Homer Davenport, New York 1909

           While we were at the saddlery place, in the crowd of Bedouins looking on, I saw one who looked a little darker than the rest and whose teeth were peculiarly white. I remembered reading in one of the Blunt's books, ththe Anezeh tribe had peculiarly white, chalk-like teeth and I at once told Ameene, the interpreter, to ask this Bedouin if he knew anything about the Anezeh. We had heard at Beyrout that the tribe was then two or three hundred miles south of Palmyra. Moore, in a good-humored, sarcastic way, said: "Here, if you are going to try and find the Anezeh in Aleppo, I will quit you; this man never heard of the Anezeh, he is a camel driver." While the translation was made to the Arab his eyes grew very expressive and round, and he said in return, "The Anezeh are within ten hours' ride of Aleppo; I am a member of one of the sub-tribes and have just come from them."

         At this Moore and Beard laughed and went off in disgust to look at some silk rugs. I let them go without a word. In a moment I saw another Bedouin, an older man with a grayish beard, but with the same peculiar white teeth, and from him, too, I inquired the whereabouts of the Anezeh. His answer confirmed the story of the first and he added something that brought me back to my normal spirits. He declared that Hashem Bey, the Sheikh of all Sheikhs, was then in Aleppo paying a secret visit to a man named Akmet Haffez, the dipomatic ruler of the desert. He offered to take us to the house of Akhmet Haffez. Jack Thompson's eyes began to sparkle again, and Ameene grew excited. If this were true, it seemed beyond a doubt that we could buy our horses directly from the Anezeh tribe itself. It was no longer a question of going to Deyr. We lost no time in getting into a carriage in which we drove through the narrow, dirty streets for a long way, passing old crumbling grave-stones in the middle of the town and then to the outskirts, and up to a two-story stone and mud house. our cavass went inside, was gone five minutes, and returned. We were taken upstairs to an inside large room showing every sign of wealth. ...

           ...

           Ameene, our interpreter, now spoke, and told him why our sudden call was made and Akmet Haffez told us that Hashem Bey, the Sheikh of the Anezeh, had been his guest for ten days, but had gone the night before, back to his tribe, which was encamped at a distance of ten or twelve hours' ride.

           The dignified old gentleman then learned we were the people who had been in Antioch three nights before. "These then," he asked, "are the people, one of whom has an Irade from the Sultan of Turkey, and letters from the one Great Sheikh of all the Americ tribes?" "Yes," he was told...The old Man's eyes filled with tears as he looked at me, and his slaves and secretaries grew more interested, when turning toward Ameene he said:

         "Then you have called on me before calling on the Governor of Aleppo and Syria. No such honor was ever paid to a Bedouin before, and if I should live to be one hundred years old, my smallest slave would honor me more for this visit."

          ...

          "But after all you have not come here to see men. Better than that you have come to see horses, and I would be selfish if I kept you longer from seeing the greatest mare of our country--the war mare of the Great Hashem Bey--the mare from whose back he killed, among others, his most distinguished enemy."

Page II: Homer Davenport is Received by the Anezeh Bedouin

Page III: How Davenport's aquired the grey Kehileh-Heife mare *Reshan

Page IV: The story of the chestnut Seglawi Jedran mare, Urfah