Abd-el-Kader assures us, moreover, that it is ascertained by the Arabs that horses change colour according to the soil on which they are bred. Is it not possible, in fact, that under the influence of an atmosphere more or less light, of water more or less fresh, of a nurture more or less rich according as the soil on which it is raised is more or less impregnated with certain elements, the skin of the horse may be sensibly affected? Every one knows that with any coat, the colour changes in tone and shade according to the locality where the animal lives, the state of its health, the quality of the water it drinks, and of the food it eats, and the care that is bestowed upon it. There is perchance in all this a lesson in natural history not to be despised, for if the circumstances in which a horse lives act upon his skin, they must inevitably act also in the long run upon his form and qualities. This point being dismissed, the last proposition in the letter of the Emir Abd-el-Kader is that which classes the history of Arab horses in four epochs: 1st, from Adam to Ishmael; 2nd, from Ishmael to Solomon; 3rd, from Solomon to Mohammed; 4th, from Mohammed to our own times. This is the history of the Arabs themselves, so completely have they identified themselves with the horse, their necessary and indispensable companion. Between Adam and Abraham the Arabs did not exist—it was the age of a pastoral population. No wars, at least of a serious character, no pillaging. The horse appears in it only on the day of creation. He has no part to play except as a head of cattle among the flocks and herds, peacefully employed in domestic service. But on the second epoch with Ishmael, his part changes altogether. Ishmael is a bastard, disinherited, abandoned in the desert. His life is to be a struggle. He must be at open war with all mankind because he must live somehow upon the soil to which he has been banished, without taking into consideration the fact that this necessity of fighting in order to live, at the same time gratifies the resentment he entertains towards his brothers, heirs, to his prejudice, of the paternal fields. We read in the Bible, that when Hagar, in Arabic _Hadjira_, fled into the wilderness an angel appeared to her and said: "I will multiply thy seed exceedingly that it shall not be numbered for multitude. "Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; and he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren."