Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 161 



blacks prevail in the vulgar stock of the pastoral and agri- 

 cultural Kurds round Kar-kuk and Mosul." 



Advancing westwards from Persia, it is in the region of 

 I'rak, the ancient Babylonia, on the eastern side of the Tigris, 

 that we first meet with Arabs and Arab horses, the capitals 

 of this district being Bagdad and Bussorah ; next in the region 

 between the Tigris and the Euphrates — the ancient Mesopo- 

 tamia — we meet the great Shammar tribes ; then crossing the 

 Euphrates into the region called Shamiya by the Arabs, the 

 Palmyrene or Syrian desert by Europeans, we reach the powerful 

 Anazah tribes, the great hereditary enemies of the Shammar. 

 Both these tribes have migrated into their present territories from 

 central Arabia, probably owing to lack of food at home. There 

 seems to be no doubt that the Anazah, who are said by Lady 

 Anne Blunt to be to the Shammar as 7 to 3, were the first 

 to migrate from Najd. This great nation, composed of many 

 of the wealthiest and most powerful tribes in the peninsula, 

 at an early time became masters of a great part of central 

 Arabia, acquired the rights of pasture throughout all Najd, 

 and possessed the palm-trees in certain districts and many of 

 the most important wells. At the present moment the breeding 

 of the best horses seems practically confined to the two great 

 rival nations, but by common consent of both Bedouins and 

 Europeans the Anazah have the best horses. 



We must, before proceeding further, define what is meant 

 by an Arabian horse, and it will then be clear that the true 

 Arab horses form but a small proportion of those bred and 

 used even in Arabia itself, and of those exported as ' Arabs ' 

 to India, Syria, Egypt, and Constantinople. Writers on the 

 history of the horse have long since recognised three kinds 

 of horses in Arabia. Youatt, for example, states that there 

 are "three breeds or varieties of Arabian horses: the Atteschi, 

 or inferior breed, on which the natives set little value, and 

 which are found wild in some parts of the desert ; the Kadischi, 

 literally horses of an unknown race, answering to our half- 

 bred horses — a mixed breed ; and the Kochlani, horses whose 

 genealogy, according to the modern exaggerated accounts, has 

 been cultivated during two thousand years. Many written 

 R. H. 11 



