240 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



trimming their beards, by wearing golden ornaments, cleaning 

 their teeth, and by paring their nails ; and you would rarely see 

 them touch one another as they walk, lest they should disturb 

 the arrangement of their hair." "They fight for the most part 

 on horseback with the javelin, and ride on the bare back of 

 the horse with bridles made of rushes. They have also swords. 

 The foot-soldiers present against the enemy, as shields, the 

 skins of elephants. They wear the skins of lions, panthers, and 

 bears, and sleep in them. These tribes and the Masaesylians 

 next to them, and for the most part the Libyans in general, 

 wear the same dress and arms, and resemble one another in 

 other respects ; they ride horses which are small but spirited, 

 and so docile as to be guided by a switch, and which have 

 neckbands made of wood or of hair, from which hangs a leading 

 rein. Some follow like dogs without being led. The riders 

 carry a small shield of leather, and small lances with broad 

 heads. Their tunics are loose with wide borders ; their cloak 

 is a skin, as I have said before, which serves also as a breast- 

 plate. The Pharusii and the Nigretes, who live above these 

 people, near the western Ethiopians, use bows and arrows like 

 the Ethiopians. They have chariots also armed with scythes. 

 The Pharusii rarely have any intercourse with the Mauritanians 

 in passing through the desert country, as they carry skins filled 

 with water fastened under the bellies of their horses. Some- 

 times indeed they come to Cirta (Constantineh), passing through 

 places abounding with marshes and lakes. Some of them 

 are said to live, like the Troglodytes, in caves dug in the 

 ground." 



The neckbands of the Libyan horses remind us at once 

 of the practice of the Anazah tribes of Arabia, where, in the 

 desert, every horse has a cord tied round its neck to fall about 

 halfway between the head and the shoulders. This is a 

 common cord, " about the thickness of a man's little finger, and 

 fastened in a knot of two turns, and is convenient to take hold 

 of if a horse requires to be caught^" It is not improbable that 

 the Arabs borrowed this practice from the Libyans along with 

 the North African horse. 



1 Upton, Gleanings from the Desert of Arabia, p. 382. 



