Remarkably full in the haunches, with a shoukler 

 of a slope so elegant as to make one, in the words of an Arab 

 poet, ' go raving mad over it ; ' a little, a very little saddle- 

 backed, just the curve which indicates springiness without 

 any weakness ; a head broad above, and tapering down to a 

 nose fine enough to verify the phrase of ' drinking from a 

 pint-pot,' did pint-pots exist in Nejed; a most intelligent 

 yet singularly gentle look ; full eyes ; sharp, thorn-like little 

 ear ; legs fore and hind that seemed as if made of hammered 

 iron, so clean and yet so well twisted with sinew ; a neat, 

 round hoof, just the requisite for hard ground ; the tail set 



