give our ear to Abd-el-Kader's part in the
performance.

Learned Mussulmans, he observes, have
written many volumes upon horses; they are
not the wisest who write most. Abou Obeïda
lived in the days of the son of Haroun-al-Raschid;
he wrote much of horses, and he
praised horseflesh one day with a poet in the
presence of the Vizier of Mamoun. The vizier
asked the poet, "How many books have you
written on the horse.?" and he answered, " Only
one." " And you?" the vizier asked of Abou
Obeïda; and he answered, "Fifty." "Rise,
then," said the vizier, "go up to that horse, and
repeat the name of every part of his frame,
taking care to lay your finger upon each." "I
am not a veterinary surgeon," replied Abou
Obeïda. "And you?" said the vizier to the
poet. Upon that—says the poet himself, who
tells the story—I rose from my seat, and, taking
the animal by the forelock, I named one part
after the other, placing my hand upon each to
show its position, and, at the same time, reciting
all the poetic allusions, all the sayings and
proverbs of the Arabs referring to it. When I had
finished, the vizier said to me, " Take the horse."
I took it, and, if ever I wished to annoy Abou
Obeïda, I rode on it to visit him.

General Daumas having applied to the Emir
for information as to the origin of the Arab
horse, Abd-el-Kader told him, in his letter of
reply, that he was like unto a fissure in a land
dried up by the sun which no amount of rain
will satisfy; nevertheless, that to quench, if
possible, his thirst for knowledge, he would go
back to the head of the fountain, for the stream
is there always the freshest and most pure.
"Know, then," he went on, " that when Allah
willed to create the horse, he said to the south
wind, ' I will that a creature should proceed from
thee—condense thyself!' And the wind
condensed itself. Then came the angel Gabriel, and
he took a handful of this matter and presented
it to Allah, who formed of it a dark bay horse,
saying:' I have called thee horse, I have
created thee Arab, and I have bestowed upon
thee the colour dark bay. I have attached good
fortune to the hair that falls between thy eyes.
Thou shalt be the lord of all other animals.'
He signed him with the star on his forehead—
sign of glory and good fortune. Adam being
allowed to choose, wisely preferred him to that
wonderful mule Borak, on which Mahomet
journeyed through the heavens, and was told
that he had done well to choose his glory and
the eternal glory of his children." The horse,
says Abd-el-Kader, is in more sympathy with the
warrior who rides him than the weaker mare.
"Let a horse and a mare receive exactly the
same sort of wound, and one that is sure to be
fatal, the horse will bear up against it until he
has carried his master far from the field of
battle; the mare will sink on the spot, without
any force of resistance." The first man after
Adam who mounted a horse was, teaches the
Emir, Ishmael. Allah taught him to call the
horses, and when he did so they all came
galloping up to him. He chose the best, and
broke them in. But afterwards the breed
degenerated, and the only faultless stock was
that possessed by Solomon, called Zad-el-Rakeb,
to which every real Arab steed must trace its
pedigree. Some Arabs of the Azed tribe went
up to congratulate Solomon upon his marriage
with the Queen of Sheba. When they were
about to leave Jerusalem the Noble, they had
neither money nor provisions, so they said to
Solomon, " Thou art a great king; bestow upon
us wherewithal to take us home." Solomon
gave him one of his pure breed of horses, and
said, "There is food. When you are hungry set
your best rider with a lance upon this horse;
gather fuel, light a fire, and by the time the
fire burns he will bring you meat." And so he
did. Abd-el-Kader declares from his own
observation that the Arab horse varies in colour
with the soil on which he lives. Where the
ground is stony he is usually grey, and where
the ground is chalky he is usually white.
According to the Koran, the horse prays three
times a day. In the morning he says, " O
Allah, make me beloved of my master." At
noon, " Do well by my master, that he may do
well by me." In the evening, " Grant that he
may enter Paradise upon my back."

Is the Barbary horse, or Barb of Algeria,
inferior to the true African? the general asked of
the Emir. No, it is not, says Abd-el-Kader,
and he quotes from the poetical works of the
famous Aâmrou-el-Kais, who was a king of
Arabia not long before the coming of the
prophet, suggestive of a race where "we shall be
borne, I tell thee, on a horse accustomed to
night journeys, a steed of the Barbary race,
with slender flanks like a wolf of Gada. When,
slackening the bridle, the rider urges him on
still faster by striking him with the reins on
either side, he quickens his rapid course, bending
his head to the flanks, and champing the
bit. And when I say, ' Let us rest,' the horseman
stops as by enchantment, and begins to
sing, remaining in the saddle on this vigorous
horse, the muscles of whose thighs are long
drawn out, and whose tendons are lean and well
apart."

Mahomet desiring a race of good horsemen
for the soldiers of faith, taught that all good
things are suspended for the Mussulman from
the hairs between the horse's eyes. A poor
man, having faith in this, buried a horse's head
under the threshold of his hut. One day the
sultan came that way, and had halted, but when
he was about to remount, his fierce Arabian
broke loose, and rushed towards the poor man's
hut, where he stood still at the threshold, and
suffered the master of the hut to lead him back
by the mane. "How," said the sultan, "have
you tamed so suddenly this fierce Arabian?"
The poor man told how he had acted on his
faith, and had his good things from the sultan in
the present of a horse, fine raiment, and riches.
This legend, says General Daumas, is popular in
the Sahara. The best horses, says Abd-el-Kader,
are chiefly to be found in the Sahara, where the