004 



V ERTEBRATA. 



going to yield thee up! To Europeans, who will tie tlu:c close — who will beat thee — who will 

 render thee miserable. Return with me, my beauty, my jewel, and rejoice the hearts of my chil- 

 dren.' As he pronounced the last words he sprang upon her Lack, and was out of sight in a 

 moment.'** 



• Tin- Following wo extracts from a paper on the Arabian Horse, recently addressed by the Emir Abd-cl-Kader to 



ah., bad made inquiries of him, on the part of the French government, in relation to the Arabian 



II 



CREATION OF nil-: HORSE. 



•• Know, then thai it is a thing admitted among us, that God created the horse with the wind, as Adam with the 

 ih. 

 "This is indisputable, and many prophets (health to them!) have proclaimed the following: 



•• When God u ished to create the horse, he said to the south wind, ' I wish to form a creature out of thee — be thou 

 condensed;' and the wind was condensed 



•■ Afterward angi 1 Gabriel, and took a handful of that matter and presented it to God, who formed of it 



a light brown or -.1 1 coloi -", hmmmita 1 red mixed with black), saying: 



•■•I hare called thee hoise ferass), I have created thee an Arab, and I have given thee the color koummita; I 

 have bound fortune upon the mane which falls over thine eyes; thou shalt be the lord of all other animals; men 

 shall follow thee whithersoevei ihoo goest; good for the pursuit as for flight — thou shalt fly without wings; riches 

 U repose in thy loius, and wealth shall be made by thy intercession.'" 



HISTORY OF THE ARABIAN BREED. 



•• Many historians relate that from the time of Adam the horse, as all other animals — the gazelle, the ostrich, the 

 buffalo, and the a>s had lived in a wild state. According to them, the first person that, after Adam, mounted the 

 horse, « is [shmael, the father of the Arabs ; be was the son of our lord Abraham, the beloved of God. God taught 

 him to call the horses, and when he did so they all assembled unto him; he possessed himself of the most beautiful 

 and the most tierce, and he tamed them. 



•■ Hut later, many of these horses tamed and employed by Ishmael lost their purity with time. Only one race was 

 carefully preserved in all its nobleness, bj Solomon the son of David, and it is that which is called zad-el-raheb (the 

 gift of tie' rider), to which all the Arab horses of our epoch owe their origin. 



"It is believed that some Arabs, of the tribe of Azed, went to the noble Jerusalem to congratulate Solomon on his 

 marriage with the Queen ofSheba. Their mission being ended, they addressed unto him these words: 



■■ • () prophet of ( tod ! Our country is very distant, our provisions exhausted ; although thou art a great king, give 

 unto us sufficient that we may return to the bosom of our family.' 



••Solomon caused a magnificent colt of the race of Ishmael to be taken from the stables, and he dismissed them, 

 ing: 

 Behold the provisions with which you are to be refreshed upon the journey. When you are hungry, search for 

 wood, kindle a fire, mount your best rider on this horse, and arm him with a trusty lance. You shall scarcely have 



collected the w 1 and enkindled the fire ere you shall see him appear with the product of an abundant hunt. Go, 



and may God give you his protection.' 



"The Arabs set forth upon their journey, and did, in their first necessity, whatsoever Solomon had instructed them, 

 and neither zebras, nor gazelles, nor ostriches could escape them. Enlightened, then, concerning the value of that 

 animal - the present from the son of David — and being already in their country, they devoted themselves to their re- 

 prod -larding their matches, and thus they obtained this race, to which, in gratitude, they gave the name of 



" This is the race whose fame was afterward spread throughout the whole circumference of the world. 



" In fact, it was propagated in the East and West with the Arabs, who, at a later time, penetrated into the extremi- 



t" the West and of the East. Long before Islamism, Harmiah-Ahen-Melok and his descendants reigned in the 



during a hundred years, founding that Medina and Sakliachedad-Eben-Aad, and possessing themselves of all 



inntry onto the Moghreb, where they built cities and harbors. Afrikes, who gave his name to Africa, conquers J 



unto Tandja (Tangiers , while his son Chamar possessed from the East uuto China, entering the city of Sad, which 



he destroyed. Bi cause of this, and from that time, that place was called Chamarkenda, because kenda in the Persian 



' !,•■ has destri • ed,' whence the Arabs, by corruption, have drawn Samarkanda. 



• After the birth of the religion of Islam, the new invasions of the Mussulmans extended even more the reputation 

 of the Arab horses in Italy, Spain, and also in France, in which, without doubt, they left some of their blood. But 

 that which, above all. caused Africa to be filled with Aral) horses, was the invasion of Sidi-Okba, and afterward the 

 deeds of the fifth and sixth centuries of the Hegira. With Sidi-Okba, the Arabs had not done any thing more than 



;. in Africa, while in the fifth and sixth centuries they came as colonists to install themselves, with their 

 wives and their children, with their horses and their mares. It was in these last invasions that the Arab tribe* 

 tablished then n the soil of Algeria, especially the Mchall, the Cjendel, Oalad-Mehadi, the Donaonda, &c, Ac, 



who d over all parts, stituting the true nobility of the country. These same invasions transplanted 



the Arab hone into Soudan, and we can sa\ with reason that the Arab race is one in Algeria as in the East. 



"Thus, then, the history of the Arab horses can be divided into four epochs: 1. From Adam to Ishmael. 2. From 

 [shmael to Solomon. 8. Prom Solomon to Mohammed. I. From Mohammed to ourselves. 



•• I have now nothing more to do than to satisfy another of your questions. 



"Ton ask me by what signs the Arabs know if a horse is noble— if he is a drinker of the air ' Behold myan.-v 



hone of pure origin is di-tiuguished among us by the tenuity of the lips and of the inferior cartilage of the' 



