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I , i i ; i : I , I | 1 r of in . , , . . . at j !|i jj ,.., _ a Kj her er __ one at ,lt ,, and luj uc of here re La ;.a M. _. now as §E9T BLOODED ARABIANS ARE SCARCE T Constant Call on the Country for Stock Horses Has Depletinq Effect. . A "Robert Sewell. a well known artist and bor-e fancier who has made a atady of the subject, says aadl Hit aneieiil breed »t *o called Arabians to which meet of the improved modern racer* owe many of their liest qualities, is iu imminent danger of beeaaalag extinct," says Garaey 0. Gue. "For hundreds of years tee horse breeder! of all nations have heea drawing on Arabia for stallion.-* and mares to improve the common slock and this constant drain oa a lonallj having comparatively few horaea In proper Una to iis population has. it is said, lowered the standard besides depleting the * numbers Almost without exception the tine ani- a mals taken from Hie cast to other parts of the s world were used solely for he pui| oM of engraft- t lag their saperiot oaalltlea on the native breeds. , and nowhere, it is believed, outside of the land 1 of its aatlvlty, has the Arab lype lK eu perpetuated , 1" any extent worth considering. j "In England the influence of the Arab has re- snlted in the modern British tboroaghhred, whose t aaperlority as a racehorse is now acknowledged llii-ouglioit the Willi. Althoagh recent researches , have exploded the falcons diciu-n of Admiral Rous i that the British rate horse i- a pure eastern exotic, ] whose pedigree caa be traced 2. Ht» years, the true . son of Arabia Deserta. without a drag of Knglish IiI.mmI in his veins. it cannot, lie denied that the Oriental horaea batnorted into Eagmad for racing parposea at least as early as the time of Benrj VIII. 1008, and probably during the eraaadea wire the doii.iiiating eleuuiil in the fonualion of Hie thoroughbred type, which, in turn, has been an iportanl factor in building up the breed of American trotting horaea "In Russia Arab blood was introduced in the imperial stud as early as the time of Peter the Great 1882, and from its use have come the pri-ent day breed of OrlofT trotters, which excel Hie Americans in purity of action and in uniformity of type, if not in sjHed, and the Russian breed of carriage horaea. "In Ilriiice, Ccrmany and other countries of continental Kurope eastern blood has been engrafted on the horse stock to ah extent as great as in Eng- land and IHissia. while Spain. Hungary and Austria, which were overrun in the middle ages by the followers of Mohammed, acquired thousands of horses of Oriental ancestry by these invasions. The gray Arabs have left their mark on the horses of Praace, where the trapny. active, rapid walking Perehewa daughters inherit the colors as well as other characteristics of their remote Arabian an-i cesiors. It is a common occurrence to see 1ereheron horses iu New York that weigh upward ol 1.500 pounds, with the clean lit heads, wide throttles. sharp pointed ears an. I beautiful, mild eyes char- acteristlc k the true Arab. "The type of horse that is commonly called Arabian has been found in different ages in various loan Ii lea bordering on the Mediterranean Sea, notably iu Turkey. Asia Minor. Arabia, Kgypt, the Barbery states and Spain. From time immemorial until a very recent period horse historians were agreed thai Arabia xas the original habitat of this superior breed which has refined the horse stock of Hie world. "The long accepted indie: was based chiefly if imt wholly upon the tradlttoaa and legends of the Arabs theinsches. who assumed to trace the pedigrees of their line horaea straight back without taint of foreign blood to five famous mares owned by Sheik Salaman. who was fourth In descent from Ishmacl. son of Abraham, and who lived about :;..