The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965 Page: 306
574 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Blunt.' Even the Blunts, however, do not claim present Arabia as
the birthplace of the breed but speculate upon Iraq and Meso-
potamia. Against that speculation, it is worth noting that Biblical
literature indicates that Abraham, although possessed of great
wealth in herds, had no horses when he lived in Mesopotamia.
Lady Judith Anne Blunt-Lytton Wentworth was quite dogmatic
in her denial of the Ridgeway thesis but the evidence that she
cites more nearly supports the Ridgeway thesis than that of the
Blunt family." There is not one shred of evidence, either in the
accounts of early travelers, or in historical records, or in the arti-
facts of the world's museums which connect the horse with the
pre-Christian history of Arabia.,
Lady Wentworth showed little awareness or knowledge of
North Africa when she explained the "Barb" simply as being the
"best of the migrated Arabian horses."o Of the renowned Burton
Barb mare, she writes, "Her picture shows an Arab [and] seems
to place her as a Morocco so-called Barb, not a common Barb."1
Lady Wentworth's unfamiliarity with Morocco is evident in her
assertion that the Palomino horse is "greatly prized in Algeria and
Morocco and very rare. No Christian is allowed to possess one
nor are they sold for export."12 The French General Daumas was
more accurate when he wrote of the Palomino of North Africa:
"No chief will ride one and no tribe will permit such a beast
to pass the night in its camp. It is called the fast of the Jew. It is
a color which brings bad luck."'" The writer has taken pictures
'W. Tweedie, The Arabian Horse: His Country and People (London, 1844), 7.
sLady Wentworth, "The World's Horse," in Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald (ed.), The
Book of the Horse (Los Angeles, 1947); Thoroughbred Racing Stock and its An-
cestors (New York, 1938); Lady Anne Blunt, The Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates
(New York, 1879).
*See Lefebvre des Noettes, L'Attelage le cheval de selle & travers les dges (2 vols.;
Paris, 1981), I, 98 if., in which it is pointed out that in their pre-Christian wars
against the Assyrians and against Xerxes, the Arabs were mounted on camels and
that the Arabs paid tribute to Sennachrib in camels. Volume II is entirely a col-
lection of photographs of museum artifacts, mostly from the Louvre, in which
horses are depicted.
'0Wentworth, "The World's Horse," in Vesey-Fitzgerald, The Book of the Horse,
24.
11lbid., 157.
"Ibid., 111.
"aMelchior J. E. Daumas, Los Caballos del Sahara (Mejico, 1936), 184. This ex-
cellent book of tradition and history was published in French in 1861 as Les che-306
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965, periodical, 1965; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101198/m1/374/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.