Bedouix Horse Dealers. 



17 



you inexorable, agrees for the same sum. Again you want to mark the horse ; and now he 

 raises a dreadful outcry to be paid first. You consent, and call him into the tent. In he 

 comes, attended by one or two friends and counsellors, sages supposed to be learned in Frank 

 coins, and wide-awake to the ring of a bad piece. All solemnly squat on the ground, and 

 you proceed to count out the gold. 



" The hufifiness exhibited by Bedouins in their horse-dealing transactions, in a great measure 

 the outburst of an insolent, overbearing nature, is seldom able to stand its ground permanently 

 against the greater strength of their passion for money. Of a hundred Bedouins that ride off in 

 a fury as resolved never to set eyes on you again, ninety-nine will come back again. Perhaps 



THE Mameluke's charger. 



the hundredth will not. A Bedouin brought a horse of extraordinary size for an Arab into the camp. 

 I did not much admire the animal, but a sum equal to ^100 was offered for him. The owner, 

 a breechless savage, in a sort of dirty night-shirt, rode away in wrath, and we never saw him again. 

 " The sum total of horses bought by us in the desert was one hundred. Of these seventy- 

 two were Anazeh, from the Wulad AH and the Rowallas ; the remainder from the tribes of Serhan 

 and Beni Sakhr, and from men of doubtful tribe. The following statements refer to the Anazeh 

 alone. The highest price paid was .^71 17s. This was given for each of two horses bought by 

 private hand, of which one was the finest that I saw in the desert. Putting these aside, the highest 

 price was a little more than ^^50, and the average price about ^^34. The average height was 14 

 hands \\ inclies, and the commonest age four and five years; but this would be an over-estimate both 

 of the height and age of the mass of Anazeh horses offered for sale, as we selected the biggest and 



