or doctored for years. The idea of riding all day long over such ghastly

inquisitions of torture is sickening. My horse must be like the others,

but I have at least the consolation of not knowing it to be so.

I hope that in future I may be spared any more sentimental praises of the

Arab's idolatry of his horse. In boyhood I longed to be an Arab of the

desert and have a beautiful mare, and call her Selim or Benjamin or

Mohammed, and feed her with my own hands, and let her come into the

tent,

and teach her to caress me and look fondly upon me with her great tender

eyes; and I wished that a stranger might come at such a time and offer me

a hundred thousand dollars for her, so that I could do like the other

Arabs--hesitate, yearn for the money, but overcome by my love for my

mare, at last say, "Part with thee, my beautiful one! Never with my

life! Away, tempter, I scorn thy gold!" and then bound into the saddle

and speed over the desert like the wind!

But I recall those aspirations. If these Arabs be like the other Arabs,

their love for their beautiful mares is a fraud. These of my

acquaintance have no love for their horses, no sentiment of pity for

them, and no knowledge of how to treat them or care for them. The Syrian

saddle-blanket is a quilted mattress two or three inches thick. It is

never removed from the horse, day or night. It gets full of dirt and

hair, and becomes soaked with sweat. It is bound to breed sores. These

pirates never think of washing a horse's back. They do not shelter the

horses in the tents, either--they must stay out and take the weather as

540

The Innocents Abroad