Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1875 — Arab Horses. [ARTICLE]

Arab Horses.

Reared tinder an open shed, and early habituated to the sight of man, to the sound and glitter of weapons and to all the accessories of human life, the colt grows up free from vice or timidity, and even acquires a degree of intelligence that surprises a stranger. Barley and dates are the chief stall provender; but the grass of the pasture-grounds, in the selection of which much cure is taken, is the ordinary nourishment of an Arab lior.-e. Of water the allowance is always kept purposely scant. A good Nejdee will canter four-and-twenty hours in summer-time and eight-and-forty in winter without once requiring a drink. Raw meat, dried, is occasionally given in small quantities when extra exertion is required; lucerne grass is employed for lowering the tone. The color that most frequently occurs is gray; then comes chestnut; then white and sorrel; mottled gray and t>lack are now and then to be found; dark bay never. Colts are ridden early—too early, indeed —in their third, or even second year, and are soon broken into a steady walk or canter and to the ambling pace which is a special favorite with Arab riders; racing, an Arab amusement from time immemorial, and the game of “ jerzed,” a kind of tournament, or mock fight with blunt palm sticks, highly popular throughout the peninsula, complete the trainfng as to wind and pace. Saddles are seldom used in Nejd, and stirrups never; hut both are occasionally employed in Hijaz and Yemen. So it is, also, with bits, the place of which is taken in Nejd by halter-ropes, the real guidance of the animal being almost wholly effected by the pressure of the rider’s leg and knee. Shoes, too, are of rare occurrence, nor are they needed in the light sand-mixed soil of the central provinces; on the other hand the hoofs artPoften rubbed with grease, to counteract the drying effects of the heated ground. Of all niceties of grooming, docking and clipping excepted, the Arabs are masters; and their natural kindness to animals—a quality which they share with most Orientals —together with the care every reasonable man bestows on a valuable article of property, insures to an Arab horse good treatment at the hands of its owner. But Arao horses do not commonly enter tents, nor play with women and children, nor, in a general wav, do they share the family meals, nor are they habitually kissed and cried over, as the imagination or credulity of some narrator has suggested. An Arab flying for life has, indeed, been known to give the only morsel of bread about him to his horse rather than eat it himself—an act in which self-preservation had as huge a share as affection. Lastly, the standing prohibition of horse-selling from Nejd has really nothing more romantic in it than narrowminded application ot the principles of protective monopoly; in other cases, reluctance to conclude a bargain simply indicates that the offer made was insufficient. —Encyclopedia Britannia.