The travellers give an interesting account of the Emir’s horses, the most famous stud in Nejd. Though interested, they were, on the whole, disappointed with the horses of Nejd as compared with those of Northern Arabia. “In comparing what we see here with what we saw last year in the north, the first thing that strikes us is that these are ponies, the others horses. It is not so much the actual difference in height, though there must be quite three inches on an average, as the shape, which produces this impression.” The average height was found to be under fourteen hands; and though great care was taken to obtain and preserve pure strains of blood, in the matter of feeding and grooming, gross negligence seemed to be the rule, even in the royal stud. The stables were mere open yards, in which the animals stood, each tethered to a manger. No shelter was provided, but each horse was protected by a heavy rug. They wore no headstalls, being fastened solely with ropes or chains about the fetlocks. No regular exercise was given them, their food was almost exclusively dry barley, and their appearance generally was far different from what Europeans would naturally expect of the finest stable of horses in the “horse peninsula.” The travellers also enlighten us, on the subject of horses, in other directions. Except in the north, horses were found to be exceedingly rare. It is possible to travel vast distances without meeting a single horse, or even crossing a horse-track; on the whole journey across the Nefûd, and on to the Euphrates, they scarcely saw a horse, apart from the stables of the rich and great in the cities. The horse is a luxury to be afforded only by people of wealth or position. Journeys and raids and wars are all made on camels; the Sheykhs who have horses, when going to war save them to mount at the moment of actual engagement with the enemy. It was considered a great boast by a Nejd tribe of Bedouins that they could mount one hundred horsemen; while the Muteyr tribe, reputed to be the greatest breeders of thoroughbred stock in Central Arabia, would be expected to muster not more than four hundred mares. Mohammed-ibn-Rashid recruited his stables by compelling the Sheykhs of tributary tribes to sell him their best animals, an improvement on some of his predecessors, who kept their studs up to the proper mark becoming Arab royalty by making raids against the tribes for the purpose of bringing in celebrated mares, waiving the matter of payment. In the spring the horses of the Emir’s stables are distributed among the neighboring Bedouins to be pastured on the Nefûd, which at that period affords excellent grazing. Had the visitors seen the herd after a month on the Nefûd, they would likely have carried away a much more favorable impression. During the winter quartering the colts seemed to fare even worse than their dams and sires, from the following: