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. 7

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 Anazeh are regarded as possessing the best strains, and the Anazeh 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 Anazeh, 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 Anazeh family. So that then, probably, as now, the best strains of blood were

UH. XII.] Arab Recipe for rearing a colt.

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in their hands. To the present day in the north the Anazeh 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.

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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