CHAPTER XXX 



THE ARABIAN HORSE 



IVyTORE generous lies have been told about the Ara- 

 •^^'■- bian horse than about any other animal in the 

 world. The Arabian has so noble a character, so pleas- 

 ant a disposition, and so much beauty that he has 

 always excited a peculiar admiration and affection. 

 For intelligence, for soundness, and for endurance the 

 Arabian has no superior and perhaps no equal, unless 

 it be the Morgan horse. It is often remarked by men 

 who have had a wide experience with horses, that when 

 any great feat of endurance is performed by a horse, 

 it is apt to be discovered that the animal has a strain 

 of Arab blood pretty close up in his pedigree. 



Moreover, the great antiquity which the Arabo- 

 maniacs have always asserted for their favorite horse 

 appears to be an historical fact. There is no higher 

 authority on these matters than Prof. H. F. Osborn, 

 and he is convinced that the Arab horse is different 

 anatomically from all other horses, and had a different 

 origin. He says: 



We may regard it as setded that the Arabian is a very ancient 

 breed, including characters which were strongly established in a 

 natural state before domestication by man, and which, there- 

 fore, are extremely stable in heredity and cross breeding 



This breed has been an uplifting, ennobling quality which has 

 been introduced In the blood of commoner horses for a period 

 dating back from 1600 to 2000 B. C. 



[170] 



