678 Transactions of tee American Institute. 



edlj tlie right way, but as there are many breeds of liorses to select 

 from it becomes our duty to make a wise choice. That the Arab 

 horse is the parent of the equine race, I see little if any reason to 

 doubt. Climate and feed are quite sufficient to account for the 

 varied individualities we see around us here and elsewhere. The 

 lordly thorough-bred, the shaggy Galloway, the active hunter, the 

 stately carriage horse, the ponderous dray or wagon horse, and the 

 diminutive Shetland, are one and all descended from the faultless 

 Arab. Let us for a moment consider the desert horse. There are 

 now in Arabia five distinct families of the clean-bred Arab horse, 

 directly bred from the five favorite mares of the Proi^het. These 

 horses are guarded with jealous care ; their pedigrees are kept with- 

 out an error, and to purchase a mare of any one of those families is 

 simply impossible. jSTo sum will tein})t the Bedouin to part with his 

 mare. Jntrigue or powerful interest will, at a high figure, occa- 

 sionally obtain a stallion of some one of those fine breeds ; generally, 

 when they leave the Arabian peninsula, they come as presents from 

 the Sultan of Turkey or from the Yiceroy of Egypt to some Euro- 

 pean sovereign ; occasionally, but rarely, an Indian rajah presents one 

 to the Viceroy of India or to some British officer. Under these cir- 

 cumstances the animal is certain to be pure bred, but under no other. 

 During my wanderings I never saw but three pure bred Arabs. One 

 of those is a chestnut horse, called Bard, the property of the Queen 

 of England, presented to Her Majesty by the Sultan of Turkey. 

 The second is a black horse, the property of the hereditary Prince of 

 Piedmont, presented to His Eoyal Highness by the Yiceroy of 

 Egypt; and the third is the property of Col. Calvert, a British cav- 

 alry officer, and was taken as loot in the last Indian campaign. He 

 is also a chestnut horse. The bony structure of the Arab is small ; 

 he rarely exceeds fourteen hands two inches ; his head is beautiful ; 

 the forehead is Grecian in profile, the eye is large and full of fire, the 

 nostril is expanded, and the lips are thin, and the month small ; the 

 ears are fine, pointed and erect, and always in motion ; the gullet is 

 remarkably deep cut, and the head consequently well set on ; the 

 chest is arched; the shoulder is an oblique line, and invariably the 

 witliers are rounded ; the spine is straiglit and the tail is placed 

 high and carried like a plume ; the barrel is large and the ribs deep. 

 The chest, also, is wider in proportion tiian is generally seen in 

 other clean bred horses. The limbs are delicate to a degree, 

 and appear almost too fine, until we recollect that the cannon bone 



