The Horses of the Sahara and the Manners of the Desert

by E.‏ Daumas

And the Prophet further remarked: "If thou hast a dark chesnut, conduct him to the combat, and if thou hast only a sorry chesnut, conduct him all the same to the combat."

From all this it is abundantly apparent that legendary traditions and experience are in perfect harmony in according a decided superiority to coats of deep and decided hues. Coats of a light pale colour are held in no esteem whatever. The horse's coat, therefore, must be an index to his character. The long experience of Mohammed the Prophet and of Moussa the Conqueror must have placed them in a position to speak with full knowledge of the subject, and their opinion confirmed by that of all the Arabs, the best horsemen in the world and the most interested in studying the animal, upon whom indeed depend their honour and their life, is certainly entitled to be regarded with some respect. It is beyond all question that the koummite—red mingled with black, chesnut or bay—is preferred by the Arabs to all others. If I might be allowed to quote my own personal experience, I should have no hesitation in saying that, if there be any prejudice in the matter, I share it with them. Besides, must it necessarily be a prejudice because it may seem to be one? No one will deny that all the individuals of the same species are, in their wild state, identical in colour and endowed with common instinctive qualities inherent in the race. These colours and these qualities undergo no alteration or admixture except in a state of servitude and under its influences, so that if any of these individuals, by a return to their natural condition more easily proved than explained, happen to recover the colour of their first ancestors, they will be equally distinguished by more broadly defined natural qualities. The canine race may be taken as an illustration. Whence it follows that a certain number of domesticated individuals being given, their coats alike and with dominant qualities, it may be fairly concluded that this coat and these qualities were those of the race in its wild state. In the case, then, of the Arab horse, if it be true that those whose coat is red shaded with black are endowed with superior speed, are we not justified in inferring that such was the uniform colour, such the natural qualities, of the sires of the race? I submit with all humility these observations to men of science.

Abd-el-Kader assures us, moreover, that it is ascertained by the Arabs that horses change colour according to the soil on which they are bred. Is it not possible, in fact, that under the influence of an atmosphere more or less light, of water more or less fresh, of a nurture more or less rich according as the soil on which it is raised is more or less impregnated with certain elements, the skin of the horse may be sensibly affected? Every one knows that with any coat, the colour changes in tone and shade according to the locality where the animal lives, the state of its health, the quality of the water it drinks, and of the food it eats, and the care that is bestowed upon it. There is perchance in all this a lesson in natural history not to be despised, for if the circumstances in which a horse lives act upon his skin, they must inevitably act also in the long run upon his form and qualities.

This point being dismissed, the last proposition in the letter of the Emir Abd-el-Kader is that which classes the history of Arab horses in four epochs: 1st, from Adam to Ishmael; 2nd, from Ishmael to Solomon; 3rd, from Solomon to Mohammed; 4th, from Mohammed to our own times.

This is the history of the Arabs themselves, so completely have they identified themselves with the horse, their necessary and indispensable companion. Between Adam and Abraham the Arabs did not exist—it was the age of a pastoral population. No wars, at least of a serious character, no pillaging. The horse appears in it only on the day of creation. He has no part to play except as a head of cattle among the flocks and herds, peacefully employed in domestic service. But on the second epoch with Ishmael, his part changes altogether. Ishmael is a bastard, disinherited, abandoned in the desert. His life is to be a struggle. He must be at open war with all mankind because he must live somehow upon the soil to which he has been banished, without taking into consideration the fact that this necessity of fighting in order to live, at the same time gratifies the resentment he entertains towards his brothers, heirs, to his prejudice, of the paternal fields. We read in the Bible, that when Hagar, in Arabic Hadjira, fled into the wilderness an angel appeared to her and said:

"I will multiply thy seed exceedingly that it shall not be numbered for multitude.

"Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; and he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren."

Ishmael is the personification of the Arab people. He calls the horses to him, selects the best, and trains them for racing, for the chase, and for war. It is by their aid that he will live upon the plunder of the rich caravans that may venture upon his territory, and will make forays from the land of hunger and thirst into the land of abundance. The horse has made him King of the desert, and in return he makes a friend, a companion of his horse. Between them there is only one interest.

Nevertheless, the Arabs, hard pressed to the eastward by the powerful armies of the Kings of Abyssinia, to the northward by the people of Jehovah,—one-half of them absorbed and decimated in these great struggles; and the other half shut in within their arid peninsula and divided by intestine dissensions—the Arabs degenerated, and with them their horses suffered deterioration. It was at Jerusalem the Noble, and according to the legend in the stud of Solomon, that the true type of the race was exclusively preserved. Travellers, perhaps conductors of the caravans which in those days used to arrive in Jerusalem in great numbers, receive as a gift certain horses, of whose value and fine qualities they are ignorant. But under the influence of peace commerce again discovers the long disused road from Central Asia to the seaports of Syria, and the Arabs interested in making common cause with one another reform themselves by mutual alliances between tribes. The horse, on his part, follows this new phase of their fortunes.

At a later period, a fresh degeneracy arises in consequence of the immigration into Arabia of foreigners, Jews and Christians, and from quarrels among the Arabs themselves. Some few noble and powerful tribes, such as the Koreishites, for example, the most powerful and the most noble of all, had preserved a traditional love of the horse as inseparable from their original dignity. But in order that Mohammed's task should have any chance of accomplishment, it was necessary to extend to all and to popularise this exceptional passion of a few, and equally essential was it to condense into one national unity the disunited elements of which the tribes of Arabia then consisted. We have seen with what persistance the Prophet reverts to this necessity, in the Koran, in his conversations, and in his teachings, and how he made the careful tendance of horses an obligation of Mussulman life, and an article of faith in the Believer. In this manner, from the Hidjra to our own times, the condition of the Arab horses has unavoidably gone on improving. Has he not said: "Whoso feeds and tends a horse for the triumph of religion, makes a magnificent loan to Allah"?