264 BedoiUn Tribes of the Euphrates, [en. xxvm. 



the animals are nearly always gentle and without 

 vice. I have never seen either violent plunging, 

 rearing, or indeed any serious attempt made to 

 throw the rider. Whether the Bedouin would be 

 able to sit a bare-backed unbroken four-year old 

 colt, as the gauchos of South America do, is ex- 

 ceedingly doubtful. 



The Bedouin has none of the arts of the horse- 

 dealer. He knows little of showing off a horse, 

 or even of making him stand to advantage, but, 

 however anxious he may be to sell him, brings him 

 just as he is, dirty and ragged, tired, and perhaps 

 broken-kneed. He has a supreme contempt himself 

 for everything except blood in his beast, and he 

 expects everybody else to have the same. He 

 knows nothing of the simple art of telling a horse's 

 age by the teeth, and still less of any dealer's trick 

 in the way of false marking. This comes from the 

 fact that in the tribe, each colt's age is a matter of 

 public notoriety. We avoided, as much as possible, 

 having direct commercial dealings with our friends 

 in the desert, but, from all we heard and the little 

 we saw of such transactions, it is evidently very 

 difficult to strike a satisfactory bargain. As soon as 

 one price is fixed, another is substituted ; and, unless 

 the intending purchaser rides resolutely away, there 

 is no chance of the l)argain being really concluded. 

 Once done, however, and the money counted and 

 re-counted by half a dozen disinterested friends, the 

 horse or mare may be led away. I do not think 



