20 England's houses, 



upon a mule, or the camel El Karwa, whose name has come 

 down to us by the direct track of history, whereas the names of 

 the mares exist but in Arabian tradition. 



Abd-el-Kader, according to Admiral Kous's statement (but it 

 is not mentioned in his report to Greneral Daumas), says — "The 

 great event which filled Arabia with Arab horses was the inva- 

 sion of Sidi Okba." Now, Sidi Okba (as Abd-el-Kader calls him) is 

 the Achbah Ibn Nafe el Fehri of history, and he, we know, was 

 despatched by the Caliph Moawiyah (the sixth successor of 

 Mahomet) from Damascus with 10,000 horse to follow up the 

 conquest of Africa begun by Abd-allah Ibn Satid. He therefore 

 took with him twice as many horses as the whole census of the 

 Nedjed amounted to in 1862. Moreover, he started from 

 Damascus, which lies at the head of Mesopotamia, the district 

 where Burckhardt assures us the tribes most rich in horses (and 

 these not true Arabs, but Arab cock-tails as we may call them) 

 are to be found. It was not thoroughbred Arabs, then, but 

 Mesopotamians, Persians, Syrians, and cock-tails of all sorts 

 that finished by pushing their invasion as far as Zab—i.e., 

 Algeria, or ancient Numidia. Moreover, Sidi Okba came to 

 signal grief, for he was eventually utterly discomfited and slain 

 by Aben Cahina, a native Kabaile chief, near a place called 

 Jehuda, when his whole army was destroyed, and what belonged 

 to them confiscated for the benefit of the conquerors. 



Are we to suppose, then, that this was the chosen moment, 

 when everything was confusion, for establishing the pure Ara- 

 bian breed in North Africa, keeping up the niceties of its breed- 

 ing, and dating from that special departure the moment from 

 which the native horse of Numidia (the Barb) lost his individu- 

 ality, and became one and the same with the Arab ? It requires 

 no special scepticism to answer " No ! " 



But Abd-el-Kader, in his report to General Daumas says, 

 further, "that there were invasions of Africa by certain Arab 

 tribes before the birth of Islamism," and hints " that they 

 then brought Arab horses with them, which gives an earlier 

 claim to the Barb to be considered of pure Arabian blood." 



