168 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



race is never covered unless in the presence of witnesses, who 

 must be Arabians. This people do not indeed always stickle 

 at perjury; but in a case of such serious importance they are 

 careful to deal conscientiously. There is no instance of false 

 testimony given in respect to the descent of a horse. Every 

 Arabian is persuaded that himself and his whole family would 

 be ruined if he should prevaricate in giving his oath in an 

 affair of such consequence. The Arabians make no scruple 

 of selling their Kochlani stallions like other horses ; but they 

 are unwilling to part with their mares for money. When not 

 in a condition to support them, they dispose of them to others 

 on the terms of having a share in the foals, or of being at 

 liberty to recover them after a certain time 1 ." 



"These Kochlani are much like the old Arabian nobility, 

 the dignity of whose birth is held in no estimation unless in 

 their own country. These horses are little valued by the 

 Turks. Their country being more fertile, better watered, and 

 less level, swift horses are less necessary to them than to the 

 Arabians. They prefer large horses, who have a stately appear- 

 ance when sumptuously harnessed. It should seem that there 

 are also Kochlani in Hedsjas, and in the country of Dsjof ; but 

 I doubt if they be in estimation in the domains of the Imam, 

 where the horses of men of rank appear to me too handsome 

 to be Kochlani. The English, however, sometimes purchase 

 these horses at the price of 800 or 1000 crowns each. An 

 English merchant was offered at Bengal twice the purchase- 

 money for one of these horses ; but he sent him to England, 

 where he hoped that he would draw four times the original 

 price." . 



As Mr Blunt 2 well points out, Niebuhr was a Dane, and 

 his ideal of a horse was formed on the heavy Danish and 

 German horses (not Flanders, as Mr Blunt says) of his own 

 time and country, the origin of which we shall trace upon a 

 later page (p. 334, cf. Figs. 93, 98). 



1 Niebuhr, loc. cit. Blunt, op. cit., Vol. n. pp. 267-8. Tweedie (op. cit. p. 231) 

 says that "the Arab will sell a leg of his mare, that is a certain share in her 

 produce, to a neighbour." 



2 Op. cit. Vol. n. p. 267. .'.:-Vi. - 



