I Have Known
Them To Go Without Water For Two Or Three Days When Crossing The Desert,
During Which Time They Will Only Receive A Small Measure Of Corn Or A
Few Dates.
On the coast, they are driven hard a long day, sweating, and
covered with foam, their sides bleeding from the huge sharp-edged
stirrups.
Without the slightest covering, they are left out the whole
night, and their only evening meal is a little chopped barley-straw.
Our European horses would perish under such circumstances, and the
French have lost the greater part of the horses they imported from
France for the cavalry. But this hard fare keeps down the fiery spirit
of these stallion barbs, otherwise they would be unmanageable. When
turned out to grass, they soon become wild. Crossing a field one day,
mounted, I was set upon by a troop of these wild, grazing horses, and
was instantly knocked to the ground, where I lay stunned. A cavalry
officer, who was riding with me, had only just time to escape, and saved
himself by dismounting, and letting his horse go.
It was some hours before we could rescue the horses of our party from
their wild mates, sporting and bounding furiously over the plains. The
barb horses being all stallions (for the Moors consider it a crime to
geld so noble an animal), the fiercest and most terrific battles ensue
on a stud breaking loose from their pickets. These battles are always
between strangers, for the barb is the most affectionate of horses, and
if he is known to another, and become his mate, he will, as the Arabs
say, "die to be with him."
[18] These trained bands of negroes call themselves _Abeed-Sidi-Bokhari_,
from the patron saint whom they adopted on settling in Morocco, the
celebrated Sidi-Bokhari, commentator on the Koran, and a native of
Bokhara, as his name implies.
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