(The Arabs, here meant, are subjects of the grand
seignior**, and receive a stipend from that court, to keep the
wild Arabs in awe, who are a fierce banditti**, and live by
plunder.) He says also, that these stipendiary Arabs are a very
worthy set of people, exactly resembling another worthy set of
people we have in England called Lawyers; for that they receive
fees from both parties; and when they can do it with impunity,
occasionally rob themselves. These Arabs encamp on the deserts
together in large numbers, and with them moves all their
houshold**; that these people keep numbers of greyhound, for the
sake of coursing the game and procuring their subsistance: and
that he has often been with parties for the sake of coursing
amongst those people, and continued with them occasionally for a
considerable space of time. That by them you are furnished with
dogs and horses; for the use of which you give them a reward. He
says they live all together; men, horses, dogs, colts, women, and
children. That these colts, having no green herbage to feed upon
when taken from the mare, are brought up by hand, and live as the
children do; and that the older Horses have no other food, than
straw and choped** barley, which these Arabs procure from the
villages most adjacent to their encampments. The colts, he says,
run about with their dams on all expeditions, till weaned; for
that it is the custom of the Arabs to ride their mares, as
thinking them the fleetest, and not their horses; from whence we
may infer, that the mare colts are best fed and taken care of.
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