Emir, a Saqlawi stallion of the Ruwalah

The excerpt below comes from Eduard Löffler’s 1860 book, Die österreichische Pferde-Ankaufs-Mission, which is a firsthand account of the 1856-7 expedition helmed by Colonel Rudolf von Brudermann to the desert to buy horses for the state studs.

The expedition, by this point, had already acquired a number of horses, including Aghil Aga, who still has a presence in Al Khamsa horses. They had met with the Wuld Ali, who were camping in the Hauran, to the south of the Tell al-Hara, “only 17 or 18 hours of riding from Damascus”. Löffler says the sheikh was Mohamed El Duchi (Mohammed Dukhi ibn Smeyr in Lady Anne Blunt’s Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, and Mohammed ed Douhi in Roger Upton’s Travels in the Arabian Desert), who happened to be in Damascus at the same time as the Austrians, negotiating with the governor over camels for a caravan of pilgrims travelling to Mecca in May. Colonel von Brudermann made arrangements via the Austrian consul Pfaeffinger to journey with the sheikh back to the Wuld Ali, where they might see their horses.

Löffler remarks that the horses of the Wuld Ali were “edle, schöne, prachtvolle Thiere, die entzückten und jeden Pferdefreund enthusiasmirt haben würden” ‘noble, beautiful, splendid animals, which would have delighted and enthused any horse lover’ (p. 156f.), and says that, prior to meeting with the Wuld Ali, good horses had been the exception, but now they were spoiled for choice.

Mohammed Dukhi Ibn Sumayr explained that this was because the Wuld Ali were hostile to the agents of Abbas Pasha, as a result of a failed extradition attempt of Aghil Aga’s uncle by the Egyptians, when he took refuge with Dukhi. The Egyptians had then urged the Ruwalah to attack the Wuld Ali, but, according to Dukhi, he had inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Ruwalah, and had ridden over to their camp the next day, his guest with him, where he had upbraided the sheikh of the Ruwalah for attacking a fellow Anazah tribe, all in front of the Egyptians, who were the guests of the Ruwalah. The Ruwalah sheikh had apologised, and the Egyptians had returned home empty-handed (pp. 157-161).

Dukhi described the horse-buying missions of Abbas Pasha’s envoys and their effects on the Bedouins to the Austrian expedition (p. 161):

El Duchi erzählte ferner, was uns jedoch schon bekannt war, dass Abbas Pascha von Egypten zur Gründung eines Gestütes die edelsten Pferde bei den Beduinenstämmen aufkaufen liess, wofür er fabelhafte Preise, – zehn bis zwanzigtausend Gulden — zahlte, und durch werthvolle Geschenke die Häuptlinge der Stämme zu gewinnen verstand. „Es gelang auch dem Pascha,“ sagte Duchi weiter, „auf diese Weise die renommirtesten Pferde durch seine Emissäre zu erhalten, und den Stämmen der Anaese für viele Jahre hinaus grossen Schaden zuzufügen; mein Stamm aber blieb von jedem Besuche verschont, und ich würde auch all meine Autorität geltend gemacht, und meinen Leuten jeden derlei Handel verboten und gewehrt haben, wenn sich bei mir ein Käufer von Abbas Pascha eingefunden hätte.

“El Duchi further told us – but which was already known to us – that Abbas Pasha of Egypt bought up the noblest horses amongst the Bedouin tribes for a foundation of a stud farm, for which he paid fabulous prices – ten to twenty thousands guilders – and understood how to win over the chiefs of the tribes with valuable gifts. ‘The Pasha also succeeded,’ Duchi continued, ‘in this wise in obtaining the most renowned horses through his emissaries, and in inflicting great damage on the tribes of the Anazah for many years to come; but my tribe was spared any visits, and I would also have asserted all my authority, and forbidden my people from any such trade and resisted it, if a buyer from Abbas Pasha had visited me.'”

While the Austrians were staying with the Wuld Ali, however, they bought a number of horses from them, including a Ruwalah stallion that had once been sold to Abbas Pasha (p. 170):

Im Ganzen wurden im Lager der Wuold Ali 23 Pferde gekauft, und zwar 3 Hengste und 20 Stuten. Unter den männlichen Thieren zeichnete sich ,,Alan ” nebst dem Adel, der übrigens allen Pferden des Stammes ohne Ausnahme anklebte, besonders durch Knochenstärke aus. „Emir,“ ein zwölf Jahre alter Braunhengst vom Stamm Ruola, vertrat recht eigentlich den Typus des Arabers. Er war durch Abbas Pascha gekauft gewesen, und nach dessen Tode wieder zum Stamme zurückgekehrt, wo er hochgeschätzt war und die besten Nachkommen zeugte. Alle Nachforschungen und Fragen, um zu erfahren, wie dieser Hengst aus Egypten wieder zu seinem Stamme gebracht wurde, blieben fruchtlos, und sicher band sich an diesen Fall irgend ein Raub oder eine ähnliche Geschichte. Dass übrigens der Hengst ein in jeder Beziehung werthvolles und sehr geschätztes Thier sein musste, bewies der Andrang der Beduinen mit ihren Stuten, um diese durch „Emir” decken zu lassen; denn sein Herr war bloss dieses Verdienstes wegen ins Lager gekommen, und hatte nicht die Absicht, den Hengst zu verkaufen . Wie gesagt, gehörte er zum Stamme Ruola, doch war er bei den Wuold Ali genau gekannt, und der Schech El Duchi rühmte seine Nachkommen sehr an.

“In total, 23 horses were bought in the Wuld Ali camp, namely 3 stallions and 20 mares. Among the male animals, Alan was distinguished not only by his nobility, which incidentally adhered to all horses of the tribe without exception, but especially by the substance of his bone. Emir, a twelve-year-old brown stallion, from the Ruwalah tribe, genuinely represented the Arabian type. He had been bought by Abbas Pasha, and after his death returned to the tribe, where he was highly treasured and bred the best offspring. All investigations and questions, to find out how this horse had been brought from Egypt back to his tribe, were fruitless, and certainly some robbery or a similar story was linked to this case. That the stallion, incidentally, must have been in every respect a valuable and much treasured animal, was proved by the Bedouins rushing with their mares, to let them be bred by Emir; because his owner had come to camp only for this reason, and had no intention of selling the stallion. As said, he belonged to the Ruwalah tribe, but he was well-known among the Wuld Ali, and the sheikh El Duchi praised his offspring very much.”

C. G. Wrangel, in his 1891 Ungarns Pferdezucht in Wort und Bild, p. 255, says that Emir was foaled in 1845, and stood 14.3 hands high (according to the measurement standards of the time; see further Lázsló Király’s comments on this post). Colonel von Brudermann paid 2,272 florins for him, more than he paid for any other stallion bought on this expedition. Brought to Bábolna, Emir, however, died four years later, in 1861, from “Brustwassersucht und hepatisirter Lunge” ‘dropsy of the breast and hepatized lungs’.

As for Mohammed Dukhi’s assertion that Abbas Pasha’s envoys avoided the Wuld Ali, in the Abbas Pasha Sale List, there is only one horse which was bought directly from the Wuld Ali, a Kuhaylat al-Ghazalah, which belonged to Mu’azzi Ibn Sumayr, also from the leading family of the Wuld Ali (Ibn Sumayr is another way of transliterating Lady Anne’s Ibn Smeyr). By contrast, the Ruwalah had owned roughly twenty horses in the sale list.