[The Innocents Abroad Part 5 of 6 by Mark Twain]@TWC D-Link bookThe Innocents Abroad Part 5 of 6 CHAPTER XLV 22/24
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.
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