Very much as today Bedouins roamed the spacious wilderness with their immense herds of camels. They had even then not many horses, perhaps one brood mare to every three or four tents, but forty or fifty camels to each family. As now so in ages past the people lived on camel's milk (and the game they killed with their trained falcons) and the horses were reaised on camel's milk too, even mature mares and stallions receive to this day from two to seven quarts of camel's milk every evening after teh dromedaries return from the pastures to be hobbled for the night at their owner's goat-hair-tent abode.

The Bedouins made their forays on camels. A man owning a good race-camel would form a partnership with another member of his tribe who was the possessor of a good--that is, an enduring--mare. The two men with their race camel and war mare would then join a raiding party, promising to share the spoils of their marauding expedition together. Bedouins preferred to ride mares because stallions neigh when encountering other horses, while the sensible females remain quiet and do not give away their masters.

Before Muhammad's time all Bedouins of Inner-Arabia bred horses which they claim to this day descended from Ishmael's wild mare, the Kuhaylah, the "Antimon-Painted Antelope." According to their legend, this mare was caught by Abraham's son, as he went hunting one day wiht his bow and arrow. Sighting for the first time a wild horse, he took the large animal to be a special kind of antelope and was about to discharge an arrow to kill her when suddenly the Angel Jabrail (Gabriel) stood at his side, interfering by placing his hand upon Ishmael's arm and saying, "Son Hagar, this black-skinned antelope (Kuhaylah) has been made apart from all other creation as a reward of God to thee and thy children. Though disinherited by thy father Ibrahim (Abraham) accept this companion of angels as a gift from heaven; her intelligence and the speed of her hooves will bring thee wealth and honour thee and thy children evermore."

The new-born colt had been placed in a camelsaddle bag and carried on the "Ralla," the daily migration of the tribe. Late on that day, at the end of their journey, the Bedouins lifted the baby foal out of its saddle-bag, but the poor little colt fell on its side, unable to stand on its feet. The cramped position in the bag had crippled its spine. Ishmael was about to kill it with his dagger, when again the Angel Jabrail stood beside him, staying his hand with the blade.

"Do not despise the hunch-back colt," the Angel said. "God can use the despised for His glory and make His children happy."

Thus the little colt lived, and in later years became the sire of the first domesticated Arabian foals among the Bedouins.

This story, of course, points to the pre historic existence of wild horses in Arabia, a particular species, >distinctive< from all other horses we know.

Arabians have a different shaped head with a greater brain case, and hence they are more intelligent. They lack one vertebra in their back-bone, and have one, sometimes two, vertebrae less in their dock (root of the tail), and thus Arabians are greater weight-carriers and don't need "tail-sets," or other artifical means to keeep(sic) their beautiful tails up.

All Arabians of the Kuhaylan and related strains retain to this day rounded outlines and exquisite heads with large eyes. The profile-line of the Arabian skull is "buckled" across the forehead with a concave depression below the orbits, the pyramidical shaped head tapers to a fine trianglular muzzle with dilated silk-like nostrils and a firm, small, lower lip drawn backward. The jowls are set wide apart, indicating a large windpipe and thus plenty of "wind" and endurance. Thus, Beauty, Health, and Intelligence--equine perfection--are expressed in the noble features of the genuine Arabian head as much as in the symmetrical lines of his whole body.

Like a wild animal--that is in its >original<, uncontaminated< state--the Arabian horse was bred for generation after generation among its captors, the Bedouins of the wilderness.

When Muhammad, the Prophet, a man of Bedouin descent himself, appeared, and his followers started the conquest of countries bordering the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, we also find the Bedouins--the "isolationists" of the middle-western Arabian provincees--join with him. Art, literature, science, all the dormant wonderous qualities of the Arabian soul awakened and carried the torch of their remarkable spirit to the far ends of the world, setting afire the "ignorant" people in Asia, Africa, and Europe, creating not only a new civilization, but a new, tremendous, spiritual culture whose marks of greatness and intellectual qualities are still part of our own to this day.

What concerns the nominating of the first "five" (Al-Khamsa) of the twenty strains of Arabian horses, a romantic story is told about the prophet Muhammad, who after one of his early battles against the "infidels" in Arabia, ordered his cavalry to dismount on a height overlooking a valley so that the mares could quench their thirst in a rain-pool below. At a sign of the Prophet--so that it would happen at the same instant--the riding-skins and halters were removed from the horses and the animals turned loose. The mares, no longer restrained by their masters, plunged over the crest of the hill toward the shining water, but in the midst of their head-long flight, Muhammad motioned to his trumpeter to sound the signal-call of the assembling for combat.

Hardly had the familiar sound reached the ears of the running horses, when at once five of the mares turned back obediently without further regard for their own desire or instinct which had drawn them to the nearby pool wiht their own kin to quench the burning flame in their parched throats. Struggling desperately and even visiously against the surging mass of swiftly moving animals, the turn-about five mares, heeding the call of their Prophet, were rearing, kicking squealing impatiently, as they fought their way out of the roaring avalancehe of horses, whose thundering hooves and glistening bodies were still descending like boulders from the ramparts of the mountain to the broad valley below.

The five mares finally broke away from the maelstrom. Freed at last, they raced along in one tight group, shaking their manes, lashing their tails and neighing loudly with triumphant delight, pebbles and flint flying from under their hooves. Now their feet were drumming along the incline of hte sloping hill toward its beckoning brow, where the glittering arrray of Muhammad and his warriors awaited them, their standards, broad spears and tall lances raised to form an avenue of welcome and honor to the noble steeds, who had proven their obedience and allegiance to the Prophet and his divine cause.

Each mare had discovered her master, and assembling before them they waited to be bridled and saddled, ready to be mounted for battle again and for greater glory in the name of God.

The Prophet laid his hand upon the forehead of each one of the submissive creatures and gave them individual names, indicatiing certain characteristics by which they distinguished themselves and-those rose to fame among the Arabs forever.

Then the prophet praised and blessed their souls and the lives of their masters. It is told among the Arabs that as the prophet approached a certain dapplegray mare, his hand rested for a while on the side of the neck of that particular horse before he lifted his arm to touch her sacred forelock. This mare (>and her offspring to this day<) bear the mark of Muhammad's thumb--a small depression, similar to a finger-long scar on the lower part of the neck.

I have actually seen this mark of the Prophet on their nectks--perhaps you will too if you look for it.

Addition:

In the article entitled "Carl Raswan" appearing in the February-March issue, four lines were somehow left out when the story was continued from page 17 to page 38. Here they are:

says, in every way equal to those priceless creatures in the royal stables of Egypt, Arabia, and Europe.

Many letters which Mr. Raswan receives prove that the average horse lover can afford to own an Ärabian.

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