A Pilgrimage to Nejd, the Cradle of the Arab Race. Vol. 2 [of 2]

Anne Blunt

A Pilgrimage to Nejd, the Cradle of the Arab Race. Vol. 2 [of 2] / A Visit to the Court of the Arab Emir, and «our Persian Campaign.»

CHAPTER XII

“Je ne trouvai point en eux ces formes que je m’attendais à retrouver dans la patrie de Zeid el Kheil.” – Guarmani.

Nejd horses – Their rarity – Ibn Saoud’s stud – The stables at Haïl – Some notes of individual mares – The points of a Nejd head – The tribes in the Nefûds and their horses – Meaning of the term “Nejdi” – Recipe for training.

A chapter on the horses we saw at Haïl has been promised, and may as well be given here.

Ibn Rashid’s stud is now the most celebrated in Arabia, and has taken the place in public estimation of that stud of Feysul ibn Saoud’s which Mr. Palgrave saw sixteen years ago at Riad, and which he described in the picturesque paragraphs which have since been constantly quoted. The cause of this transference of supremacy from Aared to Jebel Shammar, lies in the political changes which have occurred since 1865, and which have taken the leadership of Central Arabia out of the hands of the Ibn Saouds and put it into those of the Emirs of Haïl.

Mohammed ibn Rashid is now not only the most powerful of Bedouin sheykhs, but the richest prince in Arabia; and as such has better means than any other of acquiring the best horses of Nejd, nor have these been neglected by him.

The possession of thoroughbred mares is always among the Arabs a symbol of power; and with the loss of their supreme position in Nejd, the Ibn Saouds have lost their command of the market, and their stud has been allowed to dwindle. The quarrels of the two brothers, Abdallah and Saoud, sons of Feysul, on their father’s death, their alternate victories and flights from the capital, and the ruin wrought on them both by the Turks, broke up an establishment which depended on wealth and security for its maintenance; and at the present moment, if common report speaks true, hardly a twentieth part of the old stud remains at Riad. The rest have passed into other hands.

That Feysul’s stud in its day was the best in Arabia is probable, and it may be that no collection now to be found there has an equal merit; but there seems little reason for supposing that it differed in anything but degree from what we ourselves saw, or that the animals composing it were distinct from those still owned by the various Bedouin tribes of Nejd. All our inquiries, on the contrary (and we spared no occasion of asking questions), tend to show that it is a mistake to suppose that the horses kept by the Emirs of Riad were a special breed, preserved in the towns of Aared from time immemorial, or that they differed in any way from those bred elsewhere in Central Arabia. They were, we were repeatedly assured, a collection recruited from the various tribes of the Nefûds, – a very fine collection, no doubt, but still a collection. Every Bedouin we have asked has laughed at the idea of there being a special Nejd breed, only found in Aared. In answer to our questions we were informed that in Feysul’s time emissaries from Riad were constantly on the look-out for mares wherever they could find them; and that the Emir had often made ghazús against this and that tribe, with no other object than the possession of a particular animal, of a particular breed. The tribe from which he got the best blood, the Hamdani Simri and the Kehilan el-Krush, was the Muteyr (sometimes called the Dushan), while the Beni Khaled, Dafir, Shammar, and even the Ánazeh, supplied him with occasional specimens. Abdallah ibn Saoud, his successor, still retains a few of them, but the bulk of the collection was dispersed, many of the best passing into the hands of Metaab and Bender, Mohammed ibn Rashid’s predecessors. Mohammed himself follows precisely the same system, except that he does not take by force, but on payment. He makes purchases from all the tribes around, and though he breeds in the town, his collection is constantly recruited from without. Were this not the case, no doubt, it would soon degenerate, as town-bred horses in Arabia, being stall-fed and getting no sort of exercise, are seldom fit for much. There is a false notion that the oases, such as those of Jebel Shammar and Aared, are spots especially adapted for the rearing of horses, and that the sandy wastes outside contain no pasture. But the very reverse of this is the case. The oases in which the towns stand, produce nothing but date palms and garden produce, nor is there a blade of grass, or even a tuft of camel pasture in their neighbourhood. The townspeople keep no animals except a few camels used for working the wells, and now and then a donkey. Even these must be fed either on corn or dates, which none but the rich can afford. Horses are a luxury reserved only for princes, and even the richest citizens do their travelling from village to village on foot. Longer journeys are performed on dromedaries brought in from the desert for the purpose, which are either the property of Bedouins or held with them by the citizens on shares.

