8 The Book of the Horse. 



accurate to show that the Egj'ptian was a blood-horse. An ancient Persian monument shows 

 a cart-horse very distinctly. 



For all ordinary purposes, the English thorough-bred is more useful in this country than his 

 progenitors, Barbs and Arabs, and as a rule less expensive ; that is to say, an English thorough- 

 bred horse or mare, under 15 hands high, equal to carrying eleven or twelve stone as a hack, 

 may be purchased for less money than an Arab of the same strength and quality in India, 

 Egypt, or Persia. 



The Arabs of reality, as distinguished from the Arabs of poetry and romance, although very 

 picturesque, admirable for their fire and endurance, and perfect as the war-horses of single 

 combat, do not by any means realise the descriptions of famous novelists. No Arab has ever 

 won a steeplechase in this country like that over the vale of Aylesbury, so picturesquely de- 

 scribed by the author of Coningsby (who had travelled in Arab lands) ;* and only one thorough- 

 bred Arab hunter, of which an authentic account will presently be given, has made "a notch" 

 in the annals of Leicestershire. Certainly one would be very much astonished to hear of any 

 county gentleman, like the hero of a popular lady novelist, who rode his " black Arab " over 

 park palings, with a little girl on the pommel before him, for no other reason than to find a 

 short cut home. 



Samuel Rogers, banker and poet, v/ould not allow that Job's description of the horse was 

 poetry at all. He could not understand — - 



" Hast thou given the horse strength .' hast thou clothed his neck with thunder .''... 

 The glory of his nostrils is terrible. He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength : 

 he goeth on to meet the armed men. He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted ; neither turncth 

 he back from the sword. The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield. 

 He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage. . . . He saith among the trumpets, 

 Ha, ha ! " 



But Samuel Rogers was no horseman. That he did not care to talk about horses is proved 

 by his own story of the groom who gave him notice to quit " because he was such dull company 

 in the tilbury." 



" Who," says George Borrow — the inspirer of esteem in the Spanish gipsies by his horseman- 

 ship — " that has ever seen a blood .stallion excited by the din of a fair or a battle, and heard him 

 so distinctly neigh, ' Ha, ha ! ' can doubt that the author of Job painted an Oriental war-horse 

 from life ? " 



The popular notions of the Arab, amongst those that know nothing about horses, are 

 chiefly derived from the poetical descriptions of the Arabs themselves, who, full of Oriental 

 exaggeration, describe the animal exactly fitted for their purposes (single combat and parade) 

 and from pictures. One of the most popular, which has been repeated a hundred times, in 



* " 'I long to see youv mare again ; she seemed to me so beautiful,' said Coningsby. 



" ' She is not only of pure race, but of the highest and rarest breed in Arabia. Her name is " Tlie Daughter of the Star." 

 She is a foal of the famous mare which belonged to the Prince of the Wahabees, to possess which was one of the jirincipal 

 causes of war between tliat tribe and the Tacha of Egypt, who gave her to me.' " 



She is tlien described with "legs like an antelcpe and little ears," points which no British horseman would approve. In 

 the steeplechase that followed there were fifteen starters; in the first two miles several remarkably stiff fences. "They 

 arrived at the brook — seventeen feet of water, between high strong banks." A masked battery of grape could not have achieved 

 more terrible execution. A high and strong gate came next ; the distance was above four miles. There were thirty leaps 

 done under fifteen minutes; and the Daughter of the Star won "pulling double." After reading this performance .an old 

 steeplechaser observed "that the field must have been very bad to be settled by seventeen feet of water, with sound banks;" 

 but his reading had been confined to the Racing and Sktplcchase Calendar. 



