this miniature, muscular, firmly knit, and active racer must be the model our polo-pony breeders are endeavouring to breed up to. Making due allowance for the lack of anatomical knowledge in the animal limner of those days, this remarkable son of the Godolphin Barb must have presented the beau ideal of a racing galloway. Irrespective of his great weight-carrying powers, marvellous staunchness, and hardness of constitution, he was considered to be so perfect a model that his last proprietor left him for a length of time at Tattersall's for public inspection.

In running these galloways—for it is a misnomer to term them ponies-it is found that blood alone can ensure their success. Many of them are undersized thoroughbreds, and as such are very hot and strongheaded. These blood-cobs are in every way qualified to make perfect hacks, and in addition are superlatively good hunters for boys. Those not quite fast enough for racing, and not handy enough to play polo well, are, as often as not, the best on the road, in the park, or in the hunting-field. A smart racing galloway or polo player commands a high and increasing figure. A year ago, when the 16th Lancers were ordered on foreign service, two hundred and seventy guineas were given for one pony, and some, the property of officers of the 11th Hussars, sold at public auction on the eve of the corps sailing for South Africa, changed hands at a still longer price. Fashion, without valid reason as usual, has decreed that these beauties should be smartened up by having their manes hogged. The vile disfigurement, in the case of a too light or a ewe neck only accentuates the deformity. Though quite as well able as my neighbours to maintain my seat in the saddle without extraneous aid, I am free to confess that not once or twice, but scores of times, has a grip on the mane saved me from a fall. Under no circumstances should

this mutilation be countenanced. For docking, in the case of some harness horses, there may be some excuse; but for this senseless barbarism, which serves no purpose, there is absolutely none. Having already stated my opinions on the just proportion between the horse and his rider, I will only add that these miniature blood horses should only be ridden by medium-sized men. Some of them carry young ladies to perfection, but they lack the height necessary to carry a full-grown equestrienne.

Ofttimes and many have I been accused of being afflicted with the Arab craze. To the accusation I plead guilty without extenuating circumstances. Having had as much and more to do with pure-bred horses of the silent desert than most men not of Ishmaelitish lineage, I hold the tough Arab fibre in the highest esteem. I am convinced that in the black tabernacles of the Bedaween of the Maha Rania exists the horse in the perfection of his beauty and pride, The difficulty is to get really good specimens of the highest pedigree. Only two faults can be found with the Arabian for park and road riding-viz. that for general purposes he lacks height, seldom being found over 14 hands 3 inches high; and that he is a careless walker, given to tripping. Those now being bred in this country are rapidly acquiring increased stature, and with the change of habitat they appear to lose this slovenly habit. In the face of persistent opposition this terse, active, and altogether delightful little horse is rapidly winning his way into favour. "The value of a thing is exactly what it will fetch" is an old axiom. A few years back I have seen Arabs sold at Tattersall's for a few sovereigns, but now anything worth looking at readily fetches £120 and upwards. Their intrinsic value will be ascertained when the results of their unions with approved weight-carrying, blood, and three-parts bred mares appear

on the market. We shall then go back to those times when the choice potent blood flowed in a broad full stream, and our thoroughbreds so-called-we have never yet been able to boast the possession of an absolutely pure thoroughbred -were for all purposes, save "sprinting," superior to any thing we now possess.

The description of the horse's hoof in Isaiah, "their horses' hoofs shall be like flint," is true to-day of the Arabian's, which is as hard as the nether millstone. him strength and beauty have met together.

In

The Barb lacks the harmonious beauty and truthful balance of the Arab. He is often fifteen hands and over, has a lean, bony, and often somewhat plain head, with thin compressed lips, a small mouth, a large expressive eye, calm in repose, but full of courage and flash when roused, a strong, arched neck, short back, broad loins, and generally beautiful shoulders. A steep quarter, meanly set on tail, light thighs, and "cat hams" dwarf his hind quarters, giving an appearance of an exaggerated forehand; but these defects are more than compensated for by his undeniable vigour, stamina, and endurance. He is more leggy than his first cousin of "Hagar's desert, Ishmael's sands," and his feet are not so well formed and regular, but his limbs are very strong and are everlasting wear. In point of strict utility he, when pure, is quite on a par with the Arab. Up to the reign of Muley Mahomed, son of Muley Abderrhámán, about A.D. 1775, the Government of Morocco provided each country village with a pure-blooded stallion, of which the owners of mares had free use for stud purposes. Since that Sultan's death, however, this useful custom has been discontinued and, consequently, the quality of the horses has deteriorated to such an extent that it is difficult to find one of pure blood. Moreover, the

exportation of horses is hampered by such heavy duties that permission to take them out of the country is illusory. Doubtless in the royal stables there are some fine specimens. The Emir Abd-el-Kader of Algiers, when at the height of his power, defending his native land against the armies of France, inflicted the punishment of death, without mercy, on any Moslem convicted of selling a horse to the Christian.

About foreign horses I shall have little to say. Many of those now sold, both for riding and driving, are what we term "soft foreign substitutes." One very nice stranger, for young ladies' riding especially, is the real Spanish jennet. Under the Moresco Khalifat the commercial enterprise of the Arabs knew no bounds. In those warlike times richly caparisoned horses of the purest blood were the most acceptable royal gifts, and to the stables of the Kalifs of Cordova, Toledo, Seville, Valencia, Murcia, and Badajos, during the rule of the Moslem on the Siberian peninsula, came the very pith and marrow of Mesopotamia, Nejd, Morocco, and Tunis. The royal farms of the Alhambra were the breeding grounds of the finest and purest blood horses of the Orient. Granada, the Damascus of Spain, enjoys a climate akin to that of "the eye of the East," the oldest city in the world. In the true Andalusian jennet's veins runs a stream in which mingles some of the bluest blood of Asia and Africa. He is a gentleman every inch of him, small and pretty, graceful and easy in his paces, carries his dapper, well-bred head handsomely in the proper place, and is gifted with a good mouth. There is not much of him, but what there is is good and comely, quite the animal to catch the eye and win the affections of a young lady or an Eton boy.

Some of the half-bred French Arabs, from Arab sire and