In the hot season[[46]] put back the hour of the watering-place
And put forward that of the nose-bag;
In the cold season put forward the hour of the watering-place,
And put back that of the nose-bag.
Among the desert tribes, for forty days counting from the month of August, the horses are watered only every other day. The same method is pursued during the last twenty days of December and the first twenty days of January. In cold weather the rich let their horses have as much barley as they can eat, but decrease the ration considerably in hot weather. Milk and bouse may be substituted for barley. It is seldom that any thing to eat is given in the morning. The horse marches upon the food of the previous evening, and not on that of the same day.
Looking at two horses, one from the Tell and the other from the Sahara, a man who has not studied the subject will always prefer the former, which he will find handsome, heavy, sleek, and fat, while he will despise the second, fool that he is, and abuse the very points which constitute his worth—that is, the fine, dry extremities, the tightened belly, and the bare ribs. And yet this horse of the desert that has never been accustomed to barley, green food, or straw, but only shiehh, bouse, and seuliane, that has never had any thing but milk to drink and from his earliest years has served at the chace and in war, will have the swiftness of the gazelle and the patience of the dog, while the other will never be any thing but an ox by his side.
The greatest enemies of the horse are repose and fat.
GROOMING, HYGIENE, PROPORTIONS.
Grooming is unknown in the Sahara. The horses are merely wiped down with woollen rags, and covered with very good djellale, or rugs that envelop both the croup and the chest. In truth, labour of this sort is little wanted, the horses being habitually placed in a healthy spot, on raised ground, and sheltered from draughts. Arabs who have observed us grooming our horses morning and evening with elaborate carefulness, pretend that this continual rubbing of the epidermis, especially with the curry-comb, injures their health, and renders them delicate and impressionable, and consequently incapable of supporting the fatigues of war, or at all events more liable to disease.