THE HORSES OF THE SAHARA.
To a pastoral and a nomadic people, roaming our vast grazing grounds, and whose numbers bear no proportion to the extent of their territories, the horse is a necessity of life. With his horse, the Arab trades and travels, looks after his numerous flocks, distinguishes himself in battle, at weddings, and at the festivals of his marabouts. He makes love, he makes war: space is nothing to him. Thus, the Arabs of the Sahara still give themselves up with ardour to the rearing of horses. They know full well the value of blood, they pay great attention to crossing the breed, and try every means to improve the species. The state of anarchy in which they have lived in these latter times has naturally modified some of their habits, but it has effected no change in this condition of their existence—the breeding, perfecting and training of horses.
The love of the horse has passed into the Arab blood. That noble animal is the friend and comrade of the chief of the tent. He is one of the servants of the family. His habits, his requirements are made an object of study. He is the burden of their songs, the favourite topic of conversation. Day by day in the gatherings outside the douar, where age alone enjoys the privilege of speech, and which are marked by the decorous behaviour of the listeners, seated in a circle on the sand or on the turf, the young men add to their practical knowledge the counsels and traditions of their seniors. Religion, war, the chase, love, and horses, inexhaustible subjects of observation, make regular schools of these open air meetings, in which warriors are formed and develop their intelligence in collecting a mass of facts, precepts, proverbs, and sententious sayings, the application of which will only too frequently occur in the course of the perilous life they have to lead. It is thus they acquire that knowledge of horse-flesh which we are so astonished to meet with in the humblest horseman of a desert tribe. He can neither read nor write, and yet every phrase in his conversation rests upon the authority of the learned commentators of the Koran, or of the Prophet himself. "Our lord Mohammed declared"—"Sidi-Ahmed-ben-Youssef says in addition"—"Si-ben-Dyab relates"—And you may take him on trust, this learned ignoramus, for all these texts, all these anecdotes, which for the most part are only to be found in books, he for his part derives from the tholbas or from his chiefs, who, unconsciously come, as it were, to a mutual understanding, to develop or maintain among the people the love of the horse, useful precepts, sound doctrines, and the best rules of hygiene. The whole is sometimes tainted, no doubt, with gross prejudices and ridiculous superstitions. It is a picture with much shading. But let us not be too severe: it is not so very long since very nearly the same absurdities were proclaimed in France as indisputable truths.
I was talking one day with a marabout of the tribe of the Oulad-Sidi-Schik about the horses of his country, and pretended to question some of the opinions he had expressed. "You cannot understand that, you Christians," he exclaimed, abruptly rising to his feet, "but horses are our riches, our joys, our life, our religion. Has not the Prophet said: 'The good things of this life, even to the day of the last judgment, shall be suspended from the hairs which are between the eyes of your horses?'"
"I have read the Koran," I replied, "but have never met with those words."
"You will not find them in the Koran, which is the voice of Allah, but in the conversations of our lord Mohammed (Hadite sidna Mohammed)."
"And you believe in them?" I retorted.
"Before taking my leave of you, I will show you what may happen to those who have faith." And my companion gravely recited the following history:
"A poor man confiding in the words of the Prophet which I have just repeated to you, came one day upon a dead mare. So he cut off her head and buried it under the threshold of his door, saying to himself: 'I shall become rich if it please Allah' (An-sha-Allah). Days, however, followed each other, but no riches came, and yet the Believer never doubted. The Sultan of the country being on his way to visit a holy spot, happened by accident to pass before the lowly abode of the poor Arab. It was situated at the end of a small plain bordered by large trees and watered by a pretty rivulet. The scene pleasing him, he halted his brilliant escort, and dismounted to rest himself in the shade. Just as he was about to give the signal to continue the journey his steed, which a slave was employed to look after, impatient to devour space, began to neigh and to paw the ground, and presently broke loose. All the efforts of the saïs (grooms) to catch him again were for a long time in vain and every one was in despair, when they beheld him stop suddenly of himself at the threshold of an old hut which he smelt at while throwing up the ground with his forefeet. An Arab, until that moment an unmoved spectator, went up to him without frightening him, as if he had been known to him, caressed him with hand and voice, laid hold of him by the mane, the bridle being in a thousand pieces, and without any difficulty led him quietly up to the astonished Sultan.
"How have you contrived," demanded his greatness, "thus to tame one of the most fiery steeds of Arabia?"
"You will no longer be surprised, my lord," replied the man of faith, "when you learn that, having been taught that all the good things of this world unto the day of judgment shall be suspended from the hairs which are between the eyes of our horses, I buried under the door-way of my house the head of a mare I found lying dead. The rest has come to pass through the blessing of Allah."
