24 THE HORSE IN AMERICA 



held Grenada for two centuries later. What be'- 

 came a conquest was begun merely as a raid for 

 rich booty, and, of course, the Arabs, of whom it 

 has been said, "their kingdom is the saddle," 

 were mounted. The Berbers, of course, took their 

 horses, and it is likely that during those long cen- 

 turies, it was the first time out of the Sahara that 

 Arabian and Barb horses were bred extensively 

 and their blood united. It is undoubtedly a fact 

 that after the expulsion of these conquerors, 

 Spain was well supplied with excellent horses, 

 horses which assisted the armies of Spain to hold 

 what her navigators had discovered. The pil- 

 grims returning from Palestine, also told of the 

 excellent horses in the East, and the Crusaders, 

 more practical men, had all the evidence that 

 they needed in their battles with the Musselman 

 to enable them to testify to the hardiness and the 

 fleetness of the horses of the desert. And so when 

 lighter cavalry was needed to replace the heavily- 

 armed knights, whose armor the use of gunpow- 

 der had made obsolete, the soldiers and statesmen 

 of the seventeenth century knew where to look 

 for the blood that would improve the home-bred 



