Part 8

Now I pray unto Allah to grant you a happiness that shall never pass away. Cherish your friendship for me. The wise men among the Arabs have said:

Riches may be lost:

Honours are but a shadow that fades away:

But true friends are a treasure that remains.

He who hath written these lines with a hand which shall one day be withered in death, is your friend, the pauper in the presence of Allah.

SID-EL-HADJ, ABD-EL-KADER, BEN-MAHHYEDDIN.

Damascus, end of Deul-Kada 1274 (end of August 1857).

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P. S. For the better understanding of our correspondence, permit me to instruct you on one point. The word ferass is not exclusively applied to the female of the horse, as is customary in Algeria—it indicates the male as well as the female. If a mare be particularly alluded to, it is necessary to say a female ferass; and in like manner if the allusion be to a horse, a male ferass is the proper phrase. Such is the way with the true Arabs (Arabes-es-sahh); strictly speaking, the mare is called hadjra and the horse hossan.

The reader of this curious document will doubtless have remarked the singular admixture of legendary anecdotes with snatches of natural history sometimes true, sometimes fabulous after the manner of Pliny and Aristotle, and all of it under the dominion of a religious sentiment. It is history as written by Orientals and likewise by the Western Arabs; for both the one and the other, until now outlawed as it were from progress by their forced or voluntary exclusion from the intellectual movement going on in Europe, are still, so far as science and literature are concerned, no farther advanced than their ancestors of Bagdad or Granada.

Now, it is a remarkable fact that the more learned an Arab may be, the more are his writings imbued with that fancifulness which, for a reader accustomed to the preciseness of our European style, needs to be cleared of its poetical mysteriousness and constructed afresh, before it can be reduced to the character of a document possessed of any historical or scientific worth in the sense we usually give to those words. Thus, at first sight, the letter we have just perused is nothing more than a fragment detached from an Oriental tale. There are, nevertheless, lurking within it incontestable truths, and from beneath the exaggerations and symbols of tradition may be gathered information of a kind not wisely to be despised. Here especially is it the letter that killeth while the spirit giveth life—let us then seek for the spirit beneath the letter.

God created the horse out of the wind, symbol of fleetness, which, in the eyes of an Arab, is the first quality of a courser. The poets of Greece were inspired by the same idea. It was the wind that impregnated the mares of Thessaly, the swiftest of ancient times; and it may be that those mares were introduced into Greece from Syria, or Arabia, together with the fabulous pedigree assigned to them by the poets of both countries. If this were the case, and here history is in accord with tradition, the Arabian horses must have been, what they still are on their native soil, the fleetest and best in the world.

The Arabs, who neither understand nor practice our system of fighting in compact and serried masses, at times immovable, but who charge without any semblance of order and see nothing disgraceful in a headlong flight, are naturally disposed to love and to vaunt above all others the drinker of air. "The air-drinker," say they, "is the first in the combat to rush at the enemy; and the first after victory to fly at the booty, and in case of defeat the first to escape from danger."

A poet has said: "There are things which an intelligent King should never neglect. The first is a horse, that by its swiftness shall be able to rescue him from the enemy he has failed to overcome."

The favourite steed of the Prophet was named Ouskoub, "the torrent," from the word sakab, "quickly flowing water." The intervention of the Angel Gabriel in the creation of the horse commends that animal to the good offices of the true Believers, for the Angel Gabriel is the constant medium of communication between the Deity and the Prophets, especially Mohammed. Now it was by means and with the assistance of the horse alone that the Mussulman tribes succeeded in accomplishing that immense system of emigration, that propaganda war, as far as China to the eastward, and westward to the Ocean, which was in the mind of Mohammed to impose upon them. It was indispensable, therefore, that the horse should be looked upon in the light of a sacred animal, a providential instrument of war, created by the Deity for a special purpose, and of a nobler essence than that with which He fashioned the other animals. To produce the horse in a manner beyond the common law of creation, to envelop his origin in a symbolism that wanders abroad from natural history to lose itself in mysterious legends, to place him thus beneath the safeguard of religious reverence, evinced, as the result has proved, a thorough knowledge of the spirit of the people upon whom Mohammed purposed and was about to operate.

The Koran in speaking of horses calls them El-Kheir, "the especial treasure," and from this simple word the commentators of the Sura, sad, have arrived at the conclusion that "an Arab ought to love horses as a part of his own heart, and to sacrifice for their keep the very food of his own children." A volume might be composed of phrases detached from the sacred book, or from the hadites of the Prophet (his conversations as handed down by tradition), and of the commentaries upon them, which under the form of maxims and precepts, prescribe to Mussulmans, as a religious duty, the love of horses. I shall quote only a few of them.

"Blessings, good fortune, and a rich booty shall be attached to the forelock of horses until the day of the resurrection." "Whoso keeps a horse for the holy war in the way of the Most High, increases the number of his good works. The hunger and thirst of such a steed, the water he drinks, the food he eats, every one of his hairs, each step he takes, and every function of nature, shall all weigh in the balance at the day of the last judgment."

"The horse prays thrice a day. In the morning he says: 'O Allah! make me beloved of my master.' At noon: 'Do well by my master, that he may do well by me.' In the evening: 'Grant that he may enter into paradise upon my back!'"

