occurred. Their curiosity was much excited by my English saddle, and they wished to know if I was tied on!" Hejaz, from Mount Sinai to Yemen, has some handsome horses, but not so large as those of Nejed. I don't think the Wababees had, out of 4,000 horses, 50 really worth looking at twice. Each tribe had 8 or 10 beauties, but even they were not always the best, as we find with our own breeds. The Arab is an extraordinary animal in his own country, enduring and docile, but without pace or action, and perfectly useless in any other country except for breeding purposes. The Montefek Arabs supply Bassora, and I do not think much of their horses.”,

I can hardly pass on to a general summary of my subject, without noticing some aspects of the Indian trade in Arab horses which occur to me, in a comparison of the opinions of travellers with various cir. cumstances which have come under my own notice, during a short service in India. I would first of all remark that it is a very common mistake in England for people to suppose that Arab horses are bred in India, and that they are indigenous to the East in the widest acceptation of its boundary. It will have been observed, en route, that both Burckhardt and the traveller afterwards quoted speak of the Indian trade from Bassora somewhat slightingly. Burkhardt, however, only says that he believes the true blood horses of the Khomse seldom find their way to Basra, and again that the Montefek Arabs are not very solicitous about giving a pure breed. The Khomse includes five prin. cipal strains of blood, each dating back to one of five extraordinary, if perhaps mythical mares, with numerous off shoots. A “Koheyl of the Khomse" is the bluest of blue blood.

Now, when we read that Mesopotamia is the richest in horses of any country in that part of the East, and that some of the best of the “ Koheyls of the Khomse" are found on the Euphrates, which is the country of the Indian trade, I think we may fairly assume that some of these do find their way to India, though possibly not among the droves which are annually imported from the Persian Gulf, which are principally used as remounts for the armies of Bombay and Madras. The Indian turf is the foster mother of the Arab, as the numerous and valuable races allotted to the breed will at once show, and the Arab dealers at the Presidency towns have the additional stimulus of having to enter the lists against private and direct importations from Baghdad or other of the inland markets.

These men (themselves also of Arab nationalities) frequently run horses in their own names and interests; and, in a trade where there is considerable competition, it would be manifestly absurd to suppose that they did not import as many good horses as possible. In the racing world A is always ready to pay a handsome price for a horse likely to beat B's well-known Arab, and B and C follow suit ad infinitum : so there can be no reason why the Indian market should not be supplied with the very best Arabs which are to be obtained in Mesopotamia, or, in fact, in any of the Arab breeding districts. Nero, winner of the Calcutta Derby in 1854 and of many other valuable races, was imported direct from Baghdad. This Calcutta Derby is a race for maiden Arabs, 2 miles, weight for age; and large prices are commonly given for promising candidates, £400 and £500 being no unusual figure even for untried horses. Prices such as these cannot fail to stimulate even an old-established and remunerative trade ; and I think it may be assumed either that the well-known demands of the Indian dealers bring to Basra, their usual rendezvous, a fair supply of highly-bred and valuable Arabs, or that they themselves proceed to other inland markets in search of as many of the right sort as their Indian orders and the usual demands of the trade may require.

In justice to these importations from Basra for the use of the Artillery and Cavalry in India, one must allow, whatever their breed whether true Kochlani or only Gulf Arab—that they make excellent and hardy troop-horses. Any one who has gone through a campaign with these little troopers will remember with admiration their wonderful power of carrying heavy weights, regardless alike of forced marches and scanty rations, as the records of Bombay regiments in the snows of Affghanistan, of the 10th Hussars (who took their horses from Bombay to the Crimea), of the campaign in China under Lord Elgin and Sir Hope Grant, and of the late campaign in Abyssinia, will all abundantly testify.

But I have already too far strayed away from my original subject ; and it is now high time that I should bring these remarks to a conclusion by a few comparisons of the main characteristics of the Arab and Barb.

