Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 247 



mentioned. It will be remembered that Al Khamseh is un- 

 known in North Africa. Yet if the Kohl breed had been 

 developed in Arabia, and had been brought by the Arabs into 

 North Africa at the time of their conquests or at a later period, 

 the fivefold division of their famous breed would have been 

 most religiously preserved by the Arabs in their new homes. 

 On the other hand, if the Kohl breed really originated in 

 North Africa, being merely the ordinary horse of that region, 

 there would have been no reason for dividing it into special 

 families, for it is only when a strain of special quality is intro- 

 duced from elsewhere that people begin to pay attention to 

 pedigrees, as in the case of our own thoroughbreds. If the 

 Arabs derived their Kohl breed from North Africa, there would 

 have been every reason for paying great attention to purity of 

 race and carefully discriminating between different sub-families 

 sprung from a common stock, in some instances crossed with 

 Asiatic horses. 



This is in perfect accord with the statement of Abd-el-Kader 

 that the five families of Al Khamseh are but ramifications of 

 the ancient Ahwaj race, which, though not to be found any- 

 where in Arabia, is said to still exist in the Sahara. The 

 historical evidence therefore is unanimous in pointing to North 

 Africa as the source of the Arabian Kohl breed. 



The Libyans had domesticated horses at a very early period 

 and had learned not only to drive them in pairs under very 

 light chariots, but had also invented the four-horse chariot. 

 Moreover, they soon learned to ride these horses, for if their 

 women habitually did so in the seventh century B.C., we may 

 infer, not unreasonably, that the men had learned to ride at 

 a still earlier period. 



The Libyans who furnished horses and chariots to Xerxes 

 in B.C. 480 must have come from the country bordering on 

 Egypt and were therefore probably the Marmidae. By the 

 time of Christ the chariot had been discarded by all the Libyans 

 with the exception of the Pharusii and the Nigretes who lived 

 south of the Atlas, and who probably only retained them (like 

 the Persian and Seleucid kings) because the chariot when fitted 

 with scythes was still thought to be a valuable engine in war. 



