The Wadnan colt Lady Anne Blunt nearly bought in February 1879

On their journey back from Hail to Bagdad in early 1870, Lady Anne and Wilfrid Blunt met the Al Kathir tribe, which she refers to in the plural as “Ketherin”, with their leader Mutlakh, and nearly purchased a handsome Wadnan Khursan horse from them. The Al Kathir are part of the larger Bani Lam tribe.

The edition by Archer and Fleming of Lady Anne’s Journals and Correspondence is so truncated here that it’s not immediately obvious that Mutlakh’s tribe is the Kethirin. This becomes plain once they are in Persia, when they make the connections to other Bani Lam there.

Her Journal entry for February 17, 1879 is upbeat, and in my opinion, one of the nicest sections of her J&C, complete with scenes from Bedouin hospitality and description of horses and nature:

“We have spent an interesting day. As agreed we and Mohamed and Mutlakh went to the latter’s camp […]. Shatti said the owner of a horse would bring it to show us from these tents and presently two people on a delul came leading a bay colt with three white feet (two fore and near hind) and star — a beautiful little horse he looked as far as we could see, in spite of the jellal which covered him. He seemed to be about 13.3 or 14 h. and is rising three. He had a proud way of walking, a lovely head, good hocks and knees and carried his tail perfectly […]. I fancy he would be worth buying […].”

This beautiful colt is Wadnan Khursan, a breed of which they [the Al Kathir] seem here to think as much as of as the Kehilans and the Abeyans. In fact Shatti and the other people all say that these breeds came from Kehilan originally and I think that those breeds Mr Skene called outside breeds, such as Wadnan, Rabdan and Rishan and Shueyman and others, are in no respect inferior to the Khamsa.

We arrived at the Kethirin camp after two and three quarter hours. There was Mutlakh’s large tent […]. Now the Wadnan colt looks first class though small.

February 18, 1879:

Then it was proposed that Hazzam should go with a message to the owner of the handsome Wadnan Khursan colt to tell him to bring it to wherever the Haj should camp this evening […];

Two months later, in lower Mesopotamia, the colt was still on her mind when she saw another mare from that strain:

“Wadnan is one of the breeds now existing with the Beni Lam now called Ketirin, our Nejd friends, and the beautiful little bay horse we saw belonging to one of Mutlakh’s men was of Wadnan.