The appearance of the Arabian may be summed up in a few words : A small horse, with very compact frame, large back-ribs, very power. ful arched loins and high quarters, tail set on very high and carried well in the air, a large and expressiye eye, broad and prominent forehead, small ears and muzzle, and deep cheek, limbs very clean and muscular, with bone and joints large for his size, a fine temper, a capital appetite, good constitution, with great natural soundness of wind and limb, and an obvious look of " quality'' in all his points and movements. He has a muscular shoulder, well laid back, though often his withers appear low, from the height and power of his quarters ; but his action is not as good in front as behind, lhe strength of his loins and the long reach of his hind-leg under him giving to the rider the feeling of being on a much larger horse.

Let us now look at the Barb. The main difference which will at once catch the eye is, that his shoulders and action in front are as much superior in appearance to those of the Arab as are the Arab's quarters and style of galloping to his. The Barb also falls far short of the Arab in roundness of barrel and depth of rib, in the height and power of his quarters, and in the setting-on of the tail.

The propelling powers of the Arab make him in speed more than a match for the Barb. At Gibraltar, where they both meet under English training, the Arab gives about a stone to his African rival. Now I do not for a moment claim for the Arab any position as a race-horse, except among horses of his own rank. The weights in use among the different Turf Clubs in India amply prove this ; but it is not, perhaps, very generally known or noticed that in India, in races where English thorough-breds and Arabs meet, the weight for the English horse decreases, while that for the Arab increases, in proportion to the distance. Here, therefore, we have custom and experience joining in a tribute to the staying qualities of the Arab and the weight-carrying properties of his powerful loins and quarters.

I would further draw attention to the methods of breeding adopted by the Bedouin of Arabia and by those of Africa, leaving it to the reader to settle to his own satisfaction whether these widelydiffering customs, continuously carried on for very many generations, do or do not account for the present different appearance of the two breeds.

The Syrian and Arabian Bedouin places all his reliance on the qualities of the mare; the African is mainly solicitous about those of the stallion. Whatever may have been the characteristics of the original stock, if from one breed, they both spring, one or other must be at this moment gradually losing the likeness of its remote parent.

THE “SWEET PRIMROSE S.”

ENGRAVED BY E. HACKER, FROM A PAINTING BY E. CORBET.

“ The prickly thicket o'er him closes,

To him it seem'd a bed of roses,
As there he lay, and heard around
The baying of the baffled hound.”

WARBURTON.

The woodlands here look, perhaps, a little too blooming for 60 catching a season as that now just coming to a close, during which we should say, however much they may wish to make the best of it, few kennels can really speak to anything like a fair average of sport. Without any long « fallow,” the interruptions have been very vexatious, and a man with a stable full of horses can, but in few cases, have had his money's worth out of them.

In other ways the retrospect is certainly not satisfactory. Not merely has there been the now customary fox-killing, but hound poi. soning is becoming quite an every day occurrence. Mr. Leigh has lost three couple and a half in the neighbourhood of Silsoe, at a bamlet where some of the pack had previously been way-laid on the road, so that there can be little doubt but the crime was premeditated. A couple of the East Sussex have also been destroyed in the same manner, that is by strychnine, which they picked up on the road, between Beauport Park and Whitelands Wood. Sir Archibald Ashburnham Bart., hon, secretary to the hunt, and the Master have offered a rewar,d of £50 for information; while the East Sussex Express says, the magistrates have already been investigating a charge brought against two men, for poisoning the hounds, and had sufficient evidence laid before them to justify a remand. We have only to trust that they will be as active in Bedfordshire, the more especially as this is not a first offence. Then, in the House of Commons, Sir T. Bateson will ask just about the time our Magazine goes to press, whether it be a fact that several of the Queen's County foxhounds have been poisoned ? whether it be the case that Mr. Crosbic, the Master, was the seconder of the resolution adopted by the Queen's County grand jury, calling