T4 A MIRROR OF THE TURF. 



be next referred to. He was brought to 

 England by the Earl ot Kinoul, from Constanti- 

 nople, having cost the British Ambassador over 

 ;^200. He got several useful race-horses, being 

 sire of Narcissus, Nimrod, and Polydore, the pro- 

 perty of Lord Northumberland. The fee charged 

 v^^as five guineas, with five shillings to the groom. 

 The pedigrees oi some of our best race-horses 

 can, it is said, be traced back to Lord Lonsdale's 

 Bay Arabian, sire of Monkey and Spider. The 

 name of the Coombe Arabian, sire of Methodist, 

 may also be included in the catalogue of those 

 celebrities which came to England from a foreign 

 land. The history of Mr. Bell's Grey Arabian 

 must be given at some length. It was indus- 

 triously circulated that this horse had cost 

 much more money in purchase, bribes, and 

 transport than any animal of the kind pre- 

 viously brought to England, He was bought 

 at a place that was thirty days' distance from the 

 port at which he would have to be embarked foi 

 England, namely, St. Jean d'Acre. Mr. Bell, 

 his ultimate owner, employed a person named 

 Philip John, an Armenian, to negotiate the 

 purchase at any price of a first-rate Arabian to be 

 sent to England for breeding purposes. Philip 

 John did his very best in the way of bribing and 

 bullying, and was granted the favour in the end 

 of purchasing Bell's Arabian, as the horse was 

 called, out of the personal stud of Berrysucker, 

 a chief of Arabs, receiving at the same time a 

 certificate of its pedigree and of it being of the 

 right Jelfz's blood — a perfect descent and a true 

 Arab steed of the desert. The coverinq; fee 

 for this Arabian was ten guineas, and he stood 



