THE HOUSES OF ARABIA. 209 



and, grasping Gmkil's lance, pricked him lightly with it, crying out, "It is I, Giafar, who 1m v 

 t;iK.n thy noble mare; awake, Giabal !" and off he went. Giahal darted from his tent, called liis 

 friends, mounted his brother's mare, and pursued the thief. Giabal's brother's mare was of the same 

 blood as his own horse, but not so good. Outstripping all the other horsemen, he \\: DM the ]Kilnt of 

 overtaking Giafar, when he cried out, " Pinch her right ear, and give her the stirrup !" Giafur did 

 so, and, flying like lightning, was soon out ot reach. The Bedouins reproached Giabal, as having thus 

 caused the loss of the mare. " I would rather," he said, " lose her, than injure her reputation. Would 

 you have it said, in the tribe of Would Ali, that any other mare outran mine ? I have the satisfac- 

 tion of knowing 110 other horse could overtake her no, none !" 



This singular attention to the breed of horses still exists in some parts of Arabia ; but, on the 

 confines of the Desert, where the Europeans are settled, the spirit of avarice predominates, and tlie 

 native integrity of an Arab, unable to resist temptation, is transformed into the low cunning of a jockey. 

 And so it is with the Turks. They frequently procure a number of their friends to come, as by acci- 

 dent, and puff off the horse in question, bidding against the traveller, and showing a great apparent 

 anxiety to purchase for themselves. Thus, many persons have been, and probably still are, taken in. 



Indeed, good horses are very difficult to be obtained on the coast. The plains of the Harouan iifford 

 the best market, but they are distant, and not much visited by European merchants. In general, the 

 Arabs will not part with their best horses these are too precious to be sold but, trading upon the 

 reputation of their animals, they will endeavour to puff off a very inferior horse with the most solemn 

 and formal assurances of its being of the best breed in Arabia. In the interior of Arabia, the natives ) 

 who, on other occasions, care little about taking a false oath, are never known to sign a false declara- 

 tion as to the genealogy of a horse. But, on the borders of Arabia, as in Syria, the Arabs, corrupted 

 by intercourse with strangers, have very slight scruples on the subject, and the teskar, or formal attes- 

 tation of the genealogy, is often made by persons who know nothing of the matter beyond what they 

 have been instructed to swear. 



The Arabs greatly prefer riding mares to horses, the greater proportion of which they sell 

 to the towns-people ; and, as it happens that the Turks prefer horses, this differing taste acts well. 

 Between forty and fifty years ago, the price of an Arab horse, in Syria, was from 10 to 120 

 the latter price being the highest known. An Arab mare can scarcely be obtained under .60 ; and, 

 even at that price, it is difficult for the towns-people to purchase one. Prices have risen considerably 

 since the English have been in the habit of purchasing Arabian horses at Bagdad and Basra to 

 send to India. The Arabs themselves often pay as much as X200 for a celebrated mare, and even such 

 a price as 500 has been given a prodigious sum, considering the scarcity, and consequent high value, 

 of money in Western Asia. 



Of a horse he rode in India, Bishop Heber thus speaks ; " My morning rides are very pleasant. 

 My horse is a nice, quiet, good-tempered little Arab, who is so fearless that he goes without starting 

 close to an elephant, and so gentle and docile, that he eats bread out of my hand, and has almost as 

 much attachment and as many coaxing ways as a dog. This seems the general character of the Arab 

 horses, to judge from what I have seen in this country. It is not the fiery, dashing animal which I II.M! 

 supposed, but with more rationality about him, and more apparent confidence in his rider, than the 

 majority of English horses." 



THE HORSES OF NORTHERN EUROPE. 



IT is contended by some writers that the Tahter, or even the Cossack nations, assert that they can dis- 

 tinguish a feral breed from the wild by many tokens; and, naming the former takja and muzin, denominate 

 the real wild horse tarpan and tarpani. Thus, they affirm that the tarpani form herds of several hundreds, 

 subdivided into smaller troops, each headed by a stallion ; they are not found unmixed, excepting 

 towards the borders of China ; they prefer wide, open, elevated steppes, and always proceed in lines or 

 files, usually with the head to windwai-d, moving slowly forward while grazing, the stallions leading, 

 and occasionally going round their own troop. 



Young stallions are often at some distance, and single, because they are expelled by the older until 

 they can form a troop of mares of their own. Their head are seldom observed to be down for any length 



VOL. II. 27 



