41 8 UNGULATA. 



become one of the most useful of the servants of man. In the East the 

 practice does not prevail, and the Arabs say that a horse is degraded 

 if employed in tillage or carrying burdens. Abd-el-Kader, the great 

 Algerian chief, who for so many years withstood the French and baffled 

 the French generals, has written on the horse, and tells us : " My father 

 — may God receive him in mercy — was accustomed to say, ' No blessing 

 on our country since we have changed our coursers into beasts of burden 

 and tillage. Has not God made the horse for the race, the ox for the 

 plough, and the camel for the transport of merchandise? Nothing is 

 gained by changing the ways of God.' " 



M. Toussenel exclaims : " Tell me what sort of horse a people have, 

 and I will tell you the manners and institutions of that people. The 

 history of the horse is the history of the human race, for the horse 

 is the personification of the aristocracy of blood. Every revolution 

 which exalts the people, abases the horse. The horse is one of the first 

 conquests of man, and is one of the pivots on which the very existence of 

 a patriarchal tribe depends. Some day or other the tribe of horsemen 

 conquers its horseless fellows, and organizes itself so as to ensure a 

 firmer settlement on the conquered territory. The first step is to ennoble 

 the horse ; in other words, to establish a feudal system. The highest 

 functionary in a feudal kingdom was the Constable, the ' Count of the 

 Stable,' or the Marshal, the 'Horse-servant'; the lesser nobles are 

 chevaliers, that is, horsemen (from the French chcval, ' a horse '), or 

 ritters, the men who ride. But gunpowder has killed both the horse 

 and the feudal system." The remarks of M. Toussenel are decidedly 

 fanciful, but he states the truth when he says, " There is only one horse 

 in the world — that is, one real horse — the Arab." 



THE ARAB HORSE. 



The Arab HORSE (Plate XXXI). The horse of the Egyptian mon- 

 uments closely resembles the Arab, but no ancient writer celebrates any 

 breed of steeds belonging to that peninsula. In the seventh century of 

 our era the Arabs had few horses, and it is said that when the Prophet 

 attacked the Koreish near Mecca he had only two in his whole army, nor 

 does he enumerate a horse among the spoils of his bloody campaign. It 

 is only since the thirteenth century that the Arab horse began to obtain 

 its unrivaled celebrity. There are now three breeds recognized by the 

 Arabs, the Attechi, an inferior breed which is found wild in some places. 



