Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-05-23
Success q Rsssy The Hose Tanner in sAs

| After tour. rof observation among the
Arabs, extending over more than three
months, the king of horse tanners has returned
| to our shores for his last session.. Several
very advantageous offers were made TO him
to lecture in the French provinces, but he had
70 decline them all, and, after four exhibitions
in Paris, he pushed on to Rome and Naples,
and so, by Sicily and Malta, to Alexandria
Beyond the Roman habit of not shoeing the
hind feet Of their horses, his notebook, up to
that point had received q very few entries
but he found himself among more congenial
scenes as he sailed up the Nile toward Cairo,
in the second week Of February. IL was just
the season for turning out the Arab horses to
grass, and there they stood up to their knees
in il with an ever-shifting background Of
camels, donkeys, and buffaloes, on whose back
| three or four dusky urchins might be seen
riding home at night, mile after mile, in bay,
chesnut, and fea-bitteh gray platoons, about
five yards apart, and tethered to stakes by
one fore and both hind legs SO as just to COM
| Cairo his stay was very limited, although he
received a pressing invitation from the
Viceroy of Egypt to visit him at his country
seat, higher up the river, but to gaze on the
high-caste children Of the star" was his
sole mission, and he had no time to linger
He accordingly went on at once with his
party across the Great Desert to the shores of
bub INeu k1edI anu TAXING ltdNC OF MIN IlcTe,
merely stepped aside to see the pyramids as
he retraced his steps to Alexandria. in
Hence he sailed to port near Jaffa, and
reached "the Eternal City," and it was on a
picturesque, grassy knoll, hard by grove of
olives that he gave the Pasha specimen of
his art. His Highness had ordered out for
his inspection four Of his best mares of the
purest Nedgedee caste, and after he had rid
den one, grey (whose antics would have
quite qualified her for ddnseuse among the
sawdust on 'the Surrey side,") he took q
brown horse from the hands of the attendant
eunuch, and with the aid of the "two little
straps" made him follow him everywhere
about the pasture. The grey mare, whose
ragged hips and long neck did not improve
her, was a little over fifteen hands, and so
highly valued by her master that he had re-
fused a thousand pounds for her. ,'Is
Then followed an excursion on the Dead
Sea, which was somewhat spoiled by party
of Bedouins, who descended on the tent and
cooking utensils and showed their disgust
at the absence of nobler plunder by making
the cook stand and deliver his watch, and
maltreating the solitary soldier for turning
saucy in his remonstrance. Mr.. Rarey and
his party were some miles ahead at the time,
but the former profted by the lesson, and left
everything behind in Damascus, down to his
very keys when, merely accompanied by
Major Frazer, of oflion-hunting fame, and an
interpreter, he spent several days in the
desert in search Of horse lore, riding up to
each encampment he could descry, and trust
ing for food and nights lodging to the
sheikhs of the village.
AT Beyrout, on his return, he found the
best Arab horse he had seen on his travels,
among lot of twenty, which some Sandman
officers had got together on a rowing commits
sion from their king. Rhodes and Smyrna
had little to show in this way; but at Con-
stantinople there were several studs (inclu-
ding that of the renowned Omer Pasha
principally saddle horses and nowhere did
Mr.. Rarey find the horse better understood
or more scientifically handled. The Arabs
seemed to fall far short in the latter point Of
what he had anticipated. Their habit of
sharing their tents with the foal from the |
very day it is dropped has given them |
perfect mastery over generation after genera |
ton of horses as they arise; but their critic /
was strongly tempted to doubt whether they
have thought out any system, or could grap-
pie on any fixed principle with a horse that
was new to them. he was more confirmed
on this point by the utter helplessness and
fright they exhibited when the little entire
horse on which he made his last desert tour
became uproarious one morning, and refused |
to let one of them put his bride on. "The
Prophet" was invoked in vain that time, and
there was nothing for it but to send mes
senger for Mr.. Rarey to the tent of the sheikh,
and request him to leave his repast of brown |
bread and wild honey forthwith, and come |
and put matters to rights point of no great |
difficulty when the crowd of agitated turbans |
could be thrust back space. He also |
thought their mode of putting shoes on very |
inartistic; but the shoes themselves seemed |
to conform with more exactness to the struc-
ture of the feet.
Both his views on this point and his gem
eral experiences of desert life will lend not a
little novelty to the lectures which he pur-
poses giving before he returns home to Ohio,
next Fall. We have had "original," !" female
Irish" and Mexican" horse-tamers in the |
field since fashion first set in this direction;
but still Mr.. Rarey holds that vantage
ground which the finest horsemen in the /
world have long since accorded to him, both
for facing savage or ''gentling' nervous
subject into confidence. 1t is idle to the last |
degree to expect that horses will not lapse /
after they have received one lesson from him. |
Clever as he may be, he cannot checkmate
nature by working miracle. The most that
he can do is to indicate the mode of treatment, |
and show how completely it works the de-
sired effect in his own hands; but it is only by |
a constant and patient repetition of it (as in
the cavalry regiments where the most incor-
rigible subjects have been made permanently |
useful by it) that horse IN be taught to shed |
its old vicious habits, and cease to be pest |
both in and out of the stable. .-
CAPRICE or A REAu MApRawnuA AuA