-,N years ago. "Three live famous mares were believed to have belonged to Mohammed until a few years ago. when Major Beget D. Upton, an English traveler in Aarhia. laught the world their true history. It is au old story that in order to select mares worthy of becoming Hi,, dams of the best horses I the prophet -hut up a held in plain sight of water and kept them there until almost famished with 1 thirst. Than they were all released at once, and when rushing headlong to the water the war " trnaapet was aaanated as a test of obedience and 1 disiipline. only kwt out of Hie herd obeyed the signal and turned, in spite of their suffering, to » Una up in battle array. These alone were chosen i to perpetaate the breed, and they became known i as the prophets Bnarea. "Another characteristic 1 1 ample of authentic Arabian barae history i- the slory told by Spencer " Borden in a recently published liook entitled The Arab Horse. It. is related that a certain sheik. mounted on his favorite mare, was flying from the enemy, when, on stopping for rest at noonday, she gave birth to a filly. Being hard pressed the sheik was compelled to mount his mare again and seek safely in flight, abandoning the new born tilly to her fate. Finally reaching his own people great was the surprise of all when, shortly after his arrival on his favorite mare, the little filly came into camp also, having followed her mother, without sustenance, across miles of desert when only a few hours old. It is superfluous to add that she grew to be the most famous of all the animals in the history of the Breed. "On such stories rest all that can be learned from the Bedouins themselves concerning the origin and history of the Arab horses. Scientists and scholars who have written about the horse of antiquity reject all these legends without according to them the dignity of mention. "That Arabia is the original habitat of the so- called Arabian horse has been shown to be wholly improbable. That Arabia had no horses at all until the beginning of the Christian era i« now maintained by the weight of authority, ancient and modern. "Herodotus, the father of history, who visited . , — Uoiiti-UeU on second nage.. _. BEST BLOODED ARABIANS ARE SCARCE Continued from lirst page. northern Arabia about 450 B. C. said significantly, in ennmerating the nations which ♦utpplied horsemen and chariots of the hosts of Xerxes, that the Arabians contributed no horses, but only a camel corps. Sirat.o, a famous Greek geographer who traveled in Arabia at the very beginning of the Christian era. gave positive testimony that then there were no horses ihere; and Rllier. a famous inudoru geographer, as w. 11 as Michaclis. an equally notts-l archaeologist, confirms this view. William Ridgcway. proft— or of archaeology in Cambridge Fniversity and author of the most exhaustive work yet written in the English language on the history of the horse, says that beyond all doubt the Arabs did not possess horses until after the Christian era. This is the conclusion, also, of John II. Wallace, an American authority, whose collection of classic and other ancient texts is almost complete. "Whatever may l e the truth about Arabia Itself, therf eaa be no doubt t hat the countries nrrooad-lag it all had horses in large numbers long before the Christian era. Thoy were domesticated and in use in Babylonia and the valley of the Euphrates 1.000 B. ».. according to W. H. Ward, an American archaeologist. They were known in Egypt at least 1.400 1!. .. and in Oappadoda and Armenia more than a thousand years earlier. "If Arabia possessed any horses prior to the Christian era it seems probable they were not of the superior breed since known as Arabians, for no record has been found in ancient history of any ruler or merchant of another country having .sent than for horses. Cappadocia, Armenia. Media, Par* thia an 1 Scythia were renowned throughout the world for fine horses from the time of the Medes aud the Persians, but historic proof is all against the antiquity Of the Arabs as breeders of the famous horses which now bear their name. "Where, then, did these fine horses come from, and when were they Introduced into Arabia? The at interesting ipiesiions are now engaging the attention of scientists and antiquarians in two hemispheres and wiil. no doubt. l e satisfactorily answered sooner or later, although the origin of the breed may be lost in the mists of prehistoric times. "Professor Ridgcway in Ids recent work on the Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse lias advanced the original opinion that the ancestors of the Arab horse had their home in Africa, in the ancient country of I.ybia. lying west of Egypt, where they ran wild. He has collected a mass of evidence in support of his theory, which, however, is not very convincing and which is directly at variance with the more tangible proof cited by John il. Wallace in his Horae of America. Both authors are agreed 111.* ; in the centuries before the birth of Jesus and the rise of Mohammed the Arabs, or at least some of the great men among tiie tribes of South Arabia, had become posessed of fine horses. But, while Rldgeway derives the Arabian type from the wild horses of the Nile valley in Africa. Wallace traces its introduction among sheiks of the desert to a gift of two hundred well bred horses from Cappadooia sent by the Roman emperor, Oonstantine, in the year 338 A. P., to the Ilomeritae. a tribe in Arabia Felix, now called Yemen. "Mr. Walaoe discovered this important fragment of bane history, which no other writer seems to have found, among the partly preserved writings of Philistorgius. a Greek theologian, who was born in 425 A. D. Philistorgius says Consfantius sent ambassadors to the Arabians to induce them to embrace the Christian religion, awl, wishing to array the embassy with peculiar splendor, put on bosrd their ships the Cappadocian horses and sent them with many other gifts to the sheiks. "This is beHered to be the first definite allusion in all history to line horses in Arabia, and manv circumstances seem to indicate that from these .00 well bred Qappadociaas are descended the present day rae of Arabians. "These white or gray horses of Cappadooia have been mentioned by nearly every historian since the time of Herodotus, who tells us that in the races and games established by Xerxes they t/ ok all the honors. The Persians carried on horse breeding in their captured provPc . - with great care. They were very particular about keeping the pedigrees of their horses and when they ruled Cappadooia they improved the native breed. "After the Romans took the province from the Persians all ilie fine Cappadocian horses were appropriated for the emperors stud. According to Gibbons, either Constantlne or one of his successors suppressed the rich temple of Comana In Cappa-Wdl, where the high priest of the goddess of war supported the dignity of a sovereign prince. and then applied to their private use the eenee-crated lauds, which were inhabited by 0,000 Bub. facts, at ahma of the rarity, aid her minister Bill tllc-c V ele liol |l,e nln;iMe i n!i:i 1. 1 1 ant- . the plains tluit Stretched from the foot of Mount Ar-gaeus to the banks of the Carus held a generous race of horses, renowned, above all others in the ancient world for their majestic shal e and incomparable swiftness. These sacred animals, destined for the service of the palace and the imperial games, were protected by the law from the profana tion of a vulgar master. "In his commentaries on the laws of the Theo-ipcian code relating to thorn Jacob Codelroy has collected every circumstance of anti-Baity concerning the Cappadocian horses. He taya one of the finest breeds, the Palmatian, was the forfeiture of a rebel, whose estate lay altowt sixteen miles from Tyana. near the great road between Autiooh and Constantinople. "According to the poet Ntmeelaa, these Palmatian horses took their name fr..m the fact that all of the breed had l een branded with a plain leaf as a -ign of victory in commemoration of the many races they had won. lu the time of Constantino and his successors they became so popular that 1he emperors established a monopoly and put a prohibitive tax on their private ownership. Philistorgius says that Europltona, manager of the royal stud. enriched himself by selling them, for which be was put to death. "From the earliest dawning of history until the middle ages the horses most renowned for purposes of war, religion and display seems to have lieen white or gray. Of this color were all those chosen for dedication to the gods of Persia. Scythia, Rome and Greece. White horses wen always demanded as tribute, and white horses always drew the chariots of the kings. They figured prominently in triumphal marches as a sign of pomp, luxury and pride. "Perhaps t he first breed of gray horses of which there is any record in ancient history is that of the Nis.iean plains of Parthia. near t he present Nishapoor. in northeastern Persia. If the Partliians were an offshoot of the Scythians, as many now believe, their famous Nisaean horses may perhaps be braced one step farther toward the country of their origin, tor Herodotus lias observed that great numbers of fine wild nor sea of a white color once grazed about the borders of a lake from which the Hypanais flows to Join the Borysthenn Dnieper before entering the F.uxine Black Sea. Thia was the country of the Bcythlans."
