282 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
or by breeding from the best of our own horses; and 
this is a problem which nothing short of experiment 
can solve. It must be remembered that no serious 
attempt on a large scale has ever been made in this 
country to raise horses with a view to beauty, intelli- 
gence, courage, aud soundness; and these are the 
respects in which the Arabians excel. 
Moreover, the perfectly natural way in which they 
take to jumping, an exercise of which they have not 
the slightest experience in the desert, shows that the 
Arabian horses are entirely harmonious in all their 
parts, and therefore adaptable to any use that might 
be required of them. Lady Anne Blunt relates: 
“The mare I rode on the journey carried me over 
the raised watercourses by the Euphrates in the 
cleverest way in the world; off and on, without the 
least hanging or hesitation, and always with a foot 
ready to bring down in case of need.” One of the 
mares brought home by Mr. Blunt was let loose in 
his park on the night of her arrival, and forthwith 
she jumped the fence, five feet and six inches high. 
The lower rails were then pulled down, and she was 
walked back under the top one, a thick, oaken bar, 
several inches higher than her withers. 
Few Arabian horses have been imported to this 
country, especially of late years; but it is a striking 
fact that, when one hears of some extraordinary feat 
performed by an American horse, it is not infrequent- 
ly added that his dam or grandam, or some more re- 
mote ancestor, was “said to be Arabian.” I saw not 
long ago, for instance, in a Maine pasture, a little 
roan mare, not otherwise remarkable in appearance, 
but of a distinctly Arabian cast of countenance. She 
