Though the Arabs justly boast of their horses, it is a common error to suppose them very abundant in that country. In the sacred writings and down to the time of Mohammed, they are seldom mentioned, camels being mostly used both in their predatory and warlike excursions. The breed is limited to the fertile pasture grounds, and it is there that they thrive, while the Bedouins who occupy arid districts rarely have any.
In the sands of Arabia the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and patient beast of burthen not only supplies the wandering Arab with the greater part of his simple wants: it serves also to secure his immemorial independence by placing the desert between the enemy and himself. Thus the Bedouin has ever been indomitable, and while in other parts of the world we find that the fatal possession of an animal--the sable, the sea-otter--has entailed the curse of slavery upon whole nations, the dromedary in Arabia appears as the instrument of lasting freedom. With temporary or local exceptions, the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most powerful monarchies; the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia, and while the false glory of the scourges of mankind that have so often thrown the East into bondage has passed away like a fleeting shadow, one century after another bears testimony to the noble independence of the Arab. The manly spirit of this energetic race renders them worthy of the freedom they enjoy under the protection of their arid wastes. Many ages before Mohammed, who, stimulating their valour by fanaticism, made them one of the great conquering nations of the earth, their intrepidity had been severely felt by their neighbours. ‘The patient and active virtues of a soldier,’ says Gibbon, ‘are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of pastoral life. The care of the sheep and camels is abandoned to the women of the tribe, but the martial youth, under the banner of the emir, is ever on horseback and in the field, to practise the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the scymetar. The long memory of their independence is the firmest pledge of its perpetuity, and succeeding generations are animated to prove their descent and to maintain their inheritance. When they advance to battle, the hope of victory is in the front; in the rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their horses and camels, who in eight or ten days can perform a march of 500 miles, disappear before the conqueror; the secret waters of the desert elude his search, and his victorious troops are consumed with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of an invisible foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely reposes in the heart of the burning solitude.