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.” [7]

“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