THE ARABIAN HORSE. 165

returning with their plunder, when some horsemen belonging
to the Pasha of Acre surrounded them, killed several, and
bound the rest with cords. Among the latter was the chief
Abou el Marek, who was carried to Acre, and, bound hand
and foot, laid at the entrance of their tent during the night.
Kept awake by the pain of his wounds he heard his horse,
who was picketed at a distance from him, neigh. Wishing
to caress him, perhaps for the last time, he dragged himself
up to him, and said, ‘Poor friend! what will you do among
the Turks? You will be shut up under the roof of a khan,
with the horses of a Pasha or an Aga. No longer will the
women and children of the tent bring you barley, camel’s
milk, or dhourra, in the hollow of their hands; no longer
will you gallop free as the wind in the desert; no longer will
you cleave the waters with your breast, and lave your sides,
as pure as the foam from your lips. If I am to bea slave,
at least you may go free. Return to our tent, tell my wife
that Abou el Marek will return no more; but put your head
still into the folds of the tent, and lick the hands of my
beloved children.’ With these words, as his hands were
tied, the chief with his teeth undid the fetters which held
the courser bound, and set him at liberty; but the noble
animal, on recovering his freedom, instead of galloping away
to the desert, bent his head over his master, and seeing him
in fetters and on the ground, took his clothes gently between
his teeth, lifted him up, and set off at full speed towards
home. Without resting he made straight for the distant
but well-known tent in the mountains of Arabia. He arrived
there in safety, laid his master down at the feet of his wife
and children, and immediately dropped down dead with
fatigue. The whole tribe mourmed him, the poets celebrated
his fidelity, and his name is still constantly in the mouths
of the Arabs of Jericho.”

For the sake of the beautiful moral it contains the follow-
ing story is well worth adding. In the tribe of Negde there