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battle, and many a rapid weary march; at length, eighty years old, and unable longer to ride her, he gave her, and a scimitar that had been his father's, to his eldest son, and told him to appreciate their value, and never to lie down to rest till he had rubbed them both as bright as a looking-glass. In the first skirmish in which the young man engaged he was killed, and the mare fell into the hands of the enemy. When the news reached the old man, he exclaimed that life was no longer worth preserving, for he had lost both his son and his mare, and he grieved for one as much as the other,' and he immediately sickened and died.

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Man, however, is an inconsistent being. The Arab who thus lives with and loves his horses, regarding them as his most valuable treasure, sometimes treats them with a cruelty scarcely to be believed, and not at all to be justified. The severest treatment which the English race-horse endures, is gentleness compared with the trial of the young Arabian. Probably the filly has never before been mounted; she is led out; her owner springs upon her back, and goads her over the sand and rocks of the desert at full speed for fifty or sixty miles without one moment's respite. She is

then forced streaming and panting into water deep enough for her to swim. If immediately after this she will eat as if nothing had occurred, her character is established, and she is acknowledged to be a genuine descendant of the Kochlani breed. The Arab is not conscious of the cruelty which he thus inflicts. It is an invariable custom, and custom will induce us to inflict many a pang on those whom after all we love.

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Ibrahim, a poor but worthy Arab, unable to pay a sum of money which he owed, was compelled to allow a merchant of Rama to become partner with him in a valuable mare. When the time came, he could not redeem his pledge to this man, and the mare was sold. Her pedigree could be traced on the side of sire and dam for full five hundred years. The price was three hundred pounds, an enormous sum in that country. Ibrahim went frequently to Rama to enquire after the mare: he would embrace her, wipe her eyes with his handkerchief, rub her with his shirt sleeve, and give her a thousand benedictions during whole hours that he remained talking to her. My eyes!' would he say to her, 'My soul! My heart! must I be so unfortunate as to have sold thee

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to so many masters, and not keep thee myself? I am poor, my antelope! I brought thee up my dwelling as my child. I did never beat or chide thee; I caressed thee in the proudest manner. God preserve thee, my beloved! thou art beautiful, thou art sweet, thou art lovely! God defend thee from envious eyes.'

An Arab chief who lived near Bussorah had a favourite breed of horses. He lost one of his best mares, and could not for a long while discover whether she was stolen or had strayed. Some time after a young man of a different tribe, who had long wished to marry his daughter, but had always been rejected by the chief, obtained the lady's consent, and eloped with her. The chief and his followers pursued, but the lover and his mistress, mounted on one horse, made a wonderful march and escaped. The old chief swore that the fellow was either mounted upon the devil, or the favourite mare he had lost. After his return he found the latter was the case; that the lover was the thief of his mare as well as of his daughter, and that he stole the one to carry off the other. The chief was quite gratified to think he had not been beaten by a mare of another breed, and was easily reconciled to the young man in

order that he might recover the mare, which appeared an object about which he was more solicitous than about his daughter.

Our horses would fare badly on the scanty nourishment afforded the Arabian. The mare usually has but one or two meals in twenty-four hours. During the day she is tied to the door of the tent, ready for the Bedouin to spring, at a moment's warning, into the saddle, or she is turned out before the tent, ready saddled, the bridle merely taken off, and so trained that she gallops up immediately at her master's call. At night she receives a little water; and with her scanty provender of five or six pounds of barley or beans, and sometimes a little straw, she lies down content, in the midst of her master's family. She can, however, endure great fatigue; she will travel fifty miles without stopping; she has been pushed, on emergency, one hundred and twenty miles; and occasionally, neither she nor her rider has tasted food for three whole days.

To the 'Arabian, principally, England is indebted to her now unrivalled breed of horses for the turf, the field, and the road.

VILLAGE PLAYACTORS.

(SHAKESPEARE.)

(In a room in a cottage are Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, Quince, and Starveling.)

Quince. Is all our company here?

Bottom. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.

Quince. Here is the scroll of every man's name which is thought fit, throughout all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke and Duchess, on his wedding-day at night.

Bottom. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.

Quince. Marry, our play is-The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.

Bottom. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll: masters, spread yourselves.

Quince. Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom,

the weaver.

Bottom. Ready: name what part I am for, and proceed.

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