THE SULTAN'S STABLES 



of the two, and a better horse. ]Mr. Gargiulo 

 said that as far as breed was concerned, no one 

 knew their blood, they were just presents to the 

 Sultan, and presents from the Sultan to Gen- 

 eral Grant, of no known blood, and were sup- 

 posed to be pure Arabs. I told this distin- 

 guished old gentleman that "Linden-tree" 

 was much written of in America as a barb, 

 when he laughed heartily, adding: "No barbs 

 were ever in the Sultan's stable, as he does not 

 like the people, much less the horses." 



The Sultan's stables are long, low buildings, 

 with a row of wide stalls on each side of a 

 passageway down the centre. They are 

 very plain and the horses stand on the bare 

 cement floor during the day, which is very bad 

 for their feet. In the Arab barns we saw 

 thirty-five bays and chestnuts, one black, and 

 thirty-two grays and whites. Not more than 

 twelve were pure white, and they had very dark 

 skin around the eyes and nose. The superin- 

 tendent of the stables did not know the breed- 

 ing of the horses, but when I asked about a 

 beautiful gray stallion, he said he was of Bag- 

 dad breed. This would be like saying he was a 

 Philadelphia horse. A chestnut stallion that 

 seemed to be the favorite, was called by the 



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