200 A T&EA'TiSE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



to the days of Mahomet horses were scarcely 

 recognized as a part of the possessions of the 

 Arab, their riches consisting chiefly in camels, 

 oxen, sheep, and goats. But Mahomet was an 

 enthusiastic lover of the horse, and while he 

 succeeded in engrafting upon so large a propor- 

 tion of the inhabitants of the eastern world 

 his own peculiar religious tenets he also im- 

 bued his followers with a great degree of his 

 enthusiastic admiration for the horse. Indeed, 

 kindness to and love for this noble animal was 

 made a part of the religious duty of all true 

 Mussulmans, and from the days of Mahomet 

 clown to the present time the Arabian has held 

 his stud, and especially his mares, in a sort of 

 superstitious reverence. Mahomet selected for 

 himself a magnificent stud, and his followers 

 to this day seek to trace the genealogy of their 

 choicest horses to the mares that were his 

 favorites. But their pedigrees, divested of all 

 the high-sounding flourishes with which they 

 are accompanied, mean but little and are alto- 

 gether unreliable. 



The following is a copy of one of these docu- 

 ments, which accompanied Hamdan, a grey 

 stallion imported by A. Keene Richards, in 

 1856, as we find it recorded in Bruce's Ameri- 

 can Stud Book: 



RAMADON 21, 1272. 



This is to certify, That at the date of this document Messrs. 

 Keene and Troye bought from Sheik Hammed Es. Sohiman. 