The Nefûds, on the other hand, contain pasture in abundance, not only for camels, but for sheep and horses, and it is in the Nefûds that all these are bred. Ibn Rashid goes every spring with the bulk of his live stock to the desert, and leaves them during part of the summer with the tribes, only a few animals being reserved for use in the town. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon, that the upper plateaux of Nejd, where the towns and villages are found, are a stony wilderness almost entirely devoid of vegetation, while the Nefûds afford an inexhaustible supply of pasture. The want of water alone limits the pastoral value of these, for the inhabited area is necessarily confined to a radius of twenty or thirty miles round each well, – and wells are rare. These facts have not, I think, been hitherto sufficiently known to be appreciated.

With regard to Ibn Rashid’s collection at Haïl we looked it over three or four times in the stables, and saw it out once on a gala day, when each animal was made to look its best. The stables consist of four open yards communicating with each other, in which the animals stand tethered each to a square manger of sun-dried brick. They are not sheltered in any way, but wear long heavy rugs fastened across the chest. They are chained by one or more feet to the ground, and wear no headstalls. It being winter time and they ungroomed, they were all in the roughest possible condition, and, as has been mentioned, our first impression was one of disappointment. When at Haïl they are given no regular exercise, remaining it would seem for weeks together tied up thus, except for a few minutes in the evening, when they are led to drink. They are fed almost entirely on dry barley. In the spring only, for a few weeks, they eat green corn grown on purpose, and then are taken to the Nefûd or on ghazús. It is surprising that they should be able to do their work under such conditions.

The first yard one enters in going through the stables, contained, when we saw them, from twenty-five to thirty mares. In the second were twenty more, kept in a certain kind of condition for service in case of necessity; but even these get very little exercise. As they stand there in the yard, slovenly and unkempt, they have very little of that air of high breeding one would expect; and it requires considerable imagination to look upon them as indeed the ne plus ultra of breeding in Arabia. We made the mistake, too common, of judging horses by condition, for, mounted and in motion, these at once became transfigured.

Here may follow some descriptions of particular animals, written after one of our visits to the stud; these will give a better idea of them than any general remarks. In our notes I find: —

“1. A chestnut Kehîlet el-Krush with three white feet (mutlak el-yemin), 14 hands, or 14·1, but very powerful. Her head is plainer than most here – it would be thought a good head in England – lean and rather narrow. She has too heavy a neck, but a very fine shoulder, a high wither, legs like steel, hind quarter decidedly coarse, much hair at the heels. More bone than breeding, one is inclined to say, seeing her at her manger, though moving, and with the Emir on her back, one must be very captious not to admire. She is Mohammed’s favourite charger, and of the best blood in Nejd. Ibn Rashid got this strain from Ibn Saoud’s stables at Riad, but it came originally from the Muteyr.”

“2. A bay Hamdanieh Simri, also from Ibn Saoud’s collection, a pretty head, but no other distinction. N.B. This mare is of the same strain as our own mare Sherifa, but inferior to her.”

“3. A grey Seglawieh Sheyfi, extremely plain at first sight, with very drooping quarters, and a head in no way remarkable, but with a fine shoulder. This Seglawieh Sheyfi has a great reputation here, and is of special interest as being the last of her race, the only descendant of the famous mare bought by Abbas Pasha, who sent a bullock cart from Egypt all the way to Nejd to fetch her, for she was old, and unable to travel on foot. The story is well known here, and was told to us exactly as we heard it in the north, with the addition that this mare of Ibn Rashid’s is the only representative of the strain left in Arabia.” 1

“4. A dark bay Kehîlet Ajuz, quite 14·2, one white foot, really splendid in every point, shoulder quarter and all; the handsomest head and largest eye of any here. She has ideal action, head and tail carried to perfection, and recalls Beteyen ibn Mershid’s mare, but her head is finer. She belongs to Hamúd, who is very proud of her, and tells us she came from the Jerba Shammar. It surprises us to find here a mare from Mesopotamia; but we are told that interchange of horses between the southern and northern Shammar is by no means rare.”

“5. A dark brown Kehîlet Ajuz, no white except an inch in breadth just above one hoof, lovely head and thoroughbred appearance, and for style of galloping perhaps the best here, although less powerful than the Emir’s chestnut and Hamúd’s bay. It is hard to choose among the three.”

