Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 27, June, 1873 — John Shaqi
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 27, June, 1873Various
Science
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 27, June, 1873
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
"Eat, then, and may Sheytan trouble
thy digestion!" The parasite was shown the door, but he had dined.
Men of rank and wealth, like Ben-Ali-Cherif, turn the Tofailian into a
proverb, and thus laugh at a plague they cannot cure.
[Illustration: POVERTY AND JEWELS.]
The Algerine coast has enriched our language with at least two words,
respectively warlike and peaceful--_razzia_ and _fantasia_. The latter
is applied to a game of horsemanship, used to express joy or to honor
a distinguished friend. A spirited fantasia is organized by the guests
of the agha on returning to Akbou. Twenty of the best-mounted horsemen
having gone on before, and being completely lost to sight in the
whirlwind of dust created by their departure, all of a sudden
reappear. Menacing their host and his companions like an army, they
gallop up, their bornouses flying and their weapons flashing, until
at a few paces they discharge their long guns under the bodies of the
horses opposite, and take flight like a covey of birds. Loading
as they retire and quickly forming, again they dash to the charge,
shouting, galloping, and shooting among the legs of their host's fine
horses: this sham attack is repeated a score or two of times, up
to the door of the agha's house. The Bedouins, in their picturesque
expression, are making the powder talk. Finer horsemanship can nowhere
be seen. Their horses, accustomed to the exercise, enter into the game
with spirit, and the riders, secure in their castellated saddles, sit
with ease as they turn, leap or dance on two feet. Used, too, from
infancy to the society of their mares, they move with them in a degree
of unity, vigor and boldness which the English horseman never attains.
The Arab's love for his horse is not only the pride of the cavalier:
it is an article of faith, and the Prophet comprehended the close
unity between his nation and their beasts when he said, "The blessings
of this world, up to the day of judgment, shall be suspended to the
locks which our horses wear between their eyes."
[Illustration: GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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