It was doubtless under the impression of these last words that El-Doumayry wrote in his history of animals, Hayat-el-hayouan: "The horse is the animal that by his intelligence approaches nearest to man." While on this subject I cannot help remarking that the Arabs, when they advanced this proposition, were well acquainted with the animals which pass with us as being the most intelligent such as the elephant, the dog, etc. How is it then? May it not be that the Arabs, by living on such intimate terms with the horse, have succeeded in developing faculties the very existence of which is unknown to us, who accord to that animal only the instinct of memory? With them, in fact, the horse is a friend of the family. With us, on the contrary, it is no more than an article of luxury or an instrument of labour, which we are ever ready to change through interest or caprice; as witness the common saying: "One does not marry one's horse!" But the Arab does marry his horse. Be this as it may, the maxims quoted above all tend to the same end, to identify man with the horse. Let it not be supposed, however, that that is all. It was necessary that the horse should be the companion of the Believer alone, to the exclusion of all infidels,—a dogma the political hearing of which will be readily appreciated. Allah hath said: "The horse shall be cherished by all my servants, but he shall be the despair of all those who do not follow my laws, and none will I place on his back save those who know me and who worship me."

It is needless to add that the Mussulman princes have availed themselves of this dogma to prohibit in the name of Allah the sale of Arab horses to Christians, under pain of sin and damnation. These commands, though of divine origin have, I am well aware, been disobeyed in some countries. The Arab loves money, it is true; but for all that we may rest assured that for the most part the animals sold to us are of an inferior order, and that the horses or mares whose noble and precious qualities have been ascertained by proof, whether as regards speed or as breeders, are never parted with to foreigners for any price. Even if the owner were willing to let them go, the whole tribe in the name of their common interest would oppose it. This is the real truth, and probably explains the disrepute into which Arabians appear to have fallen in Europe. One seldom there meets with any except such as the Arabs have no desire to keep. But enough on that head: let us now turn to another topic.

The Emir Abd-el-Kader asserts that the horse was created koummite, red mixed with black, that is to say, dark bay or dark chesnut. Desengaged from the cloudiness of fancy, this assertion will at least go far to prove that these colours have in all ages been esteemed by the Arabs as the index to superior qualities. It is a fixed idea with this observing people. It is constantly turning up. The Prophet said:

"If after having collected all the horses of the Arabs I were to make them race against one another, it is the euchegueur meglouk, the dark chesnut, that would outstrip the rest." Moussa, the celebrated conqueror of Africa and Spain, is reported to have said: "Of all the horses of all my armies the one that has best borne the fatigues and privations of war is the true bay, hameur somm."

And the Prophet further remarked: "If thou hast a dark chesnut, conduct him to the combat, and if thou hast only a sorry chesnut, conduct him all the same to the combat."

From all this it is abundantly apparent that legendary traditions and experience are in perfect harmony in according a decided superiority to coats of deep and decided hues. Coats of a light pale colour are held in no esteem whatever. The horse's coat, therefore, must be an index to his character. The long experience of Mohammed the Prophet and of Moussa the Conqueror must have placed them in a position to speak with full knowledge of the subject, and their opinion confirmed by that of all the Arabs, the best horsemen in the world and the most interested in studying the animal, upon whom indeed depend their honour and their life, is certainly entitled to be regarded with some respect. It is beyond all question that the koummite—red mingled with black, chesnut or bay—is preferred by the Arabs to all others. If I might be allowed to quote my own personal experience, I should have no hesitation in saying that, if there be any prejudice in the matter, I share it with them. Besides, must it necessarily be a prejudice because it may seem to be one? No one will deny that all the individuals of the same species are, in their wild state, identical in colour and endowed with common instinctive qualities inherent in the race. These colours and these qualities undergo no alteration or admixture except in a state of servitude and under its influences, so that if any of these individuals, by a return to their natural condition more easily proved than explained, happen to recover the colour of their first ancestors, they will be equally distinguished by more broadly defined natural qualities. The canine race may be taken as an illustration. Whence it follows that a certain number of domesticated individuals being given, their coats alike and with dominant qualities, it may be fairly concluded that this coat and these qualities were those of the race in its wild state. In the case, then, of the Arab horse, if it be true that those whose coat is red shaded with black are endowed with superior speed, are we not justified in inferring that such was the uniform colour, such the natural qualities, of the sires of the race? I submit with all humility these observations to men of science.

Abd-el-Kader assures us, moreover, that it is ascertained by the Arabs that horses change colour according to the soil on which they are bred. Is it not possible, in fact, that under the influence of an atmosphere more or less light, of water more or less fresh, of a nurture more or less rich according as the soil on which it is raised is more or less impregnated with certain elements, the skin of the horse may be sensibly affected? Every one knows that with any coat, the colour changes in tone and shade according to the locality where the animal lives, the state of its health, the quality of the water it drinks, and of the food it eats, and the care that is bestowed upon it. There is perchance in all this a lesson in natural history not to be despised, for if the circumstances in which a horse lives act upon his skin, they must inevitably act also in the long run upon his form and qualities.

This point being dismissed, the last proposition in the letter of the Emir Abd-el-Kader is that which classes the history of Arab horses in four epochs: 1st, from Adam to Ishmael; 2nd, from Ishmael to Solomon; 3rd, from Solomon to Mohammed; 4th, from Mohammed to our own times.

This is the history of the Arabs themselves, so completely have they identified themselves with the horse, their necessary and indispensable companion. Between Adam and Abraham the Arabs did not exist—it was the age of a pastoral population. No wars, at least of a serious character, no pillaging. The horse appears in it only on the day of creation. He has no part to play except as a head of cattle among the flocks and herds, peacefully employed in domestic service. But on the second epoch with Ishmael, his part changes altogether. Ishmael is a bastard, disinherited, abandoned in the desert. His life is to be a struggle. He must be at open war with all mankind because he must live somehow upon the soil to which he has been banished, without taking into consideration the fact that this necessity of fighting in order to live, at the same time gratifies the resentment he entertains towards his brothers, heirs, to his prejudice, of the paternal fields. We read in the Bible, that when Hagar, in Arabic Hadjira, fled into the wilderness an angel appeared to her and said:

"I will multiply thy seed exceedingly that it shall not be numbered for multitude.