“Of the eight horses, the best is a Shueyman Sbah of great power, head large and very fine. He reminds us of Faris Jerba’s mare of the same strain of blood; they are probably related closely, for he has much the same points, forequarter perfect, hindquarter strong but less distinguished. He was bred, however, in Nejd.”

“A grey Seglawi Jedran, from Ibn Nedéri of the Gomussa Ánazeh, is a poor specimen of that great strain of blood; but the Bedouin respect for it prevails here though they have now no pure Seglawi Jedrans in Nejd. It is interesting to find this horse valued here, as the fact proves that the Ánazeh horses are thought much of in Nejd. The more one sees of the Nejd horses here, the more is one convinced of the superiority of those of the Ánazeh in the points of speed, and, proud as every one here is of the ‘kheyl Nejdi,’ it seems to be acknowledged that in these points they are surpassed by the Ánazeh horses.”

“Our own Ánazeh mares are looked upon as prodigies of speed.

“In comparing what we see here, with what we saw last year in the north, the first thing that strikes us is that these are ponies, the others horses. It is not so much the actual difference in height, though there must be quite three inches on an average, as the shape, which produces this impression. The Nejd horses have as a rule shorter necks and shorter bodies, and stand over far less ground than the Ánazehs. Then, although their shoulders are undoubtedly good and their withers higher than one generally sees further north, the hind-quarter is short, and if it were not for the peculiarly handsome carriage of the tail would certainly want distinction. Their legs all seem to be extremely good; but we have not seen in one of them that splendid line of the hind leg to the hock which is so striking in the Ánazeh thoroughbreds. Of their feet it is difficult to judge, for from long standing without exercise, all the Emir’s mares have their hoofs overgrown. Their manes and tails are thicker than one would expect.

“In their heads, however, there is certainly a general superiority to the Ánazeh mares, at least in all the points the Arabs most admire, and we were both struck, directly we saw them, with the difference.”

* * * * *

As I may fairly assume that few persons out of Arabia have an idea what are there considered the proper points of a horse’s head, I will give here a description of them:

First of all, the head should be large, not small. A little head the Arabs particularly dislike, but the size should be all in the upper regions of the skull. There should be a great distance from the ears to the eyes, and a great distance from one eye to the other, though not from ear to ear. The forehead, moreover, and the whole region between and just below the eyes, should be convex, the eyes themselves standing rather “à fleur de tête.” But there should be nothing fleshy about their prominence, and each bone should be sharply edged; a flat forehead is disliked. The space round the eyes should be free of all hair, so as to show the black skin underneath, and this just round the eyes should be especially black and lustrous. The cheek-bone should be deep and lean, and the jaw-bone clearly marked. Then the face should narrow suddenly and run down almost to a point, not however to such a point as one sees in the English racehorse, whose profile seems to terminate with the nostril, but to the tip of the lip. The nostril when in repose should lie flat with the face, appearing in it little more than a slit, and pinched and puckered up, as also should the mouth, which should have the under-lip longer than the upper, “like the camel’s,” the Bedouins say. The ears, especially in the mare, should be long, but fine and delicately cut, like the ears of a gazelle.

It must be remarked that the head and the tail are the two points especially regarded by Arabs in judging of a horse, as in them they think they can discover the surest signs of his breeding. The tails of the Nejd horses are as peculiar as their heads, and are as essential to their beauty. However other points might differ, every horse at Haïl had its tail set on in the same fashion, in repose something like the tail of a rocking horse, and not as has been described, “thrown out in a perfect arch.” In motion the tail was held high in the air, and looked as if it could not under any circumstances be carried low. Mohammed ibn Arûk declared roundly that the phenomenon was an effect, partly at least, of art. He assured us that before a foal is an hour old, its tail is bent back over a stick and the twist produces a permanent result. But this sounds unlikely, and in any case it could hardly affect the carriage of the tail in galloping.

With regard to colour, of the hundred animals in the Haïl stables, there were about forty greys or rather whites, thirty bays, twenty chestnuts, and the rest brown. We did not see a real black, and of course there are no roans, or piebalds, or duns, for these are not Arab colours. The Emir one day asked us what colours we preferred in England, and when we told him bay or chestnut he quite agreed with us. Nearly all Arabs prefer bay with black points, though pure white with a very black skin and hoofs is also liked. In a bay or chestnut, three white feet, the off fore-foot being dark, are not objected to. But, as a rule, colour is not much regarded at Haïl, for there as elsewhere in Arabia a fashionable strain is all in all.

