HORSES OF ANCIENT ARABIA 179 



Why should not the Arabs have had horses before 

 Christ ? 



The Arabs and the Hebrews were of near 

 kindred, alike descendants of Abraham, and lived 

 close together. Scores of the names of places and 

 men, and of the incidents in the Old Testament, refer 

 more or less to Arabia and the Arabs. 



Abraham has been called an Arabian Sheikh — in 

 fact, DisrEieli so spoke of him — and Moses has been 

 said to have been an Arabian and a king of men 

 amongst the Arabian races. Edom, Nebaioth, 

 Sheba, Hazarmareth, were in Arabia or parts of 

 Arabia, and possibly Ophir. If Ophir were not in 

 Arabia, it was probably part of Africa peopled by 

 Arabians. In the time of St. Paul Damascus 

 belonged to the kingdom of Northern Arabia. The 

 Ishmaelites were xArabs, or more or less Arabs. So 

 I think were the Midianites, the Amalekites, and 

 many other of the tribes or nations mentioned in 

 Scripture. 



Disraeli wrote of the children of Israel as an 

 Arabian tribe, and said that the Arabs were only 

 Jews upon horseback, which, however, would be a 

 displeasing sentiment to Sidi Mohammed in Morocco, 

 w^ho recently told a French author that the Arab 

 horse was too noble an animal to bear so despicable 

 a burden as a Jew. 



The Hon. Lieutenant Walpole's book entitled 

 ' The Ansaryrii and the Assassins ' gives from the 

 Book of Jasher, mentioned in Scripture, an account 



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