264 Next to the Ground 



eyes with an upward roll, are the hall-mark 

 of stubborn viciousness. The owner of them 

 is sly, sneaking, undependable. He will act 

 lamb for a fortnight to get the chance of 

 bucking his rider ofF where the ground is 

 hardest, or rearing where rearing is most dis- 

 quieting. The white eye is as bad as the 

 " unlucky hairs " which grow, if they grow at 

 all, a little above the eye-socket. They are 

 longer and coarser than the hairs of the coat. 

 Arabs so dread them they will not ask even 

 a foreigner more than half price for a beast 

 showing them. 



Ears tell of intelligence or conversely of 

 stupidity. They should be thin, wide at the 

 bottom, pointed, neither large nor small, with 

 few long hairs inside. Ears set too high or 

 too close together prefigure lack of stamina 

 and level-headedness. Ears wide apart, not 

 too low nor too high, with the forehead arch- 

 ing the least bit between, stand for sense, 

 vigilant courage, and a fine equable mind. 

 Either at grass or upon the road, good horses 

 keep one ear laid back, one pointing forward. 

 Horses both see and hear very far. Negroes 

 believe firmly that in the dark they see and 

 walk around ghosts. However that may be, 

 they certainly see the road plain, through what 

 seems thick murk to human eyes. 



Unthinking people do not distinguish be- 



