IVahabke Horses. 



21 



and the full rounded haunch ; though every other part too has a perfection and a harmony 

 unwitnessed, at least by my eyes, anywhere else. 



" Unnecessary to say that I had often met, and after a fashion studied, horses throughout 

 this journey ; but I purposely deferred saying much about them till this occasion. At Hazel, 

 and in Djebel Shomer, I found very good examples of what is' commonly called the Arab 

 horse, a fine breed, and from among which purchases are made every now and then by Euro- 

 peans'—princes, peers, and commoners— often at astounding prices. These are for the most 

 part the produce of a mare from Djebel Shomer or its neighbourhood and a Nejdean stallion, 

 sometimes the reverse, but never, it would seem— although here I am, of course, open to correction 



DERVISH, AiN ARABIAN HOUSE. 



by the logic of facts— through Nejdee on both sides. With all their excellences, these horses are 

 less systematically elegant, nor do I remember having ever seen one among them free from some 

 one weak point— perhaps a little heaviness in the shoulder, perhaps a slight falling off m the 

 rump, perhaps a shelly or a contracted hoof or too small an eye. Their height, also, is 

 much more varied ; some of them attain sixteen hands, others are down to fourteen. Every 

 one knows the customary division of their pedigrees— Manakee, Siklamee, Hamdanee, Tarypee, 

 and so forth; I myself made a list of these names during a residence, some years previous, 

 among the Sebaa and Ruala Bedouins, nor did I find any difterence worth noting between 

 what was then told me and the accounts usually given' by travellers and authors on this topic; 

 nor did the Bedouins fail to recite their oft-repeated legends about Salaman's stables &c..; 

 but I am inclined to consider the greater part of these very pedigrees, and still more the 



