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Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon; with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the desert
Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon with travels in Armenia Kurdistan and the desert Author:Austen Henry Layard This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 Excerpt: ...inform the British resident at Baghdad, of the siege and fall of Acre, many days before the special messenger dispatched to announce that ... more »event reached the city; and I have frequently rejected intelligence received from Bedouins, on account of the apparent impossibility of its coming to me through such a source, which has afterwards proved to be true. from one original stock, the Koheyleh, which, in course of time, was divided, after the names of celebrated mares, into the following five branches:---Obeyan Sherakh, Hedba Zayhi, Manekia Hedrehji, Shouaymah Sablah, and Margonbf' These form the Kamse, or the five breeds, from which alone entire horses are chosen to propagate the race. From the Kamse have sprung a number of families no less noble, perhaps, than the original five; but the Shammar receive their stallions with suspicion, or reject them altogether. Among the best known are the Wathna Khersan, so called from the mares being said to be worth their weight in gold; (noble horses of this breed are found amongst the Arab tribes inhabiting the districts to the east of the Euphrates, the Beni Lam, Al Kamees, and Al Kithere;) Khalawi, thus named from a wonderful feat of speed performed by a celebrated mare in Southern Mesopotamia; Jaiaythanif, and Julfa. The only esteemed race in the Desert which, according to Suttum, cannot be traced to the Kamse, is the Saklawi, although considered by the Shammar and by the Bedouins of the Gebel Shammar, as one of the noblest, if not the noblest, of all. It is divided into three branches, the most valued being the Saklawi J edran, which is said to be now almost extinct. The agents of Abbas Pasha, the Viceroy of Egypt, sent into all parts of the Desert to purchase the best horses, have especially sought for mares of ...« less