Let the one-year old colt do nothing but eat, And he will not strain himself: Mount him from two to three years old, Until he is quite tamed. Feed him well from three to four. Then mount him again, And if he does not suit you, Sell him without hesitation. Let it not be supposed, however, that it is only the Arabs of our African possessions who are so mad, if I may be allowed the use of the expression, about commencing the process of breaking-in at an early age. The Arabs universally, no matter to what country they belong, profess the same principles. If proof be wanted, read what has been said on the subject by no inexperienced person, in fact by an inspector-general of the Haras, M. Pétiniaud, who was commissioned by the French Government to travel through Upper Asia to procure horses of pure Oriental blood. He shall speak for himself:— "After three years of wanderings among the tribes encamped from Diarbekir and Aleppo to the confines of the Nedjed, I returned to Bagdad last January. Among the papers that awaited me, I found a number of the _Journal des Haras_, containing an article on the horses of the Sahara. The perusal of this only too brief memoir which denoted such a perfect knowledge of the Arab and his horse, inspired me with a desire to possess the entire work. On my arrival in France, you were obliging enough to send me a copy, for which I thank you. No one could take a greater interest than myself in a work which you might safely have entitled: "On the Arab horse of Asia and Africa;" for such is the spirit of tradition among this peculiar people that at every line I recognized in the customs of the Moghreb Arabs the customs of their ancestors of the Koreish and the Nedjed, and that after a separation of many centuries." "In 1851 I descended the Tigris from Mosul to Bagdad, with a volume of Herodotus in my hand. All his descriptions of men and things were still strictly applicable. Thus, at a distance of two thousand three hundred years he depicted the manners of the Arabs with the same truthfulness with which you, General, have described in Africa the Arabs of Asia. Time and space are impotent in the presence of the unchangeableness of such habits: intestine feuds, the chace, _fantasias_, love of the horse, etc., etc., I have witnessed in Asia exactly what you have written of Africa."