Are our celebrated strains of racing blood derived at all from an Arab source, and, if so descended, are they excellent _consequently_, or of accident? As regards the first moiety of the inquiry, a work has just appeared in Paris, the production of a gentleman of some literary celebrity[80], relating to the genealogy of the horse so long known to us as the Godolphin Arabian. His statements go to show that he was a pure _Barb_, presented, with seven others, by the Bey of Tunis to Louis XV., _about_ the year 1731. All the portraits I have ever seen of him certainly go to strengthen this reading of his descent, and proclaim him not of Asiatic origin. The date is an erroneous one, as he was a sire in England in the year in which he is said to have reached France; but we must be content with very vague data in all that concerns our subject a century ago. As to the second division of the question, after-time must furnish the means of replying to it, if it be ever answered. My bias is to a belief that there exist families of the horse in the East possessed of a perfection infinitely surpassing any generically inherited. This I have attempted to demonstrate in a work upon which I am at present engaged, some portion of which has been already published.[81] The fact (of which I was made conscious by authority beyond question) that the Imaum of Muscat, one of the most powerful sovereign princes of India, expended ten years of active search, backed by the enormous bribe of ten thousand pounds, before he could procure a descendant of a line sufficiently pure to present to King George IV., seems to establish the truth of the theory to which I profess being inclined. All that we learn from our knowledge of the almost religious veneration with which the genealogy of the horse is treated in the East, goes to the like confirmation. “It is remarkable that there is not a _superior_ horse _now_ on the turf without a cross of the Godolphin Arabian,” I leave the reader to interpret as his own reflections may lead him. [80] M. Eugene Sue. [81] Annals of the British Turf, from the Introduction of Eastern blood to the present Time. The first century concluded in the Old Sporting Magazine.