"They have been brought to excite the admiration of the spectators, impatient to see them appear in the lists.
"Horsemen mount them, hardy as bars of iron and short of stature. Their voice is like the roaring of the lion.
"Seated on their coursers they look like starlings hovering over the table-land of a mountain.
"At last they draw up in line. In the midst of the assembly of spectators, a man, a Mussulman like the others, sits in the capacity of umpire. He has been chosen by common accord as arbiter, and surely his awards will not be tainted with partiality.
"The steeds let loose in the arena disperse immediately like pearls that fall from a necklace, or like a covey of ketâa (gray partridges) discovered by a falcon that swoops down upon them, attacking them with fury.
"The black, with a white mark on the forehead, comes in first.
"The bay with the dark mane is second, and the entirely black is without reproach, for he runs in third.
The Tali is the fourth, and follows the others. But how far is the inhabitant of the Tahama from the inhabitant of Nedjed!
The fifth, el Mourtah, is not to be blamed, for he has done as well as he could do.
The Aâtif is the sixth. He comes in all trembling, and his fear well nigh stopped him in mid-career.