The owner of the swift one makes protestations.
Ben-Youssouf, having one day given in exchange for a mare of the desert twenty she-camels with their young replied to his father who had keenly rebuked him: "And why are you angry, my lord? Has not this mare brought me the agility and the softness of skin of the jerboa, the movement of the neck of the hare, the fleetness and the vision of the ostrich, the hollow belly and the limbs of the greyhound, and the courage and breadth of head of the bull? She cannot fail to turn yellow the face of our enemies. When I pursue them, she will plunder without ceasing the croups of their horses; and if they pursue after me, the eye will not know where I have passed!"
It will be seen, as I had previously indicated in tracing the outline of a thoroughbred horse as sketched by the Arabs, that they esteem it of consequence that in his form he should borrow certain details from other animals. He should unite in himself the qualities that are separately remarked in the gazelle, the greyhound, the bull, the ostrich, the camel, the hare, and the fox. It is agreed that he should have the long, clean limbs of the gazelle, the fineness and strength of its haunches, the convexity of its ribs, the shortening of its fore-legs, the blackness of its eyes, and the straitness of its armpits, He should also recall to mind the length of the lips and tongue of the dog, the abundance of its saliva, and the length of the lower part of its fore-paws. They go so far as to regard this resemblance of the horse to the greyhound as a means of guiding inexperienced purchasers: at least, such appears to be the moral of an anecdote widely circulated among them.
"Meslem-ben-Abou-Omar, having learned that one of his relatives was travelling near the banks of the Euphrates, desired to avail himself of this opportunity to obtain one of the famous horses of that country. His relative knew nothing about horses, but was very fond of the chace, and had some very fine dogs. Despatching a servant with proper instructions, Meslem informed his relative that the form of the horse he wished for corresponded to that of the best of his greyhounds. An animal was thus procured, the like of which the Arabs have never since met with."
Merou-ben-el-Keyss replied one day to some friends who accused him of knowing nothing about either horses or women:
Yes, I have ridden horses
Sober, strong, and swift in the course,
Whose thighs were solid,
Their sinews lean and their rump rounded.
Forming as it were a channel towards the tail: