Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 213 



was of Egyptian origin^ is of great importance, as it at least 

 indicates that the Arabs at that date obtained their best 

 horses from Egypt. 



The myths respecting the origin of the Kohl breed point in 

 the same direction. We have already seen that one legend 

 derives it from five mares of King Solomon, whilst another 

 alleges that when Ishmael was deploring the barrenness of his 

 heritage — the Arabian desert — it was declared to him that the 

 greatest gift to man was reserved for him, and accordingly he 

 met and captured the Kohl horse in the Hijaz^. But as the 

 Hijaz is the strip of land on the Red Sea through which the 

 full tide of commerce between Arabia and Egypt flowed in 

 the time of Strabo (in whose day there were no horses in 

 Arabia) and for centuries later, and as we have direct evidence 

 for the export of horses from Egypt to Arabia, this myth itself 

 seems to recognise Egypt as the source of the Kohl breed. 



The acquisition of horses by the Arabs in the centuries 

 immediately preceding the birth of Muhammad was one of the 

 most momentous events in the history of the world. In the 

 long ages before the coming of the Prophet the Arab tribes 

 had played no leading part in the struggles for the mastery 

 of western Asia and Egypt, in which the Babylonian, Egyptian, 

 Assyrian, Mede, Persian, Macedonian, and Roman, had each in 

 his turn come forth victorious, though only to be vanquished 

 in due course by some fresh claimant. Though the Arab could 

 defy any enemy rash enough to invade the waterless, sand- 

 swept deserts, as is proved by the disastrous attempt of Aelius 

 Gallus, the Roman general, to conquer Arabia Felix, yet so 

 long as the Arabs fought only on foot or from the backs of 

 camels they never were a real source of danger to neighbouring 

 lands. All the fervour and fanaticism of the Prophet would 

 have been of little avail, and Islam might never have affected 

 the world as it has done, had it not been that in the period 

 immediately before the birth of Muhammad, their leading men 

 had obtained horses, were engaged in breeding these animals, 

 and had become skilful horsemen. The Prophet himself clearly 



^ Tweedie, op. cit., p. 289. - Upton, Gleanings, etc., p. 



293. 



