2 54 Bedouin Tribes of the Enphr cites, [ru. xxvm. 



pered, even violent. Black is a rare colour, and I 

 never saw in tlie desert a black mare which I 

 fancied. In choosing- Arabians I should take none 



o 



but bays, and if possible bays with black points. 



It must not be supposed that there are many first- 

 <;lass marcs among the Bedouins. During all our 

 travels Vv'e saw but one which answered to the ideal 

 we had formed, an Abeyeh Sherrak of the Gomussa. 

 Nor were there many which approached her. 

 Among the Shammar we saw only two first-class 

 mares, among the Feddan perhaps half a dozen, 

 and among the Eoala, once the leading trijje in 

 horse-breeding, none. The Gomussa alone, of all 

 the Anazeh, have any large number of really line 

 mares. We had an excellent opportunity of judg- 

 ingf, for we were with the Gomussa when ho-htino; 

 was going on, and when every man among them 

 •\vas mounted on his mare. I do not consider that 

 we saw more than twenty ^' fok el aali," or, to 

 translate it literally, "tip- top" mares, nor more 

 than fifty which we should have cared to possess. 

 I doubt if there are two hundred really first-class 

 mares in the whole of Northern Arabia. By this I 

 of course do not mean first-class in point of blood, 

 for animals of the purest strains are still fairly 

 numerous, but first-class in quality and appearance 

 as well as blood. 



I cannot help suspecting that a certain amount 

 of deterioration has taken place within the last 

 fifty, perhaps the last twenty years. There is no 



