THE ARABIAN HORSE. 87 



being alike noted for bottom and speed, and from different 

 tribes, importing fresh blood from time to time for an out- 

 cross ; and had we so bred for the turf exclusively, there is no 

 doubt that the Anglo- Arabian would now be in every respect 

 as high under the standard as the average of our racehorses, 

 of at least equal speed, and their superior in courage, sound- 

 ness, and general utility. That this exotic breed can, in 

 course of time, under altered conditions of climate, food and 

 treatment, and does increase in height without sacrifice of 

 power and just symmetry, is equally true. Miss Dillon had a 

 two-year-old 15 hands, on short legs, and its dam was barely 

 14 hands, its sire but 14.2!. Her famous jumper, Raschida, 

 was i5-ig, and at Crabbet Park were two fillies, bred there, of 

 the same height. In the course of three generations English- 

 bred Arabs will lack nothing in respect of height. 



" But it is as a hunter and war-horse, or both combined, 

 that the Arab is at his very best. In old Deccan days of 

 ' saddle, spur and spear,' what stirring camp-fire tales each 

 hard-riding pig-sticker had to tell of the superb little nag that 

 had carried him so gallantly over such breakneck ground, ' as 

 though the speed of thought were in his limbs I ' What a 

 picture is the trained hog-hunter at the jungle side as the dis- 

 cordant yells of the beaters, floating down wind, proclaim the 

 find, and announce the joyful tidings that the bristling banditti 

 are afoot \ Note the eager expression of his clean-cut patrician 

 head and wide-thrown nostril ; the bold, resolute eye ; his noble 

 bearing, as he intently scans the echoing hill-side \ How his 

 desert blood mounts like quicksilver, every vein charged to 

 bursting, lacing his thin, high-bred skin I He stands motion- 

 less but for the quiver of suppressed ecstatic excitement, and 

 an occasional spasmodic shifting of that truest telegraph, the 

 delicately-pointed ear. * Ready, ay, ready,' is depicted in 

 every attitude ; then, as the chase draws nigh, and the 

 sounder pelts past him like a hailstorm, he spins round on his 

 hind legs, and is after that great surly tusker, the last of the 

 ruck, like a gyrfalcon in pursuit of its prey. Now comes a 