“Besides the full grown animals, Ibn Rashid’s yards contain thirty or forty foals and yearlings, beautiful little creatures but terribly starved and miserable. Foals bred in the desert are poor enough, but these in town have a positively sickly appearance. Tied all day long by the foot they seem to have quite lost heart, and show none of the playfulness of their age. Their tameness, like that of the “fowl and the brute,” is shocking to see. The Emir tells us that every spring he sends a hundred yearlings down to Queyt on the Persian Gulf under charge of one of his slaves, who sells them at Bombay for £100 apiece. They are of course now at their worst age, but they have the prospect of a few months’ grazing in the Nefûd before appearing in the market.”

“On the whole, both of us are rather disappointed with what we see here. Of all the mares in the prince’s stables I do not think more than three or four could show with advantage among the Gomussa, and, in fact, we are somewhat alarmed lest the Emir should propose an exchange with us for our chestnut Ras el-Fedawi which is greatly admired by every one. If he did, we could not well refuse.”

With regard to Nejd horses in general, the following remarks are based on what we saw and heard at Haïl, and elsewhere in Arabia.

First, whatever may have been the case formerly, horses of any kind are now exceedingly rare in Nejd. One may travel vast distances in the Peninsula without meeting a single horse or even crossing a horse track. Both in the Nefûd and on our return journey to the Euphrates, we carefully examined every track of man and beast we met; but from the time of our leaving the Roala till close to Meshhed Ali, not twenty of these proved to be tracks of horses. The wind no doubt obliterates footsteps quickly, but it could not wholly do so, if there were a great number of the animals near. The Ketherin, a true Nejd tribe and a branch of the Beni Khaled, told us with some pride that they could mount a hundred horsemen, and even the Muteyr, reputed to be the greatest breeders of thoroughbred stock in Nejd, are said to possess only 400 mares. The horse is a luxury with the Bedouins of the Peninsula, and not, as it is with those of the North, a necessity of their daily life. Their journeys and raids and wars are all made on camel, not on horse-back; and at most the Sheykh mounts his mare at the moment of battle. The want of water in Nejd is a sufficient reason for this. Horses there are kept for show rather than actual use, and are looked upon as far too precious to run unnecessary risks.

Secondly, what horses there are in Nejd, are bred in the Nefûds. The stony plateaux of the interior contain no suitable pasture except in a very few places, while the Nefûds afford grass, green or dry, the whole year round. The Muteyr, the Beni Khaled, the Dafir, and the Shammar, are now the principal breeders of horses in Nejd, but the Ánazeh are regarded as possessing the best strains, and the Ánazeh have disappeared from Nejd. They began to migrate northwards about two hundred years ago, and have ever since continued moving by successive migrations till all have abandoned their original homes. It may be that the great name which Nejd horses undoubtedly have in the East, was due mainly to these very Ánazeh, with whose horses they are now contrasted. The Bisshr Ánazeh were settled in the neighbourhood of Kheybar, on the western edge of the Nefûd, the Roala south of Jôf, and the Amarrat in the extreme east. These probably among them supplied Nejd horses in former times to Syria, Bagdad, and Persia, and some sections of the tribe may even have found their way further south; for the Ibn Saouds themselves are an Ánazeh family. So that then, probably, as now, the best strains of blood were in their hands. To the present day in the north the Ánazeh distinguish the descendants of the mares brought with them from Nejd as “Nejdi,” while they call the descendants of the mares captured from the tribes of the North, “Shimali” or Northerners.

The management and education of horses seems to differ little in Nejd from what it is elsewhere among the Arabs. But we were surprised to find that, in place of the Bedouin halter, the bit is used at Haïl. At first we fancied that this was in imitation of Turkish manners; but it is more likely to be an old custom with town Arabs. Indeed the Bedouins of the Sahara, no less than the Turks, use the ring bit, which may after all have been an invention of Arabia. Bad as it is for the mouth, it is certainly of use in the fancy riding indulged in at Haïl, the jerid play and sham fighting. Among the Bedouins of Nejd the halter alone is used.

