166 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE.

was a mare of great reputation for beauty and swiftness,
which a member of another tribe named Daber desired to
possess. Having failed to obtain her by offering all he was
worth, he sought to effect his object by stratagem. Disguised
as a lame beggar he waited by a roadside, knowing that
Nabee, the owner of the horse, would shortly pass that way.
As soon as Nabee appeared, Daber cried out to him, begging
assistance and pretending to be too weak to rise. Nabee
thereupon dismounted from the mare, and helped the beggar
to mount her. The moment he was mounted Daber declared
himself and made off. Nabee called to him to stop, and on
his turning round said to him, “Thou hast my mare, since
it pleased God I wish you success but I conjure thee tell no
one how thou hast come by her.” “Why not?” said Daber.
“Lest others should refrain from charity because I have been
duped,” said Nabee, whereupon Daber dismounted and
returned the mare.
The Domestic The Horse has only to be known to be loved,
Horse. and has only to be loved to become the most
tractable, patient, and useful of animals. “In the domestic
horse,” says Colonel Smith, “we behold an animal equally
strong and beautiful, endowed with great docility and no less
fire; with size and endurance joined to sobriety, speed, and
patience; clean, companionable, emulous, even generous; for-
bearing, yet impetuous; with faculties susceptible of very
considerable education, and perceptions which catch the
spirit of man’s intentions, lending his powers with the utmost
readiness, and restraining them with as ready a compliance:
saddled or in harness, labouring willingly, enjoying the sports
of the field and exulting in the tumult of the battle; used
by mankind in the most laudable and necessary operations,
and often the unconscious instrument of the most sanguinary
passions; applauded, cherished, then neglected, and ultimately
abandoned to the authority of bipeds who often show little
superiority of reason and much less of temper.” “One who,