.          ..I hope I have succeeded in impressing the reader with the very fine nobility of character of Akmet Haffez. My friendship with him and my admiration for him began at our first meeting in Aleppo and each day made both stronger. And now I was to come into closer relations with him ... I went through the ceremony which made me his brother.

          Neither of us had brothers and so we agreed to follow our old custom of the Bedouins and take the fraternal pledge. I first treated the matter of little too frivolously, but the Bedouins were very solemn.

          Standing at one side of the tent, in the presence of many witnesses, we held up our right hands and, with our left clasped together, repeated the pledge. "By God and through God, brothers, today and tomorrow and forever brothers!"

          I felt nothing of frivolity now and as I grasped his hand and took the oath my eyes were moist. After it was over he asked how I felt now that I was the brother of a brown old man, who ate with his hands. I replied that I felt no change; that we had apparently always been brothers, whereupon he began to cry.

          I saw a Bedouin whisper to Haffez, and the latter ran over and gripped the Circassian by the right hand, and asked him to say to God that she was "Chubby." If you ever saw a fellow pull loose quick, it was this Circassian. He yelled in his efforts to get away, and at the same time saying the mare was "Chubby" to me, but not to God.

          ...The event of importance to which we were now looking forward was the meeting with Hashem Bey, the Sheikh of Sheikhs of the desert. No sooner indeed had we arrived at our tents than we were informed that the ruler of the Anezeh had returned with a large number of his warriors to se us, and so after a few hours' rest the meeting came about....

          Hashem Bey was tall and thin, a young man of thirty-four, or even younger. He was strictly the war type; his eyes were set far back under the bones, without being wide apart...

          ...He was very evidently not particularly pleased to meet us and the reason for this soon came out. I had called his attention with a great deal of pride to the fact that I was riding his brown Maneghi Sbeyel stallion, the pride of his entire people, and a present, by order of him, to the Governor of Aleppo, and the latter's present to me. His lip curled and he made that motion of his hands, slapping them past each other, common among the Bedouins, which meant that the horse was lost to him.

TRANSLATION OF *HALEB'S PEDIGREE FOLLOWS:

"IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL ALLAH;

PRAISE BE TO ALLAH. THE LORDS OF ALL THE

UNIVERSE, AND PRAYERS AND GREETINGS UPON

OUR MASTER MOHAMMET AND UPON ALL HIS FAMIY

AND FOLLOWERS. "GOD THE ALL-HIGH HAS SAID

IN HIS CHERISHED BOOK: 'BY THOSE WHICH RUN

SWIFTLY WITH A PANTING NOISE, AND WHICH

STRIKE FIRE, AND WHICH MAKE AN INCURSION IN

THE MORNING, RAISING A CLOUD OF DUST AND

PERCING THE RANKS OF A HOST.' HE HAS ASO

SAID: '(ON) THEIR BACKS ARE SPLENDOR AND (IN)

GOING ON HIS SIXTH, IS A MAHNAKY SABILY. HIS SIRE IS SHOWAIMAN SABBAH, WHO BREEDS PURE

AND EXCUSIVE, AND IS CONSEQUENTY FREE OF ALL DEFECTS. AND WE HAVE NOT TESTIFIED EXCEPT

TO WHAT WE HAVE KNOWN, AND WE ARE INCOGNIZANT OF THE UNKNOWN. WRITTEN THE 25TH OF

(SIGNED) AHMAD HAFEZ, (SIGNED) SHEIKH E-BOUKHAMIS ALI A-RASHID, (SIGNED) KAIMAKAM

EUPHRATES, AND HER PEDIGREE BORE THE LAST SEAL OF SHEIKH FARIS, THE

GREAT ENEMY OF THE ANEZEH, WHO HAD BEEN DEAD TWO YEARS. SHE WAS SMALL,

NOT MORE THAN FOURTEEN HANDS TWO INCHES HIGH, BUT I NEVER SAW SUCH

BEAUTIFUL HIND QUARTERS AND BACK TENDONS ON ANYTHING IN HORSE FLESH."

"NOW EVERY TIME I HAD TRIED TO BUY THIS MARE FROM HAFFEZ HE TURNED IT OFF

WITH A JOKE, SAYING THAT EVERYTHING HE HAD WAS MINE AND THAT THERE WAS

NOTHING TO BUY ... BUT THAT NIGHT I FINALY GOT HIM. I TOLD HIM SERIOUSLY THAT

ABOVE ALL THE MARES I HAD SEEN ON THE DESERT, I WANTED HIS ABEYEH

SHERRAKIEH, BECAUSE OF HER FINE HEAD."

