He had bred a number of pure Arabs of several generations, but the abundant feed and luxuriant blue grass of Kentucky did not increase their size, for when they came under the auctioneer’s hammer they were but little “tackeys,” and they brought only the price of little “tackeys.” The number of horses brought to this country, whether as gifts to statesmen or as private ventures, and called “Arabians,” is not very large, and it is safe to say that not one in ten of them ever saw Arabia. They came from Turkey or some of the Barbary States. But in the case of Mr. Richards there can be no doubt that he made his selections in Arabia itself. Those selections having been made personally and with care and skill, we are bound to accept them as genuine Arabians. When we find, therefore, that having been tested they are no better than the horses brought from Turkey or from Africa, we must conclude that the whole scheme is mere moonshine, and that Arabian blood as a means of improvement has failed to develop the value that enthusiasts and dreamers have claimed for it since “time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.” Practical and thinking men always judge of the value of a breed of horses from what the representatives of that breed can do or what they fail to do. The emotional and unpractical are always looking for an ideal horse, and the poets and story writers are always furnishing them one. Where a horse figures in a story he is uniformly endowed with an almost supernatural intelligence and sense. To finish up the ideal horse, he always traces back to the “Courser of the Desert.” If his triumph is in a flight of speed, he distances all competitors because he is a pure Arabian. The story of “Ben Hur,” written by General Lew Wallace, furnishes a fitting illustration of this tendency of the public mind. The story of the chariot race at Antioch is a masterpiece of most exciting ingenuity, and one of the finest specimens of word painting in the English language. The irascible old sheik is quite overdrawn, but the judgment and skill of Ben Hur cannot be surpassed. As a matter of course, the team of black Arabians was bound to win. Every bright schoolboy in the country has read the story, and he has joined in the triumph of the black Arabians. The wide interest in the chariot race seemed to demand its pictorial delineation, and soon the public was gratified with a large and elegant etching, which hangs before me as I write. The only trouble about this excellent work of the imagination and the team of black Arabians is that there were no horses in Arabia till about three hundred and fifty years after the date of this supposed scene. We must let the poets sing and the novelists work out their plots, but it is well to pay some attention to the facts and experiences of history. [Illustration: GODOLPHIN ARABIAN. A true portrait taken from life by D. Murrier, painter to H. R. H. the Duke of Cumberland.] [Illustration: GODOLPHIN ARABIAN.