Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/550

 522 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

was introduced here at the Saracen conqueft, and have been preferved unmixed to this day. They feem to be a diftindt animal from the Arabian horfe, fuch as I have fcen in the. plains of Arabia Deferta, fouth of Palmyra and Damafcus, where I take the mod excellent of the Arabian breed to be, in the tribe of Mowalli and Annecy, which is about lat. 36° ; whilft Dongola and the dry country near it feems to be the center of excellence for this nobler animal, fo that the bounds within which the horfe is in its greateft perfection feems to be between the degrees of lat. 20°, and ^6°^ and between long. 30° eaft from the meridian of Greenwich to the banks of the Euphrates. For this extent Fahrenheit's, thermometer is never below 50° in the night, or in the day below 80°, though it may rife to 1 20° at noon in the fhade, at which point horfes are not affe^Sled by the heat, but will breed as they do at Halfaia, Gerri, and Dongola, where the thermometer rifcs to thefe degrees, Thefe countries, from what has been faid, muft of courfe be a dry, fandy defert, with little water, producing fliort, or no grafs, but only roots, which are blanched like our cellery, being always covered with earth, having no marfhes or fwamps, fat foapy earth,, or mould.

I NEVER heard of wild horfes in any of thefe parts. A- rabia Deferta, where they are faid to be, feems very ill cal- culated to conceal them, it being flat without wood or co- ver, they muft therefore be conftantly in view; and I ne- ver heard any perfon of veracity fay they ever faw wild horfes in Arabia. Wild afles I have frequently feen alive, but never dead, in neck, head, face, and tail very like oiu's, only their flcins are ftreaked, not fpotted. The zebra is found nowhere in AbyfUnia, but in the S. W. extremity of

Kuara