CHAPTER V.
Zoology.
The horses of West Barbary, though small, are renowned for fleetness and activity; the breed, however, has been much neglected, except in Abda, and about Marocco, at a place called Ain Toga; these horses have stronger sinews than those of Europe, and after a little training are peculiarly docile. The stallions only are rode, the mares being kept for breeding, except among the Shelluhs, who use them for riding. Geldings are unknown in Mohammedan countries; a Mooselmin will neither castrate, nor sell the skin of the beast of the Prophet.
The Arab is particularly attached to the horse: he rises with the sun, visits him, and laying his right hand on the horse’s face, he ejaculates the words (Bissim illah) In the name of God; he then kisses his hand, which is supposed to have received a benediction from the touch of the favourite animal of their Prophet Mohammed; he then has the place where the horse stands swept clean, some dry sand spread, and an arm full of straw trodden small by oxen, placed before him at such a distance, that he can by stretching out his neck just reach it (for the horse being picqueted, and fastened by ropes round the fetlock, cannot move from his place): this is done to lengthen the neck, and to strengthen the fore-hand by exertion; the length of neck is considered as a great perfection, so that when the Arabian jockies purchase a horse, they measure from the top of the shoulder to the tip of his nose; and then from the top of the shoulder, to the end of the fleshy part of the tail; if the length of the former exceed that of the latter, it is the criterion of a good horse; but if the latter half exceed the front half in length, the horse is considered of an inferior kind. Such a predilection have Mohammedans for ablution, that the best horses are sprinkled with water every morning on the chest, loins, and sexual parts; this, as they pretend, improves the strength of the animal, and promotes his health; at noon only he is watered; then he has a little more straw, and remains afterwards fasting till sun-set, when they feed him with a bag of barley, attached to his head like our hackney-coach horses: they reprobate Christians for feeding their horses in a manger, and observe, that when a horse is used to a manger, he will not eat out of a bag, and as mangers are not to be found in this country in travelling, the plausibility of preferring the bag is evident: they do not suffer him to eat any straw after the feed of barley, alleging, that it would destroy the good effect of the latter.
The Arabs are expert farriers; their horses are generally healthy, but are subject to jaundice, which they cure by drawing the skin from the flesh at certain places with a pair of pinchers, and then piercing it with a hot iron like an awl. They turn them out to grass every spring during forty days, after which they physic them thus: they give them a pound of old butter, called budra,[70] which they mix with two ounces of pepper; they give this to the horse in a fluid state, that it may be the more easily swallowed; they then let him remain the whole day fasting, giving him in the evening only half of his accustomed quantity of barley; they next keep them without riding seven days: this process is said to secure the horse against disorders, and quickly takes off the prominent belly common after grass, disposing the flesh to the flanks.
To the various colours of horses they attach various properties; they assert, that a dark-coloured or black horse is in his fullest vigour towards dark, or night; that the powers of a chesnut horse come with the rising sun, and he is not so fleet in the evening; to a white horse they attribute vigilance; and of a gray they signify the soundness of their feet, by an Arabian adage,[71] which indicates that if a cavalcade be passing through a stony country, the gray horses will break the stones with their feet; this opinion appears founded on experience, for in the Atlas mountains, in some parts of Suse, and in all harsh stony districts, we find a much greater proportion of gray horses than of any other colour; their feet are so hardy, that I have known them to travel two days journey through the stony defiles of Atlas without shoes, over roads full of loose broken stones, and basaltic rocks.
Besides horses, mules and asses abound every where in Barbary, also camels, and horned cattle. In the Atlas, and in the forests near Mequinas, there are lions, panthers, wild hogs, hyænas, apes, jackals, foxes, hares, serpents, lizards, camelions, &c.
The birds are, ostriches, pelicans, eagles, flamingoes, storks, herons, bustards, wild geese, wood pigeons, pigeons, turtle-doves, ring-doves, partridges, red ducks, wild ducks, plovers, tibibs,[72] larks, nightingales, black birds, starlings, and various others.
The same varieties of fish that are found in the Mediterranean are taken on the shores of West Barbary; mullet, red and gray, brim, anchovies, sardines, herrings, mackarel, rock cod, skaite, soles, plaice, turbot, turtles, besides fish peculiar to the coast, called by the Shelluhs, Azalimzi, Tasargalt, and Irgal, which are very abundant, particularly in the bay of Agadeer, and on the coast of Wedinoon; they are prepared in the ovens of Aguram, a town at the foot of the mountain whereon Agadeer stands, for the purpose of being conveyed to the interior, to Bled el-jerrêde, and Sahara; these fish form a considerable article of commerce, and are much esteemed in Bled-el-jerrêde.