Note 144 — ARMS

“In mediæval Spain, good riders were often designated as ‘Ginete en ambas sillas,’ that is, accustomed to either saddle, i.e. the Moorish and the Christian, and I now understand why chroniclers have taken the trouble to record the fact. Strangely enough, the high-peaked and short-stirruped saddle does not cross the Nile, the Arabs of Arabia riding rather flat saddles with an ordinary length of leg. The Arab saddle of Morocco, in itself, is perhaps the worst that man has yet designed; but, curiously enough, from it was made the Mexican saddle, perhaps the most useful for all kinds of horses and of countries that the world has seen.” Cunninghame Graham: Mogreb-El-Acksa, p. 66. The same writer naïvely adds the following footnote to the words Ginete en ambas sillas. “This phrase often occurs in Spanish chronicles, after a long description of a man's virtues, his charity, love of the church, and kindness to the poor, and it is apparently inserted as at least as important a statement as any of the others. In point of fact, chronicles being written for posterity, it is the most important.”