THE GENUINE ARABIAN HORSE. 



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THE GENUINE ARABIAN HORSE. 



" Oh, give me bBck my Arab steed " 



There are romantic associations with the very mention of the Arabian horse, 

 in the mind of every lover of that noble animal. No animal has been described 

 by writers with a freer play of the imagination. We recollect to have heard the 

 celebrated Captain Riley portraying the figure and powers of one he saw in 

 Arabia. In passing, he said, through a thicket, where the road was winding, 

 the noble animal disdained to pursue its tedious serpentine course, but instead of 

 instead of that, took a straight direction and trotted over bushes four feet high 

 without touching them. 



An interesting article might be made by a recital of the remarkable accounts 

 of their action and endurance, some of them doubtless true as well as extra- 

 ordinary. 



One of the most particular and authoritative descriptions is probably the fol- 

 lowing from the Memoirs of fSir James Campbell: 



The route of the caravan lay at first through | Venitian sequins, equal to about £400 sterl- 

 the Great Desert of Syria, and tlieu through j ing ; and I am inclined to think it was not far 

 thecounti-y of Hamah, the most celebrated j out of proiiortion, according to their ideas, to 

 in the world for its breed of horses ; and this the price of the other. 



was a circumstance peculiarly agreeable to While I was yet in the district where these 

 me, as I was desirous of all things to cany horses are bred, an agent arrived from the 

 home with me ahorse of that unetiualed race. King of Prussia, commissioned to make pur- 



cliases for His Majesty. He agreed with me 

 in admiring the mare, and declared she wan 

 the handsomest animal he had ever seen. He 

 was even willing to give the 10,000 piastres 

 for her, but the tribe had come to the resolu- 

 tion of preserving her as a brood mare, and 

 refused that sura when oftered. It is to be 

 observed, however, that there are two dis- 

 tinct races in the country, the noble and the 

 common. Among the latter, many beautiful 

 horses are often to be fomid, but they never 

 possess those qiudities in perfection for which 

 the noble race of Arabia is so peculiarly dis- 

 tinguished — fleetuess, wind, and bottom. 



Here, too, I must observe that the horses 

 brought from Barbary are not to be compared 

 in any good quality with the noble breed of 

 Flamali. Many of the Barbs have radical 

 faults, and some of them are very ugly, goose- 

 mmped, cat-hammed, and narrow-chested. 

 Tlie difference of the breeds was long un- 

 known in this country, but now it is better 

 understood, and a Bai'b I believe is seldom 

 bred from. 



I shall here mention a circumstance on the 

 authority of persons in that country whose 

 good faith and respectability I had no reason 

 to doubt, as illustrating in rather a striking 

 point of view th'i m:irked distinction between 

 the different races of this noble animal, whick 

 are reared in the same district. 



An Arab who had pitched his tent in a 

 sohtary spot of the desert, had occasion to 



The purity of the breed is ascertained and 

 preserved in this countiy with greater preci- 

 sion and facility, in consequence of the horses 

 and mares, to the number of one hundred and 

 upward, being uniformly held in common 

 property, by a particular family or tribe. The 

 line of succession is preserved with all the 

 care and and all the accuracy perhaps of a 

 Welsh i)edigree ; and in the genealogical tree 

 of the horse which I ultimately purchased, 

 its descent was professedly traced to the fa- 

 mous black mare of Mahomed, and I had a 

 certificate of the fact, subscribed by five or 

 six sheiks, who have an obvious interest in 

 keeping up the value of their breed of horses 

 by this exactness in their pedigree. 



It is on the mares, however, that the chief 

 value is placed, and through them it is that 

 purity of blood is most depended on. The 

 sister of the horse which I brought home 

 with me, was for sale at the time I made the 

 purchase. I examined her with the gi-eatest 

 care, and could not detect a semblance of a 

 fault ui any one of her points. Like all the 

 others of the race, she was under fifteen 

 hands high ; and the price put upon her by 

 the ti'ibe to which she belonged was 10.000 

 piasters, equal to £2,.'j00 of our money. The 

 value of the mare is always much greater 

 than that of a horse of equal symmetry, from 

 the idea of her greater influence in preserving 

 the purity of the race. The price I paid for 

 the horse, own brother to this mare, was 800 

 (1125) 