          But on the way back from Aleppo he was entirely converted and became an enthusiast. As I mentioned above, he was riding the Abeyeh mare and determined to put her to the test. It was a foolish thing to do, for the heat was terrific and the mare had a bad cough and cold. At home she would have been in the care of a veterinary. Moore, with his rifle and ammunition and $4,000 in gold, which he was carrying, weighed 300 pounds. Nevertheless he galloped her thirty-five miles in four hours and a half, carrying all the weight. He did not follow any beaten roadway, but took her over the rocks of the desert in a bee-line. The further she went, he said, the stronger she seemed to get, and the better she seemed to move. At the end her cough did not seem to be worse, and when Moore was on her she didn't seem to be tired. She showed some of the effects of the test when she was standing still by continually resting. Moore wanted the Arab horse to show him something, and he got it without getting it second-hand. From that time on he stood up for the Arab horse.

          We spent several days with the Anezeh... and had enjoyed our stay; we had feasted on a camel (they said it was a young one); we had talked horse pedigrees with the Anezeh for days without interruption; we had seen the greatest animals they had, and now owned some of them;'we had bought nearly all the horses that my Iradé would permit to be exported; time was flying and we were a long way from New York. It seemed when I looked at the map as if we never would be able to get there...

          Hashem Bey was left behind, and though our faces were once more turned toward the west we were still in the desert and were to have more adventures and to witness more shrewd oriental bargaining on the part of Akmet Haffez.

          We were waked in the morning by the neighing of the horses we had purchased and found we had been aroused by the approach of a Bedouin riding a bay mare and leading a two-year-old colt.

          After all there is a fascination about this oriental bargaining. Arabs will never set a price on their horse. Unless your price suits him he will lead his horse away, nor will the desert Bedouin under any condition tell a lie about his horse's breeding.

          After breakfast the Bedouin was brought to me, his hand was placed in mine, while the Arabs jabbered and I knew that the colt had finally been purchased...

          As we departed the mare was a picture. She walked with the grace of a well bred woman; her tail would gracefully sway from side to side; her ears were ever in motion, and her eyes sparkled. The very sight of her rested us from the long day's ride of the day before and then she broke into a gallop and her swinging tassels were soon lost sight of as she disappeared on the horizon.

          Before the owner mounted the beautiful mother to ride away, I approached her, and, true to the Bedouin custom, she refused to let me come near. She bit at me and pretended to kick, and all this while ragged Bedouins were petting her; but me she watched like a hawk.

          All our attempts to buy proved unavailing. He put us off by saying that he would have to consult his family. He promised faithfully to come to us again the next night, but he did not and so the story of the eventual purchase of the mare is the more remarkable and must be put down in its proper place.

          The route of the next day's journey took us more to the south, and as we passed an encampment of the Sebaa Anezeh, a brown mare, with a filly colt not more than fifteen days old at her side, was shown to us. Haffez was especially anxious that I should see this filly, as it was sired by the horse I was riding (the Maneghi Sbeyel), and was his double over again, without a white hair and with the same peculiar head. She was a dainty thing as she played round her mother, but I was afraid she could not stand the long ride to Alexandretta. Haffez, however, thought otherwise, so I finally bought the mare and filly. They were of the family of Hadban Enzekhi, the first we had seen in the desert, and I was glad of the opportunity to buy them as it completed the purchase of representatives of all the members of the Khamseh, or five great families. The mother was a most showy animal. with remarkable shoulders and hips, and the most graceful neck and tail carriage. As the Bedouin owner galloped her here and there over the rocks to show her off, she was a beautiful sight. It seemed the Bedouin wanted to sell the mother and not the filly colt, but Haffez knew what he was after, and bought the two at what he considered was a price for the mare alone. Her former owner followed us to Aleppo and then offered us sixty-five Turkish for the colt, which was then twenty days old. But I kept it.

          It will be remembered that the owner of the distinguished mare we wished so much to purchase had said he would join us that night, and all night the lonesome colt had been calling for his mother. He clung to his brother, but would call to every passing horse or camel. All night we waited for the Bedouin and mare, but they did not come. The next day a courier came with a message that we might have her for fifty pounds more than we had offered, and though it seemed useless, we sent a messenger, and a soldier, with the money to bring her to Aleppo.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

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