Still by the camp-fires in the desert they tell the old story of a great chief who, in præ-Gallic times, was taken prisoner by the Emir’s horsemen. He escaped, but hardly had he reached his tent when in the desert air, in which sounds are heard afar off, a clattering of hoofs could be distinguished—the Sultan’s men were coming! The chief sprang on his mare and fled. When the men came up they knew that only one horse could overtake the mare, her beautiful sister, not less swift than she. A soldier leapt from his own horse intending to mount her, but the chiefs son, yet a child, instantly shot her dead with a pistol. And so the chief was saved. The Ulemas of Algeria say that when God wished to create the mare He spoke to the wind: “I will cause thee to bring forth a creature that shall bear all My worshippers, that shall be loved by My slaves, and that will cause the despair of all who will not follow My laws.” And when He had created her He said: “I have made thee without an equal: the goods of this world shall be placed between thy eyes; everywhere I will make thee happy and preferred above all the beasts of the field, for tenderness shall everywhere be in the heart of thy master; good alike for the chase and retreat, thou shalt fly though wingless, and I will only place on thy back the men who know me, who will offer ME prayers and thanksgivings; men who shall be My worshippers from one generation to another.” For the Arab the horse was not only the means of performing great enterprises but the very object of life, the thing in itself most precious, the care, the preoccupation, and the prize. The Arab’s horse is his kingdom. [Illustration: ARABIAN HORSE OF THE SAHARA.] I suppose that there is no doubt that the knightly type was a flower transported from the East, though, like many other Eastern flowers, it grew to its best in European gardens. The Crusaders learnt more than they taught. Coming down later, the national hero of Spain, for all his pure Gothic blood, is an Eastern not a Western hero. He will be understood far better when he is tried by this standard. If we weigh him in Eastern rather than in Western scales, a more lenient and above all a juster judgment will be the result, and we shall see how the fine qualities with which legend credits him were not disproved by some acts which the modern Western conscience condemns. On the whole it may be taken for granted, in spite of all that has been said to the contrary, that tradition which easily errs about facts, is rarely wrong about character. Ruy Diaz de Bivar was a hero after the Arab’s own heart:— “Noble y leal, soldado y Caballero, Señor te apellido la gente Mora,”