GENERAL U. S. GRANT'S 



ARABIAN STALLIONS 



"LEOPARD" AND "LINDEN TREE." 



All my life, or for fifty years, I had desired to see and examine 

 genuine Arabian horses, such as I could know to a certainty were 

 strictly thoroughbred Arabians. That they were rare indeed in any 

 country I knew. 



Writers upon them were very superficial, being mostly tourists 

 or travellers, interested in geographical matters, or in the people, 

 customs, and relics, with traditional associations, seldom if ever beine 

 horsemen, capable of judging with just comparison, if I except Sir 

 Wilfrid S. Blunt, of England, who, as an equine investigator of re- 

 markable ability, in company with his wife lived with the Arabs of the 

 desert for that express purpose, and to whom I am indebted for very 

 much valuable information upon the subject. 



Different Presidents of the United States, also Secretaries of State, 

 have at various periods received splendid horses as presents from 

 Arabia or Turkey ; the last President receiving such a gift previous 

 to General Grant being, I believe, James K. Polk. In i860 the late 

 William H. Seward, while Secretary of State, had two fine specimens 

 sent to him from Syria ; but after the novelty of their arrival wore 

 off, none could tell what had become of them, while those loudest in 

 condemnation or ridicule of Arabian horses could neither say they 

 had ever seen one, nor speak with personal knowledge of the get by 

 any thoroughbred Arabian stallion. In the matter of ex-Secretary 

 Seward's Arabians, while many were ready to condemn, few could 

 remember having seen them ; nor could any one point me to the get 

 of either horse upon which to base credit or discredit. 



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