It is sad to contemplate the present debased and semi-barbarous condition of the descendants of a great people who for centuries stood first among all the nations of the earth in commercial enterprise, in learning, and in the arts. The banishment of the Saracens from Spain in the beginning of the seventeenth century of our era was in fact the banishment of the descendants of the Phœnicians who first colonized Spain. The architectural structures which they left behind them, and which for their marvelous beauty have challenged the admiration of the world, were not the work of nomads and barbarians. They were the flashes of the old Phœnician taste and genius as exemplified by the descendants of the men whom Hiram sent to construct and decorate the buildings of Solomon. The Alhambra and some other structures in Spain are all that we have to remind us of the genius, and grandeur of Phœnicia. Whatever may have been the character and attainments of the descendants of the colonists at the time, the change from idolatry to Islamism was a bad one. Wherever, throughout the world, the teachings of the “Prophet” have been accepted, whole nations have become intolerant, murderous and brutalized, and the modern Phœnicians are no exception. They have now lost their identity in the follies and crimes of Islamism and we can have no sympathy for them. CHAPTER IV. THE ARABIAN HORSE. The Arabian, the horse of romance—The horse naturally foreign to Arabia— Superiority of the camel for all Arabian needs—Scarcity of horses in Arabia in Mohammed’s time—Various preposterous traditions of Arab horsemanship—The Prophet’s mythical mares—Mohammed not in any sense a horseman—Early English Arabians—the Markham Arabian—The alleged Royal Mares—The Darley Arabian—The Godolphin Arabian—The Prince of Wales’ Arabian race horses—Mr. Blunt’s pilgrimage to the Euphrates—His purchases of so-called Arabians—Deyr as a great horse market where everything is thoroughbred—Failure of Mr. Blunt’s experiments—Various Arabian horses brought to America—Horses sent to our Presidents—Disastrous experiments of A. Keene Richards—Tendency of Arab romancing from Ben Hur.