"The Sultan instantly caused the ground to be dug up at the spot indicated, and when he had thus verified the statement of the Arab, he hastened to recompense one who had not hesitated to give an entire faith to the words of the Prophet. The poor man received the present of a fine horse, superb garments, and riches enough to place him beyond the reach of want for the rest of his days."
"You now know," continued the marabout, "what may happen to those who believe," and without waiting for my reply he saluted me with the eyes after the manner of the Arabs, and withdrew.
This legend is popular in the Sahara, and the words of the Prophet on which it is founded are there an article of faith. Whether the Prophet uttered them or not, they do not the less surely answer the end proposed to himself by their imputed author. The Arab loves honours, power, riches. To tell him that all that was attached to the long hairs of his horse was to endear it to him, to bind it to him by the bond of a common interest. The genius of the Prophet doubtless went much farther. He fully understood that the mission of conquest which he had bequeathed to his people could only be accomplished by hardy horsemen, and that the love of the horse must be developed in them simultaneously with faith in Islam. These injunctions, which all tend towards the same end, are clothed in various forms. The marabout and the thaleb strung them together as sayings and legends, the noble (djieud) as traditions, and the common people as proverbs. Subsequently, proverbs, traditions, and legends, assumed a religious character which has for ever accredited them to the great family of Mussulmans: for it is the will of the Prophet that his own people, to the exclusion of all infidels, should reserve to themselves these powerful instruments of war, which in the hands of the Christians might become so fatal to the Mussulman religion. This inner motive, which the common people of the tent may not have seen, through the symbolical veil behind which it was concealed, has not escaped the perception of the Arab chiefs. The Emir Abd-el-Kader, when at the height of his power, inflicted death without mercy on every Believer convicted of having sold a horse to a Christian. In Morocco the exportation of these animals is hampered with such heavy duties that the permission to take them out of the kingdom is altogether illusory. At Tunis the same reluctance yields only to the imperious necessities of policy, and in like manner at Tripoli, in Egypt, at Constantinople, in short in all Mussulman States.[[4]]
If you speak of horses to a djieud, the noble of the tent, who still plumes himself on his ancestors having fought with ours in Palestine, he will tell you:
The mounting of horses,
The letting slip greyhounds from the leash,
And the clinking of ear-rings,
Draw the maggots out of your head.
If your interlocutor is one of those horsemen (mekhazeni) whose bronzed face, pepper-and-salt beard, and prominent exostosis[[5]] on the tibia announce that he has gone through many adventures, he will say to you:
Horses for a quarrel,
Camels for the desert,
And oxen for poverty.
Or he will remind you that when the Prophet was engaged in expeditions, in order to induce the Arabs to tend their horses properly, he always gave two-thirds of the prize to whomsoever had accompanied him on the best horse.
The voluptuous Thaleb, man of God for the world who lives in contemplative idleness, without any other occupation than that of writing talismans and making amulets for all men and women who want them, will repeat to you with his eyes on the ground:
The paradise of earth is to be found on horseback,
In the study of books,
Or on the bosom of a woman,
he will add if no prudish ears are at hand.
Again, if you question one of those aged patriarchs who are renowned for their wisdom, their experience, and their hospitality, he will answer you:
"Sidi-Aomar, the companion of the Prophet, hath said: 'Love horses, tend them well, for they are worthy of your tenderness. Treat them like your own children, nourish them like friends of the family, clothe them with care! For the love of Allah, do not neglect to do this, or you will repent of it in this house and in the next.'"
Finally, if you have the good fortune to encounter in your journey one of those wandering story-tellers (me-dahh, fessehh) who pass their lives in travelling about from tribe to tribe, to amuse the abundant leisure of these warrior-shepherds, supported by a player on the flute (kuesob), and accompanying himself on a tabour (bendaïr), he will chaunt to you with a hollow but not unmusical voice:
My horse is the lord of horses!
He is blue as the pigeon beneath the shade,
And his black hairs are like waves;
He bears hunger and thirst; he outstrips the eyesight;
And, true drinker of air,
He blackens the heart of our enemies
In the days when muzzles touch each other.
Mebrouk[[6]] is the pride of the country.
My uncle has thoroughbred mares, whose distant sires
Are counted in our tribes since the ancient times,
Gentle and timid as daughters of the Guebla[[7]].
You would say they were gazelles
Feeding in the valleys under the eye of their dams.
To see them, is to forget the authors of our days.
