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CHAPTER IX. 
Horses. — Asses. — Camels.— Other Animals. — Carpets. — Chaplets. — Mountains. 
— Fortresses. — The Scherif's Houses. — Sultan Scherif. — Politic:! ! situation of 
Mecca. — Change of Dominion. — Beled el Haram, or Holy Land of Islam. — 
Mountains of Hedjaz. 
It will appear very natural, that whilst I am de- 
scribing the court of Arabia, I should speak of the 
horses. But what shall I say? That at Mecca there are 
none to be found. It is true that the soldiers of the 
guard of the Sultan Scherif possess about a hundred, 
and that there are about six the property of private in- 
dividuals: but they are so scarce among the Bedouins, 
that the Sultan Ssaoud, marching at the head of an 
army of 45,000 Wehhabites, has only three or four 
hundred horses with him; and even these come from 
Yemen. 
Almost all those I examined were ugly and clumsy. 
I found six or eight that were passable, and only two 
or three that were positively fine. They are all very 
strong, great runners, and support hunger and thirst 
easily. These are the advantages of the Arabian horses. 
Those that I saw were small, and generally of a dapple- 
gray colour, with fine heads. The lower part of the legs 
is big, and the tail is fine; but, to compensate this, 
they have sparkling eyes and handsome ears. 
The horsemen treat them like barbarians. They make 
use of extremely strong bits, which make their mouths 
bleed, as at Morocco. 
With the exception of some of the soldiers of the 
Scherif, who have saddles with stirrups, the Arabs 
mount upon pannels without any; and thus seated they 
