Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 209 



Bedouin Arab must gradually have formed his breed of horses 

 in accordance with the sure decree boni et fortes bonis etfortibus 

 creantur" and urges that "if special and exclusive breeding 

 directed to a certain object explain our English race-horse, 

 there is no need to go further for the secret of the Arab's foray- 

 mare 1 ." But this view is confronted with the fatal objection 

 that the Bedouins, as has been fully shown by Mr Blunt 2 and 

 by Major-General Tweedie 3 himself, are ignorant to this day of 

 the very first principles of horse-breeding and horse-management. 

 Furthermore, Tweedie is careful not to tell us from what 

 primeval stock the Arabs artificially developed the Kohl breed, 

 since he points out that the common belief " that the Semitic 

 peoples as a whole were indebted for the horse to the Iranian 

 upland, which comprises Persia, is only a conjecture 4 ." 



But these are not the only difficulties that beset Tweedie's 

 view (which was also that of Darwin). Let us grant for the 

 moment that the Arab horse is simply an artificial product. 

 As the Arabs did not begin to breed horses until some time 

 between the first and sixth centuries of our era, no horses of 

 the Arab type, such as either the bay Anazah horses, or the 

 " sons of horses," can have existed in Syria and Palestine in the 

 first seven centuries after Christ. Yet this conclusion seems 

 directly contradicted by the actual facts, for it seems highly 

 probable that in the first century of our era Palestine possessed 

 various kinds of horses very like those known there and in 

 Arabia at the present moment, though not of so fine a quality. 



In the Apocalypse when the Lamb opened one of the seals, 

 and one of the four beasts cried " Come and see," the writer of the 

 splendid vision " saw and beheld a white (Xef KOS) horse : and he 

 that sat on him had a bow : and a crown was given unto him : 

 and he went forth conquering and to conquer. And there went 

 out another horse, that was red (TTU/O/OO?), and power was 

 given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and 

 that they should kill one another : and there was given unto 

 him a great sword. And when he had opened the third seal, 



1 Op. cit., p. 241. 



2 The Bedouin Tribes, Vol. n. p. 258; cf. Pilgrimage to Nejd, Vol. i. p. 225. 



3 Op. cit., p. 22. 4 Op. cit., p. 239. 



R. H. 14 



