Arabian horses are so docile, so attentive to their master.s moods, and so brave, so goes the story, because they were raised, in ancient times, as members of the Beduin family. For the first hundred days of their lives, they were fed on camel.s milk. For the next hundred days, they were permitted a few handfuls of wheat, which were mixed in with the milk. After that period had elapsed, the horse was then permitted to graze in the soft grasses near the master's tent. The horses ate barley and drank camel.s milk in the evenings, like the other members of the family. In this way, over time, the animal became so domesticated, so nearly civilized, that it acquired characteristics people value in their sons, like loyalty, thoughtfulness, and steadfastness. Also.and this is a rare characteristic in an animal.the wish to please.

Stories of reciprocation, of human love for the Arabian horse, are many. Here is one: Major Dixon Denham, an explorer and officer in the British army, traveled from Tripoli, Libya across the Sahara desert in the winter of 1823. Somewhere south of the equator his horse, an Arabian, died. Upon which event, Major Denham, it seems, nearly fell apart. British officers do fall apart from time to time, but rarely over sentiment. Here, however, is what Major Denham wrote:

"There are a few situations in a man?s life in which losses of this nature are felt most keenly; and this was one of them. It was not grief, but it was something very nearly approaching to it; and though I felt ashamed of the degrees of derangement I suffered from, yet it was several days before I could get over the loss. Let it, however, be remembered, that the poor animal had been my support and comfort, -- nay, I may say, companion, through many a dreary day and night; -- had endured both hunger and thirst in my service; and was so dicile (sic), that he would stand still for hours in the desert while I slept between his legs, his body affording the only shelter that could be obtained from the powerful influence of the noonday sun; he was yet the fleetest of the fleet, and ever foremost in the chase."

It's not an unusual story. People love their Arabians, sometimes unreasonably. Today in Yemen, stories of the bonds that develop between horse and man, man and horse, are common. One of the most successful riders in Sana.a, says that on greeting his horses in the morning, he offers them handfuls of raisins and almonds. Why? They need love from him, he says.

The Arabian, as people in this part of the world know, is the oldest pure bread horse. It was bread before there was such a thing as breeding. Legend has it that Noah.s great, great grandson, Baz, domesticated the first Arabian in 3000 BC, 400 years before the first pyramid. Probably this happened not far from Marib--the only extant city of any consequence at the time.

Because of the relative isolation of Yemen, the Arabian didn't have much of a chance to dilute its bloodstream. The horse you see today is much like the horse of 2000 years ago. It is a fast, fearless, obedient animal with hooves that withstand the punishment of rocky deserts. When the expansion of Islam brought the Arabian to Spain, the horse was suddenly an extraordinary weapon, the engine behind the conquest of half of Europe.

Painters, particularly romantic painters, love Arabians. They make brilliant, arresting symbols. This is an animal that tends to have large, shining eyes. They roll like enormous marbles; but the Arabian can also blink like a girl. The ears of the Arabian are small and delicately curved. He tends to have immense nostrils, the better to take in oxygen at full gallop. He also has enormous, rippling, velvet muscles. So the horse can serve nicely, according to the wishes of the painter, as emblems of repressed fury, of grace, of power, and of sheer, straining masculinity. The Arabian.s fearlessness and loyalty have made him the military horse par excellence; he was used in battle, in real life, by Napoleon, Alexander the Great, George Washington, Genghis Khan, and Khalid bin al-Walid, Saif bin Zithyazin.

Only in Yemen, however, can the horse be linked, intimately and truly, to the character of the people. There.s an obvious reason for this. The original desert breeders of the Arabian, having taken the wild beasts into their families, passed on a way of life. It was familial, disciplined, courageous, stark sometimes, loving at other times, and always invincibly loyal. This is the way of life in Yemen. This is how families have lived for centuries here. Indeed, Yemen is one of the few nations on earth in which such ancient familial structures are still utterly normal--adi. This way of life is simply part of the climate and the genes of al-Yemen; it.s the human geography of here. It.s also, by the way, in the language (think of the centrality of the words "mother" and "father" and "brother" in Arabic) and it.s everywhere in the religion. For these reasons, the Arabian is a fitting symbol of the nation of Yemen. And for these reasons, we, the editors, have chosen an especially noble one for the cover of Arabia Felix.