Covered with djellals[[8]] which make our flowers look pale,
They march like Sultanas attired for a fête,
A negro of Kora[[9]] tends them,
Gives them pure barley, and milk to drink,
And leads them to the bath.
Allah preserve them from the evil eye![[10]]
For his much loved mares
My uncle demanded Mebrouk in marriage,
And I said to him: No;
Mebrouk is my support, I wish to keep him
Proud, full of health, dexterous and fleet.
Time turns on itself and returns;
There may be no dispute to-day, but to-morrow, perhaps, we shall see
The hour of strife approach with rapid strides.
For a skin full of blood, my uncle replied,
Thou hast made my face yellow[[11]] before all my children.
The earth is vast: adieu.
Mebrouk, why this neighing night and day?
Thou betrayest my ambush and warnest my enemies,
Thy thoughts wander too much to the daughters of our coursers,
But where shall I find my friends
Whose mares are so noble, and their she-camels such treasures?
Their tidings are buried in the earth;
Where are their spacious tents so pleasant to the eye?
In them were spread the carpet and the mat;
In them was offered the hospitality of Allah,
And the poor man filled his belly.
They are vanished!
The scout viewed the hillocks,
The brave marched in the front rank,
The shepherds drove the flocks after them,
And the hunters, on the track of their sharp greyhounds,
Chased the gazelle.
Have you heard speak of the tribe of my brethren?
No! Well, come with me and count their numerous horses:
There are colours which will please you.
Behold those horses white as snow that falls in its proper season;
Those black as the slave carried off from Soudan;
Those others green[[12]] as the reed that grows on the banks of rivers;
Those, again, red as blood that spirts first from a wound,
And those blue[[13]] as a pigeon when it flies beneath the sky.
Where are those rifles so straight,
quicker than the winking of an eye?
That powder from Tunis, and those balls turned out in moulds,[[14]]
Which pierced the bones, tore the liver,
And made the stricken perish with mouth wide open?
When I cease to sing, I am still transported thither by my heart;
For it burns for my brethren with a fire that consumes my interior.
Nowhere have I seen such warriors.
O Allah! strike with blindness those who bear them envy!
Have they not spacious tents well provided with carpets,
Mats, cushions, saddles, and rich arms?
The traveller and the orphan are they not always received there
By these words of our sires: "You are welcome!"
Their wives, bright as the corn-poppy,
Are they not borne on camels,
Those ships of the earth,
That march with the noble gait of the ostrich?
Are they not covered with veils
Which trailing far behind them fill even the marabouts with despair!
Are they not adorned with ornaments, gems enriched with coral,
And the blue tattoo on their arms, was it not pleasant to behold?
Every thing about them charmed the heart of the believers in Allah;
You would say they were bean-flowers created by the Eternal.
You have plunged into the southern desert,
And the days seem unto me very long!
Behold! it is well nigh a year that nailed to this wearisome[[15]] Tell,
I have seen no more of you than the traces of your encampments.
O my cherished dove
Who wearest trousers that reach to thy feet;
Who wearest a burnous that sits so well on your shoulders;
Whose wings are variegated, and who knowest the country;
O thou who cooest!
Away, fly beneath the clouds, they will serve thee for a covering;
Go, find my friends, give them this letter to read,
Tell them that it proceeds from a sincere heart,
Come back quickly and inform me if they are happy or unhappy,
They who make me sigh.
You will see Sherifa:[[16]] a haughty damsel;
She is haughty, she is noble, I have seen it in writing;
Her long hair falls with grace
On her white and ample shoulders;
You would say it was the sable plumes of the ostrich
That dwells in the desert and sings beside its brood.
Her eyelids are bows brought from the negro-land;
And her eye-lashes, you would swear that
it was the beard of an ear of corn
Ripened by the eye of light[[17]] towards the end of summer;
Her eyes are the eyes of the gazelle
Troubled about her little ones,
Or, rather, it is the flash that precedes the thunder
In the middle of the night.
Her mouth is admirable,
Her breath sugar and honey,
And her fine set of teeth resemble the hailstones
Which the winter in its fury sows over our land.
Her neck is as the standard which our warriors plant in the ground
To defy the enemy and rally the runaways,
And her faultless body outvies the marble
Which is used for building the pillars of our mosques.
Fair as the moon around which gathers the night,
She shines like a star undimmed by a cloud.
Tell her that she has wounded her lover
With two thrusts of a poniard, one in the eyes,
the other in the heart.
Love is no light burden.
I ask of the Almighty to give unto us water;
We are in the springtime
And the rain has tarried too long for the people of flocks.
I am hungry, I am fasting like a Ramadan moon.
They are at Askoura, praise be to Allah!
Bring me my horse!
