HORSES OF ANCIENT ARABIA 191 



the thirteenth century the horses of the Nejd 

 were esteemed sure-footed, those of the Yemen 

 strong and serviceable, those of Hejaz most noble 

 (all Arabian) ; and that the horses of Europe were 

 generally despised as having too much body and 

 too little spirit. This contempt is certainly justified 

 by the article in Knowledge, which shows that the 

 Western horse arose from the ' hog-maned breed,' 

 a totally different stock from the Arab. Whether 

 Gibbon be entirely right or not, the article in Know- 

 ledge demonstrates the characteristic purity of the 

 Arab for nearly forty centuries. 



But there is more positive proof — if anything can 

 be proved in respect of these ancient monarchies. 

 In ' Stones Crying Out ' reference is made to a rare 

 tract by Schultens, ' Monumenta Historia Arable,' 

 which refers to engraved marbles, near Aden. On 

 reference to these marbles it was found that there 

 were mentioned ' two most wonderful ancient poems,' 

 discovered by Abderrahman, Viceroy of Yemen, so 

 long ago as 660-670 — ' discovered ' over 1,200 years 

 ago. Schultens had taken his information from an 

 earlier writer, and the Arabs of the seventh century 

 ascribed the poems to their heroic age, which may 

 be possibly about the time of Job, very possibly 

 earlier. One of the lines of one of these most 

 ancient poems runs : ' Proud champions of our 

 families and our wives, fighting valiantly upon 

 coursers with long necks dun-coloured, iron gray, 

 and bright bay.' 



