CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 10. SO LIDUNGUL A. 



603 



THE ARAB HOESE AT HOME. 



When the Arab falls from his mare, and is unable to rise, she will immediately stand still, and 

 neigh until assistance arrives. If he lies down to sleep, as fatigue sometimes compels him to do, in 

 the midst of the desert, she stands watchful over him, and neighs and rouses him if either man or 

 beast approaches. An old Arab had a valuable mare that had carried him for fifteen years in 

 many a hard-fought battle, and many a rapid, weary march ; at length, eighty years old, and un- 

 able longer to ride her, he gave her, and a scimitar that had been his father's, to his eldest son, 

 and told him to appreciate their value, and never lie down to rest until he had rubbed them both 

 as bright as a looking-glass. In the first skirmish in which the young man was engaged he was 

 killed, and the mare fell into the hands of the enemy. When the news reached the old man, he 

 exclaimed that " life was no longer worth preserving, for he had lost both his son and his mare, 

 and he grieved for one as much as the other ;" and he immediately sickened and died. 



Man, however, is an inconsistent being. The Arab who thus lives with and loves his horses, 

 regarding them as his most valuable treasures, sometimes treats them with a cruelty scarcely to be 

 believed, and not at all to be justified. The severest treatment which the English race-horse en- 

 dures is gentleness compared with the trial of the young Arabian. Probably the filly has never 

 before been mounted ; she is led out ; her owner springs on her back, and goads her over the 

 sand and rocks of the desert at full speed for fifty or sixty miles without one moment's respite. 

 She is then forced, steaming and panting, into water deep enough for her to swim. If, immedi- 

 ately after this, she will eat as if nothing had occurred, her character is established, and she is 

 acknowledged to be a genuine descendant of the Kochlani breed. The Arab is not conscious of 

 the severity which he thus inflicts. It is an invariable custom, and custom will induce us to in- 

 flict many a pang on those whom, after all, we love. 



The following anecdote of the attachment of an Arab to his mare has often been told, but it 

 comes home to the bosom of every one possessed of common feeling. "The whole stock of an 

 Arab of the desert consisted of a mare. The French consul offered to purchase her in order to 

 send her to his sovereign, Louis XIV. The Arab would have rejected the proposal at once with 

 t indignation and scorn ; but he was miserably poor. He had no means of supplying his most ur- 

 gent wants, or procuring the barest necessaries of life. Still he hesitated ; he had scarcely a rag 

 to cover him, and his wife and children were starving. The sum offered was great — it would pro- 

 vide him and his family with food for life. At length, and reluctantly, he consented. He brought 

 ; the mare to the dwelling of the consul — he dismounted — he stood leaning upon her ; he looked 

 now at the gold and then at his favorite ; he sighed — he wept. 'To whom is it,' said he, 'I am 



