A Bedouin, named Jabal, possessed a mare of great celebrity. Hassad Pacha, then governor of Damascus, wished to buy the animal, and repeatedly made the owner the most liberal offers, which Jabal steadily refused. The pacha then had recourse to threats, but with no better success. At length one Jafar, a Bedouin of another tribe, presented himself to the pacha, and asked what would he give the man who should make him master of Jabal’s mare. “I will fill his horse’s nosebag with gold,” replied Hassad, whose pride and covetousness had been irritated to the highest degree by the obstinacy of the mare’s owner. The result of this interview having gone abroad, Jabal became more watchful than ever; and always secured his mare at night with an iron chain, one end of which was fastened round her hind fetlock, whilst the other, after passing through the tent cloth, was attached to a picket driven into the ground under the felt that served himself and his wife for a bed. But one midnight Jafar crept into the tent, and, insinuating his body between Jabal and his wife, he pressed gently now against the one, now against the other, so that the sleepers made room for him right and left, neither of them doubting that the pressure came from the other. This being done, Jafar slit the felt with a sharp knife, drew out the picket, loosed the mare, and sprang on her back. Just before starting off with his prize, he caught up Jabal’s lance, and poking him with the butt end, cried out, “I am Jafar! I have stolen your noble mare, and I give you notice in time.” This warning, be it observed, was in accordance with the usual practice of the Desert on such occasions: to rob a hostile tribe is considered an honourable exploit, and the man who accomplishes it is desirous of all the glory that may flow from the deed. Poor Jabal, when he heard the words, rushed out of the tent and gave the alarm; then mounting his brother’s mare, and accompanied by some of his tribe, he pursued the robber for four hours. The brother’s mare was of the same stock as Jabal’s, but was not equal to her; nevertheless, she outstripped those of all the other pursuers, and was even on the point of overtaking the robber, when Jabal shouted to him, “Pinch her right ear, and give her a touch with the heel.” Jafar did so, and away went the mare like lightning, speedily rendering all further pursuit hopeless. The pinch in the ear and the touch with the heel, were the secret sign by which Jabal had been used to urge the mare to her utmost speed. Every Bedouin trains the animal he rides, to obey some sign of this kind, to which he has recourse only on urgent occasions, and which he makes a close secret, not to be divulged even to his son. Jabal’s comrades were amazed and indignant at his strange conduct; “O thou father of a jackass!” they cried, “thou hast helped the thief to rob thee of thy jewel!” But he silenced their upbraidings, by saying, “I would rather lose her than sully her reputation. Would you have me suffer it to be said among the tribes, that another mare had proved fleeter than mine? I have at least this comfort left me, that I can say she never met with her match.”
The trick of jockeyship above-mentioned, is not peculiar to the Desert; we trace it even in the Western world. The celebrated clockmaker Sam Slick, talking over a racing project, in which he expects to take in the knowing ones, by deceiving them as to the fleetness of his favourite horse, Clay, expresses himself thus: “Clay is as cunning as a ’coon (racoon); if he don’t get the word g’lang (go along) and the Indgyan skelpin’ yell with it, he knows I ain’t in airnest:—he’ll purtend to do his best, and sputter away like a hen scratchin’ gravel, but he won’t go one mossel faster.”
There was in the tribe of Negde a mare no less renowned than Jabal’s, which Daher, a man of another tribe had bent his whole soul on possessing. Having in vain offered his camels and all his wealth for her, he determined to compass his ends by stratagem. He stained his face with herbs, dressed himself in rags, and tied up his legs so as to give himself the appearance of a crippled beggar. In this plight, he laid himself down on a spot where he knew that Nabee, the owner of the mare, would pass, and as soon as he saw him, he began to implore piteously for help, saying, he was unable to move, and was dying of hunger. Nabee told the poor wretch to mount behind him, and he would take him to his own tent, and supply his wants. “May your bounty be extolled,” replied the pretended cripple, “but I am unable to mount without assistance.” Thereupon the compassionate Nabee dismounted, and with much difficulty hoisted the suppliant into the saddle. As soon as Daher felt himself firmly seated, he clapped heels to the mare and started off, shouting, “I am Daher, and your mare is mine.” The plundered man called out to him to stop, and hear what he had to say, and the thief, knowing he was safe from pursuit, turned and halted, just out of reach of Nabee’s lance. “You have seized my mare,” said the latter; “since it is the will of Allah, I wish you prosperity, but I beseech you do not tell any one how you came by her.” “And why not?” said Daher. “Because another person might be really afflicted, and be left without succour. Were you to tell the tale, the consequence would be, that no one would do a single act of charity, for fear of being duped like me.”
Struck by these words, Daher instantly dismounted, restored the mare to her owner, and embraced him. Nabee went home with him as his guest; they remained together three days, and became sworn brothers.
CHAPTER XI
FERAL HORSES OF AMERICA—INDIANS AND GAUCHOS.
THE multiplication of horses in America, since their introduction by the Spanish conquerors, has been prodigious. Innumerable herds, each consisting of many thousand animals, roam over the plains of both continents, from Patagonia to the south-western prairies of North America; and, notwithstanding the warfare waged on them by man, by whom they are slaughtered for their hides alone, their numbers would increase to a pernicious excess, were it not for the destruction caused among them by floods and droughts. The supply of water often fails in the sultry plains, and then the horses, tortured to madness, rush into the first marsh or pool they can find, trampling each other to death. Rivers have been rendered quite impassable by the stench of thousands that had plunged into them to slake their thirst, and had been drowned, being too much exhausted to crawl up the muddy banks. The beds of many streams in the Pampas are paved with a breccia of bones thus deposited. The periodical swellings of the rivers are no less fatal to them. The mares may be seen, during the season of high water, swimming about followed by their colts, and feeding on the tall grass, of which the tops alone wave above the waters. Thus they lead for some time an amphibious life, surrounded by alligators, water serpents, and other carnivorous reptiles, the marks of whose teeth are often printed on their thighs. The impetuous rush of a herd of wild horses impelled either by some panic or by raging thirst, is called a stampedo: one of them is, thus described in Murray’s Travels in North-America:—