BREEDING ARMY HORSES. 75 



Prussian troop horses over our own. He 

 was given as the chief reason, " the nearer 

 aflSnity to pure Arab blood." * This would 

 be sufficient explanation for me, but it is 

 not one probably calculated to satisfy the 

 military authorities at home, since the Arab 

 has never been properly appreciated in this 

 country. Some day perhaps, in some future 

 campaign in which he happens to be 

 brought into direct comparison with our 

 present trooper, and is found to be going 

 on for months after the latter is hopelessly 

 done up or dead, we may have our eyes 

 more widely opened to his extraordinary 

 merits. Arab blood we have not in any 

 considerable quantity, but we have what 

 might with careful selection be made equally 



* A critic, an expert judge and breeder, here demands 

 of me, " Why go back one hundred and fifty years ; the 

 English thoroughbred is a perfected Arab ? " My reply 

 is that the Arab is much hardier. The thoroughbred, 

 I believe, was a more useful animal one hundred years 

 ago than he is to-day. 



