ARAB AND BARB HORSES 25 



horses. It was as diflBcult then as now to get 

 Arabs and Barbs of the best blood, but some at 

 least were obtained, and from the beginning in 

 England in the earliest years of the eighteenth 

 century we trace back to Eastern horses to find 

 the founders of the wonderful Thoroughbreds, 

 which in their way are the best horses the world 

 has seen. In France, too, there were many im- 

 portations for the upbuilding of the native stock, 

 but this took a different direction, and we are not 

 so much concerned with it as with the English. 



The EngUsh stud book of the Messrs. Weath- 

 erby, the first effort to keep trustworthy records 

 of the breeding of horses, begins with 1700, the 

 only Eastern horse mentioned before this being 

 the Byerly Turk, a charger used by Captain By- 

 erly in Ireland in 1689. Then they had the Dar- 

 ley Arabian, Markham's Arabian, the Alasker 

 Turk, Leede's Arabian and the Godolphin Barb. 

 The most important of these were the Godolphin 

 Barb and the Darley Arabian. We do not know 

 exactly whence any of these came, nor do we 

 know the pedigree of any. Indeed, to know, or 

 pretend to know the pedigree of a Nejdee or Ber- 