And you there, strike the tents!
I go to seek my uncle;
He will forgive the son of his brother;
We shall be reconciled to one another,
And by the head of the Prophet,
I will give a feast in which the young men shall appear
With shining stirrups and saddles richly embroidered;
Powder shall be burnt[[18]] to the sound of the flute and the tabour;
I will marry Mebrouk
And his offspring shall be called the offspring of well tended mares.
O tribes of the Sahara!
You claim to possess camels;[[19]]
But camels, you are aware,
Care only for those who can defend them;
And those who can defend them are my brethren,
Because they know in the fight how to crush bones of the rebellious.
Thus it is seen that among the Arabs every thing concurs to develop the love of horses. Religion makes a duty of it, while the agitated life, the incessant conflicts, and the distances to be traversed in a country
absolutely devoid of means of rapid communication, make it a necessity. An Arab can only live a double life, his own and his horse's.
REMARKS BY THE EMIR ABD-EL-KADER.
The best horses are chiefly to be found in the Sahara, where the number of bad horses is very small. In fact, the tribes that inhabit it and those who border on it only employ their horses to make war, or to contend in trials of swiftness. Accordingly, they never use them for agricultural purposes, or exercise them in any other way than in battle. On this account their horses are nearly all excellent.
No individual in the Sahara cares to possess ten camels until he has a horse to defend them against those who might assail them.
In the Tell most of the Arabs apply their horses to the cultivation of the land. They also make use of them to ride and for any other purpose. They have no particular preference for males because in their eyes the horse is merely an animal to be turned to any employment of which it is capable, and not kept for war alone. For this reason the horse of pure origin bred in the Sahara is preferable to the same horse in the Tell. The former, unlike that of the Tell, is subjected to fatigue, to long journeys, to hunger, and to thirst, which renders him able to achieve whatever is required of him.
The Koran calls horses "the especial good."
The servant of the Prophet used to say: "With women, what the Prophet loved best was horses."
"Aïssa-ben-Meryem (Jesus, the son of Mary),—peace be with him!—went one day to Eblis, the black demon, and said: 'Eblis, I have a question to address to thee: wilt thou tell me the truth?' 'Spirit of God,' answered Eblis, 'question me as seemeth good to thee.'"
"I demand of thee," pursued Jesus, "by the Living One who cannot lie, what is it that can reduce thy body to a liquid state and cut thy back in two?" "It is," replied the devil, "the neighing of a horse. Never have I succeeded in entering a house that contained a horse for the cause of the Most High."
Being passionately fond of horses, one of the companions of the Prophet asked him if there were any in Paradise. "If Allah causes thee to enter Paradise," replied the Prophet, "thou wilt have a horse of rubies, furnished with two wings, with which he will fly whithersoever thou willest."
A poet has said: "Who are they who will weep for me after death? My sword, my Boudaïna lance, and my long-bodied chesnut, trailing the reins to the fountain, after death has deprived him of his rider."
In all times, among the Arabs, the horse has been the object of the greatest solicitude, and this solicitude the Prophet lost no opportunity of keeping up, developing and augmenting by introducing the religious sentiment.
We find in the collection of his conversations the following precepts:
"Happiness in this world, a rich booty, and eternal rewards are attached to the forelock of horses."
"Evil spirits enter not into a tent where there is a thoroughbred horse."
"The Angels sympathise with only the three following pastimes of men: the exercises of war—the joys of connubial love—and the running of horses."
"Whensoever any one is prevented from fulfilling his religious duties, let him keep a horse for the sake of Allah, and all his sins shall be forgiven him."
"Whoso maintaineth a horse for the triumph of religion makes a magnificent loan to Allah."
"The horse, sincerely reared in the way of Allah, for the holy war, shall save his master from the fire at the day of the resurrection."
"Whoso maketh sacrifices in order to train a horse for the holy war shall be treated in the next world as a martyr."
"Whoso traineth a horse in the way of Allah is counted in the number of those who give alms day and night, in secret or in public. He shall have his reward. Never shall fear dishonour his heart."
"Money spent upon horses passes in the eyes of Allah for alms given in a direct manner."
"Whoso keepeth and tendeth a horse for the service of Allah shall be recompensed as one who fasts during the day and passes the night in prayer."
"Horses pray to Allah to make them beloved by their masters."
"Allah comes to the aid of such as occupy themselves with horses, and lightens the expenses incurred on their account."
"Every grain of barley given to a horse is inscribed by Allah in the Register of good Works."
"Martyrs of the holy war will find in Paradise horses of rubies, furnished with wings, which shall fly whithersoever their riders desire."