Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XI. NOTES AND REMARKS. I BELIEVE most, if not all, genuine Arabs have a very good idea of a horse, and the Badaween of the interior desert have a consummate knowledge and a very just appreciation of a horse's merits, of his external form in general, and of points and sensorial organs in detail, certainly beyond what is known by the general run of people in this country. The names given by the Arabs to different points of the horse, unknown to the townsmen generally, show that they have a knowledge of comparative anatomy. Thus Reshek, a word expressing the metacarpals in man, is used to describe the same in the horse, i.e. from the knee to the fetlock-)omts. Again, Akab, the human heel, is the word used to denote the hock, the corresponding joint in the horse, and it is astonishing how few, comparatively speaking, in this country know that the heel in man corresponds with the hock in the horse. Upon inquiry, and on comparing notes, both on a horse's form (i.e. his physical structure) and on the subject of breeding, and indeed in all matters connected with horses, we found that they know as much as the best informed among ourselves. Indeed, we might learn from them, or as they quietly say in reply to any remark, " We know all that as well as you can tell us." This is a fitting opportunity to allude to the supposition that certain marks or small scars on the ears of a horse indicate him to be of a good family and of high blood. Travellers and writers have stated that the ears of the high-bred Arabian foal are stitched together to acquire an habitual pricked position, and Europeans look about for these supposed signs of high breeding. The sign of high breeding in the ear is a naturally beautiful form of the ear, and the position and...