310 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

morning, as we were riding towards the palace, a man cried out : " May God prolong your days, 0 Consul ! and the days of the strange lord, — for you make a grand show with your horses, every day ! " There was one of our rides which I never call to mind without a leap of the heart. The noble red stallion which I usually mounted had not forgotten the plains of Dar-Fur, where he was bred, and whenever we came upon the boundless level extending southward from the town, his wild blood was aroused.

He pricked up his ears, neighed as grandly as the war-horse of Job, champed furiously against the restraining bit, and ever and anon cast a glance of his large, brilliant eye backward at me, half in wonder, half in scorn, that I did not feel the same desire. The truth is, I was tingling from head to foot with equal excitement, but Dr. Reitz was a thorough Englishman in his passion for trotting, and was vexed whenever I rode at any other pace. Once, however, the sky was so blue, the morning air so cool and fresh, and the blood so lively in my veins, that I answered the fierce questioning of Sultan's eye with an involuntary shout, pressed my knees against his sides and gave him the rein. 0 Mercury, what a rush followed ! We cut the air like the whizzing shaft from a Saracen crossbow ; Sultan stretched out until his powerful neck was almost on a level with his back, and the glorious rhythm of his hoofs was accompanied by so little sense of effort, that it seemed but the throbbing of his heart, keeping time with my own. His course was as straight as a sunbeam, swerving not a hair's-breadth to the right or left, but forward; forward into the freedom of the Desert. Neck and neck with him careered the Consul's milkwhite stallion, and I was so lost in the divine excitement of