1 6 TfiE Book of the Hokse. 



is not peculiar to old horses. Next in frequency to grey comes bay and chestnut, both fine 

 and rich in quahty, the latter so prized that Arabs have a saying that if you hear of a horse 

 performing some remarkable feat, you will be sure, on inquiring, to find that he is a chestnut. 

 In my register of horses bought from the Anazch, I find one black, a colour so rare that if I 

 had merely trusted to my recollection I should have said I never saw a black horse in the 

 desert. I saw no other colours except a skewbald, and cannot say whether he was an Anazeh, 

 or belonging to some of the tribes where the purity of the breed can less be depended on. 



"Besides the Arabs, in our neighbourhood were found the wandering Turcomans, a nomadic 

 people, whose forefathers came into Syria to help to resist the Crusaders ; and to this day 

 they speak not Arabic but Turkish. They possess camels, goats, cattle, and horses. The 

 latter brutes, not taller than Arabs, are heavy and clumsy, with coarse heads, very drooping 

 hind-quarters, legs long below the knee, and draggled, ill-carried tails. They are almost 

 all geldings, shy, obstinate, and vicious ; the mares are better-looking, but coarse and Flemish. 

 *********** 



" Our encampment soon assumed the appearance of a horse fair. In the background were 

 the snow-streaked mountains of the Druses; to our front a grassy plain, dotted with flocks and 

 herds; coming over a distant ridge a party of the monkey-like Anazehs, their long spears over 

 their shoulders, their high-bred horses at a walk ; near at hand a group of Turcomans, dis- 

 tinguished by greater size and less dirty clothing, held ugly mares and uglier geldings, 

 accoutred with gaudily-coloured worsted head-stall, with mameluke bits, and saddles with high 

 pommel and cantle, and shovel stirrup-irons. 



" All the horses offered to us for sale by the Bedouins were stallions. I do not at this 

 moment remember having seen a gelding in their possession ; and although they frequently 

 rode mares into our camp, they never offered them to us. The last circumstance, I believe, is 

 owing to the estimation in which they hold their mares as a source of national wealth, and to 

 the fact of ' public opinion ' having set itself so strongly against letting the breed fall into 

 other hands by selling them, that no individual ventures to do so. Sentimental or affectionate 

 feeling, I should imagine, is very little concerned in the matter. I never saw the slightest trace 

 of any feeling of dislike on the part of the Arab to parting with his horse, provided the price 

 was good. Once let him see a satisfactory heap of gold, and he turns his beast over to you, 

 and his whole faculties to seeing that you do not cheat him of the tenth part of a piastre on 

 the bargain; and never, in all probability, casts a look on his horse again, unless with the 

 object of instituting a squabble as to whether or not he is to carry off the halter. 



" None of the people of these parts are easy to deal with ; but the Anazch are the most 

 difficult of all. Suppose that you ask the price of a horse. If the owner condescends to put 

 a price upon him, it is about tliree times what he means to take ; frequent!}- he refuses to do 

 it at all, but tells you to make an offer. You do so ; he receives it with contempt, and the 

 word 'Beid' ('Far off), pronounced with a lengthened emphasis, 'Be— I — d,' that sets strongly 

 before you the enormous inadequacy of your proposal. You raise j-our price, and a contention 

 of bargaining ensues, which is terminated by the owner riding off with his horse as if he never 

 meant to come back any more. After a time, greater or less — in an hour or two, to-morrow, 

 or the day after — you find that he has come back. A fresh battle ensues, which (if it is not 

 interrupted by a second riding off) ends in tlie price being fixed. All is settled ; the owner 

 seems quite content; you proceed to mark the horse, when lo! his late master, suddenly stung 

 by the intolerable thought that he has perhaps got less than he possibly might, seizes and 

 drafts off his beast in a fury, mounts, and goes off again. Again he returns, and again, finding 



