THE ARAB HORSE. 42 I 



character. The tendons arc sufficiently distinct from the bone, and the 

 starting muscles of the fore-arm and the thigh indicate that it is fully 

 capable of accomplishing many of the feats that are recorded of it. 



The young Arab commences its career with a severe trial. Probably 

 the filly has never before been mounted. Her owner springs on her 

 back, and goads her over the sands and rocks of the desert 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, immediately 

 after this, she will eat as if nothing had occurred, her character is estab- 

 lished, and she is acknowledged to be a genuine descendant of the 

 Kochlani breed. The Arab does not think of the cruelty which he thus 

 inflicts ; he only follows an invariable custom. 



We may not, perhaps, believe all that is told us of the speed and 

 endurance of the Arabian. It has been remarked that there are on the 

 deserts which this horse traverses no mile-stones to mark the distance, 

 or watches to calculate the time ; and that the Bedouin is naturally 

 given to exaggeration, and, most of all, when relating the prowess of the 

 animal that he loves as dearly as his children. But it cannot be denied 

 that, at the introduction of the Arabian into the European stables, there 

 was no horse comparable to him. The mare in her native deserts will 

 travel fifty miles without stopping ; she has been urged to the almost 

 incredible distance of one hundred and twenty miles, and occasionally, 

 neither she nor her rider has tasted food for three whole days. 



Our horses would fare badly on the scanty nourishment afforded the 

 Arabian. The mare usually has but two meals in twenty-four hours. 

 During the day she is tied to the door of the tent, ready for the Bedouin 

 to spring, at a moment's warning, into the saddle; or she is turned out 

 before the tent ready saddled, the bridle merely being taken off, and she 

 is so trained that she immediately gallops up at her master's call. At 

 night she receives a little water; and with her scanty provender of five 

 or six pounds of barley or beans, and sometimes a little straw, she lies 

 down content, if she is accustomed to lie down at all, in the midst of her 

 master's family. 



Burckhardt relates a story of the speed and endurance of one of 

 them, which shows with what feelings an Arab regards his quadruped 

 friend: "A troop of Druses on horseback attacked, in the summer of 

 181 5, a party of Bedouins, and pursued them to their encampment; the 

 Bedouins were then assisted by a superior force, and becoming the 



