PREFACE 



operation was an invaluable aid in achieving 

 its ends. Acknowledgments are also made to 

 the Woman s Home Companion for permis- 

 sion to reprint from its pages much of the mat- 

 ter and many of the pictures used in this 



volume. 



To repeat again what has been said above, 

 my journey had this serious purpose in view — 

 that by a judicious use of the pure Arabian 

 blood, a breed of horse might be re-established 

 as useful to mankind as was the Morgan horse 

 when it was at its greatest. But, I had to get 

 to the desert before I could purchase my horses 

 and getting to the desert under the circum- 

 stances, proved even more interesting and ro- 

 mantic than I had expected. That may sound 

 foolish. In these days, when an automobile 

 honk-honks through the bazaars of Damascus, 

 and when a trolley car clangs under the old 

 city gate over the pilgrim road to Mecca; when 

 you journey most of the way to Mecca itself 

 on one railway and when you travel to the ruins 

 of Baalbek on another, there does not seem 

 to be much romance left. 



But after you have been in the East for a 

 while you will find, as I did, that all the hustle 

 and bustle imparted from the Occident speedily 



[XV] 



