I have only one more word to say on the portrait of the thoroughbred horse sketched by Abd-el-Kader. The Emir takes it at one view, and as inseparable one from the other, both the physical and moral qualities. In his opinion physical qualities alone will never constitute a perfect horse. He must also by his intelligence and by his affection for the master who feeds, who tends, who rides him, unite with him as an integral part. To demand such qualities from a horse is simply placing him, in the intellectual order, immediately after man, just as, according to the legend, he has been placed in the order of creation.
The Europeans are, I am aware, far from entertaining such a high opinion of the animal, but may we not err in the opposite degree?
THE BARB.
We have often heard it said that the horse of our African possessions, to whose rare qualities we have endeavoured to do justice, was very inferior to the true Arabian. Notwithstanding a conviction based on a lengthened experience and a grave study of the subject, we have made it our duty to take up and discuss an opinion put forth with an air of authority. We were willing to accept as umpire in this dispute, a man whose intelligence, whose habits, whose whole life, render him a supreme judge in all matters relating to horse-flesh—the Emir Abd-el-Kader. We addressed to that genuine horseman a letter in which we frankly expressed the objections which each of our assertions had encountered. His reply to this letter is given below. It will be seen from this curious document that the Emir does not confine himself to the confirmation of the proposition we advanced, but develops by reflections or by facts the whole of our opinions. According to his statement, the Barbary horse, so far from degenerating from the Arab, is, on the contrary, superior to him. The Berbers, he says, formerly inhabited Palestine, where they reared the animal that has become the type of a perfect war horse. Having emigrated to Africa through the vicissitudes of their life of adventure, they paid the utmost attention to the guest of their tents, the instrument of their hunting expeditions, their comrade in the fight. Their horses thus preserved such eminent qualities, that an Asiatic sovereign engaged in a perilous war, sent for them from the Berbers. The reader will appreciate the value of this historical dissertation which, from whatever point of view it be examined, does not the less possess an interest that cannot be contested. It is quite certain that the Barbary horse is indebted to the climate in which he flourishes, to the education which he receives, to the food that is given to him, to the privations that are familiar to him, for a vigour that enables him to equal, if not to surpass the most vaunted steeds of Persia and Upper Egypt. Supported by the following letter, we hold ourselves justified in repeating that all the horses of Asia and Africa may be blended together under one common denomination. We oppose to the European horse, one identical horse—the horse of the Orient—which, thanks to our conquest of Algeria, we believe will be daily called upon to render to our country services more and more valuable and more and more valued.
This is the letter from the Emir Abd-el-Kader, which he forwarded to me from Broussa:
Praise to the one God! His reign alone is eternal!
May the profoundest peace and the most perfect divine beneficence be extended to the person of General Daumas,—of him who ardently seeks for the solution of the most obscure questions! May Allah conduct and protect him!
To proceed: You have asked us our opinion on Barbary horses, their character, and their origin. To give you satisfaction I am again turning my attention to these subjects, and can do nothing better to-day than send you some extracts taken from the poetical works of the famous Aâmrou-el-Kaïs, who lived a short time before the coming of the Prophet. They refer to the superiority of the horses of the Berbers, and I think you will there find proofs against those who maintain that those admirable animals are of an inferior stamp. The poet remarks, while addressing himself to Cæsar, Emperor of Constantinople, in a long piece of versification:
"And I answer thee, if ever I am reinstated as King, we will ride a race where you shall see the horseman lean forward over his saddle to increase the speed of his courser;