Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates Vol 2 - The Search For Mecca

cH. XXVIII.] N'o lurittcu Pcdigj'ccs. 269
It should seem that there are also Kochlani in
Heclsjas and in the country of Dsjof ;
but I doubt if
they be in estimation in the domains of the Imam,
where the horses of men of rank appeared to mc
too handsome to be Kochlani. The Endish, however,
sometimes purchase these horses at the price
of 800 or 1000 crowns each. An EnMish o merchant
was offered at Bengal twice the purchase-money for
one of these horses ; but he sent him to England,
where he hoj^ed
original price."
that he would draw four times the
I have given this extract almost in, extenso, as it
is interesting in spite of some blunders, which are
easily explained by the fact that Niebuhr never
visited the great horse-breeding tribes. It shows,
at any rate, that the names of the breeds were at
that time as clearly established as now, and that
these are in no wise a mere modern invention, as
some assert, got up by horse-dealers for
the benefit
of Englishmen in India. The notion of such an
imposture is not to be entertained by anyone who
has conversed, even for
half an hour, on horseflesh
with a Bedouin. The fanatics about breedino- are
not the English but the Bedouins themselves ;
and
it is inconceivable these can have been converted
by any conspiracy of horse-dealers. An equally
absurd idea, also current in India, is that the
Anazeh breed has within the last sixty or seventy
years received an infusion of English blood.
Some
talk of English thoroughbred horses, left by the