If the Arabs do not, like ourselves, attach much importance to grooming, they are, on the other hand, very careful and particular in their choice of the food, and above all of the water, they give to their horses. Many a time during the early days of the conquest, while on an expedition, after long marches in an intolerable heat, with a south wind blowing that choked us and drove the dust and sand into our faces, when horse and foot alike panting, exhausted, without power of motion, we delivered ourselves up, worn out as we were, to a fatiguing sleep often interrupted by the alerts caused by the enemy prowling around us—at such a time I have seen the natives go a league from the bivouac in order to water their horses at some pure spring known to themselves. They preferred to risk their own lives to experiencing the pain of watering their horses at the scanty rivulets in the encampment, quickly converted into filthy drains by the trampling of men and beasts of burden. It can hardly be necessary for me to dilate any farther on the hygiene of the horse among the Arabs. Indeed, I could only repeat what I have already said. It seems to me preferable to refer the reader to the various details scattered through the preceding pages, and particularly to the principles enunciated in the chapter on the education of the colt. If I have made myself at all understood, I have shown how every owner of a horse among the Arabs is an active, vigilant, I had almost said devoted, master who watches and directs the progress, corrects the defects, and perfects the qualities of his pupil from the very first day. This education embraces every thing, including what I may fairly call the moral faculties; and it augments, modifies, and improves the physical qualities. Every thing is weighed and foreseen. The drink, the diet, the exercise, the position in rest, the whole is graduated and proportioned to age, place, and season; it is all the object of incessant and sustained solicitude. Moreover, the grand principle, and I myself think it a good one, seems to be to avoid, on one hand, excessive fatness which is opposed to all energetic work, and, on the other, any check to perspiration which is the cause of the greater number of diseases. Once more, the question is not: is all this care well founded? are they wrong, or are we mistaken? But after having propounded the formula, that in the life of an Arab his most absorbing and almost exclusive occupation is the rearing and training of his horse, I have shown that the Arab is not guided by mere chance, that his is not a blind, inconsiderate passion, as is supposed by those who see him from afar and bestow only a glance on him. Any one who will study him perseveringly, who will examine him, as it were, under the microscope, and analyse his daily acts and doings, will be forced to the conclusion that he is guided by traditional and logical motives. In a word, this