CHAPTER XI.

NOTES AND REMARKS.

I BELIEVE most, if not all, genuine Arabs have a very good idea of a horse, and the Badaween of the interior desert have a consummate knowledge and a very just appreciation of a horse's merits, of his external form in general, and of points and sensorial organs in detail, certainly beyond what is known by the general run of people in this country. The names given by the Arabs to different points of the horse, unknown to the townsmen generally, show that they have a knowledge of comparative anatomy. Thus Reshek, a word expressing the metacarpals in man, is used to describe the same in the horse, i.e. from the knee to the fetlock-joints. Again, Akab, the human heel, is the word used to denote the hock, the corresponding joint in the horse, and it is astonishing how few, comparatively speaking, in this country know that the heel in man corresponds with the hock in the horse.

Upon inquiry, and on comparing notes, both on a horse's form (i.e. his physical structure) and on the subject of breeding, and indeed in all matters connected

with horses, we found that they know as much as the best informed among ourselves. Indeed, we might learn from them, or as they quietly say in reply to any remark, “We know all that as well as you can tell us."

This is a fitting opportunity to allude to the supposition that certain marks or small scars on the ears of a horse indicate him to be of a good family and of high blood. Travellers and writers have stated that the ears of the high-bred Arabian foal are stitched together to acquire an habitual pricked position, and Europeans look about for these supposed signs of high breeding. The sign of high breeding in the ear is a naturally beautiful form of the ear, and the position and carriage of the ear unaided by artifice; and I neither saw any such marks among the horses of the Badaween tribes, nor ever heard of any artificial means being resorted to among the Anazah and other Badaween to produce such an effect, which must be natural and normal to be of any value. Thus, these much-vaunted and much-desired marks are rather detrimental than otherwise to the character of a horse, showing rather that such would have no connec tion with the desert of Arabia. Among the Anazah, if the ears of a colt have not quite the typical form and position, they are left as formed by nature. The Badaween never resort to any artifice to hide any defects. They are totally regardless of the opinion of other people. They are not dealers in horses: they do not, as a rule, or very seldom, want to sell; if they do, there is the horse, fault or no faults. Such scars or marks on the ears as are alluded to above are evidence that arti

ficial means have been adopted to endeavour to give to a horse, perhaps even of inferior breed, a fictitious resemblance to that peculiar carriage of the ear which is a general, marked, and subtle feature in the true Arabian horse; and I may say that these peculiar features of the ear are more marked and more general among the horses of the Anazah than horses of any other tribes we saw. In some cases the marks may be altogether shams, merely imitations of such scars as might be made by stitching the ears together. Be this as it may, the practice does not exist among the desert tribes of the interior.

Cutting off the mane and cutting the hair of the tail, so that nothing is left on the dock, in the case of colts and fillies, is a practice common enough among townsmen in Syria and among the Turks; but we never saw any in the desert so treated, nor did we ever hear that such custom existed.

Among the horses of the Anazah and the Badaween generally, no marks are to be found but such as are the result of hard work, wounds, and the cicatrices from the all-curative cautery.

PRICES OF ARABIANS.

On the subject of the prices at which Arabian horses may be purchased, I offer a few remarks. Although I have frequently heard that there was a graduated scale of prices according to the age of the animal, from two to six years of age, ranging from £40

to £60, £70, or £80, if such exist, it is in such districts as Syria and Erack, and principally among people of settled mode of life, more or less; but even here we found that whenever there was a horse of more than usual pretension, or, I may say, of any pretension, far more than the supposed regulated price was asked, if the horse were for sale. And the prices which have been said to have been paid for horses bought in Syria for great personages at £1000 may be quite correct, not improbably for horses that did not come from the desert at all, Great men in such places as Damascus, except under peculiar circumstances, would not part with an Arab horse which, if a genuine animal, they probably had obtained with as much difficulty as any one else from the Badaween; and if a horse were not from the desert. but bred in his own stables, there would be a doubt as to the family of blood. In the hands of townsmen a good Arab horse would always be valued at a high price. I have seen it quoted by the writer of a work on horses that the highest price paid for horses (stated to have been Anazah) was £71 17s. in the neighbourhood of Damascus. I believe, setting aside two horses for which that price had been given, the highest price for others was £50 and the average £34. Now, this is rather startling, and my attention was especially directed to this statement. It is at utter variance with my experience in the desert of true Arabian horses of the Badaween tribes and of the Anazah. But such prices as £50 and £70 are those paid for ordinary horses in Syria, or from local Arabs, which, I believe,

are not of "Al-Khamseh," but may be of the remains of the Arab breed outside of "Al-Khamseh ;" and I cannot help thinking that the horses for which such prices were paid as alluded to in the quotation were of this kind; the context, or what is also quoted a little before, almost proves that such was the case. Alluding to the same subject, it is stated that "The Anazah inflict a temporary disfigurement upon their young horses, by cropping the hair of the tail quite short." Now, this custom is quite common in Syria and among townsmen, but is never practised by the Anazah of the interior desert, nor, as far as we saw and heard, by any tribes of Badaween of the desert. Among the Anazah we saw horses of all ages, from early foalhood up to mature age, and never saw one with a cropped or shaven tail, but among townsmen in Syria we saw many so treated. Again, describing these horses, it is stated, "The common colour of all is a dark uniform nutmeg grey." Among the Anazah, as I have stated, we thought bay was the most usual colour.

It is very evident that the horses described in the quotation are not of the same class as those described and seen by us among the Anazah.

But there is still another quotation to be noticed, which is very important. Just before the statement that the highest prices paid for horses were £71 17s., and just over £50, it is stated that "£100 was offered for a horse." The owner, "a breechless savage, in a sort of dirty night-shirt, rode away in wrath, and we never saw him again."