Of anything like racing we could learn nothing. Trials of speed are no longer in fashion, as they must have been once, and skill in turning and doubling is alone of any value. That some tradition, however, of training still exists among the Arabs, the following recipe for rearing a colt seems to prove. It was given us in answer to our description of English racing and racehorses, and probably represents a traditional practice of Arabia as old as the days of Mahomet.

ARAB RECIPE FOR REARING A COLT

“If,” said our informant, “you would make a colt run faster than his fellows, remember the following rules: —

“‘During the first month of his life let him be content with his mother’s milk, it will be sufficient for him. Then during five months add to this natural supply goat’s milk, as much as he will drink. For six months more give him the milk of camels, and besides a measure of wheat steeped in water for a quarter of an hour, and served in a nosebag.

“‘At a year old the colt will have done with milk; he must be fed on wheat and grass, the wheat dry from a nose-bag, the grass green if there is any.

“‘At two years old he must work, or he will be worthless. Feed him now, like a full-grown horse, on barley; but in summer let him also have gruel daily at midday. Make the gruel thus: – Take a double-handful of flour, and mix it in water well with your hands till the water seems like milk; then strain it, leaving the dregs of the flour, and give what is liquid to the colt to drink.

“‘Be careful from the hour he is born to let him stand in the sun; shade hurts horses, but let him have water in plenty when the day is hot.

“‘The colt must now be mounted, and taken by his owner everywhere with him, so that he shall see everything, and learn courage. He must be kept constantly in exercise, and never remain long at his manger. He should be taken on a journey, for work will fortify his limbs.

“‘At three years old he should be trained to gallop. Then, if he be of true blood, he will not be left behind. Yalla!’”

CHAPTER XIII

“Babel was Nimrod’s hunting box, and thenA town of gardens, walls, and wealth amazing,Where Nabuchodonosor, king of men,Reigned till one summer’s day he took to grazing.”Byron.“.. Oh how wretchedIs that poor man that lives on princes’ favours.”Shakespeare.

Mohammed loses his head – A ride with the Emir – The mountain fortress of Agde – Farewell to Haïl – We join the Persian Haj – Ways and manners of the pilgrims – A clergyman of Medina.

I have hinted at a mystification in which we found ourselves involved a few days after our arrival at Haïl, and which at the time caused us no little anxiety. It had its origin in a piece of childishness on Mohammed’s part, whose head was completely turned by the handsome reception given him as an Ibn Arûk by the Emir, and a little too, I fear, by our own spoiling. To the present day I am not quite sure that we heard all that happened, and so forbear entering upon the matter in detail; but as far as we could learn, Mohammed’s vanity seems to have led him to aggrandise his own position in the eyes of Ibn Rashid’s court, by representing us as persons whom he had taken under his protection, and who were in some way dependent on him; boasting that the camels, horses, and other property were his own, and our servants his people. This under ordinary circumstances might have been a matter of small consequence, and we should not have grudged him a little self-glorification at our expense, conscious as we were of having owed the success of our journey hitherto, mainly to his fidelity. But unfortunately the secondary rôle which he would thus have assigned to us, made our relations with the Emir not only embarrassing, but positively dangerous. Our reception at first had been cordial to a degree that made it all the more annoying to find, that when we had been four days at Haïl, we no longer received the attentions which had hitherto been paid us. The presents of game ceased, and the lamb, with which we had hitherto been regaled at dinner, was replaced by camel meat. Instead of two soldiers being sent to escort us to the palace, a slave boy came with a message. On the fifth day we were not invited to the evening party, and on the sixth Wilfrid, calling at the palace, was told curtly that the Emir was not at home. We could not imagine the cause of this change, and Mohammed, usually so cheerful and so open-hearted, had become moody and embarrassed, keeping almost entirely with the servants in the outer house. Hanna, the faithful Hanna, began to hint darkly that things were not well, and Abdallah and the rest of the Mussulman servants seemed unwilling to do their duty. We remembered that we were among Wahhabi fanatics, and we began to be very much alarmed. Still we were far from guessing the real reason, and it was not till we had been a week at Haïl that Wilfrid, happening to meet the Emir’s chief slave Mubarek, learned from him how matters stood. It was no use being angry; indeed Mohammed’s conduct was rather childish than disloyal, and the dénouement would have not been worth mentioning except as an illustration of Arab manners and ways of thought, and also as explaining why our stay at Haïl was cut shorter than we had originally intended it to be; and why, instead of going on to Kasim, we joined the Persian pilgrimage on their homeward road to Meshhed Ali.