en. xxviii.] Pedigree of the Arabian Horse. 265 



the Bedouins have in j^eneral much personal love 

 for their mares, only a great deal of pride in them, 

 and a full sense of their value. 



As I have already said, they will not tell a false- 

 hood in respect of the breeding of their animals, a 

 habit partly due to the honour in which all things 

 connected with horseflesh are held, partly, too, no 

 doubt, to the public notoriety of the breed or breeds 

 in each family, which would at once expose the 

 falsehood; and public opinion is severe on this 

 head. 



Having premised thus much of the general 

 characteristics of the thoroughbred Arabian, 1 will 

 now explain what I have been able to discover of 

 his pedigree. 



PEDIGREE OF THE ARABIAN HORSE. 



Tradition states that the first horse-tamer was 

 Ismail-ibn-Ibrahim, or Ishmael, wdio, after he Avas 

 turned out of his father's tents, captured a mare 

 from among a herd which he found running wild, 

 ''mini tmhash'' (like the wild ass). The Emir 

 Abd-el-Kader, in confirming this stor}^, told me 

 that the children of Ishmael had a mare from this 

 principal stock which grew up crooked, for she had 

 been foaled on a journey and, being unable to 

 travel, had been sewn into a hhourj, or goat's-hair 

 sack, and placed upon a camel. From her descended 

 a special strain of blood, known as the Benat-el- 

 Ahivaj, or " daughters of the crooked," and tliis 



