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In
the August, 1991 edition of the "Baker
Street" column, Debra and Jerald Dirks presented three letters from
the correspondence between Homer Davernport and Lady Anne Blunt, both pioneer
Arabian horse breeders. Together with her husband Wilfrid Blunt, Lady Anne
had founded England's Crabbet Arabian Stud in 1878. Crabbet's earliest
foundation stock, including the key mare Dajania, was acquired in and around
Aleppo in what is today Syria. In 1906 Davenport, an American political
cartoonist, had made his own Arabian horse buying expedition to that region
and returned to the U.S. with 27 head. Davenport and Lady Anne made enormous
contributions through the horses they imported and bred, but also through
their influence on the way peopple in England and America think about Arabian
horses. Their correspondence provides an intimate look at the dialogue
between these two foundation breeders.
To Homer Davenport Sheykh
Obeyd Garden
21 December 1907 Ain
Shaems, Egypt
Dear
Sir:
Thank
you for your letter of Nov. 25 which followed me to Egypt, and for the
previous one and the photographs. I would have written sooner to say this
but could not find time before I left England. (1)
I
am glad that Bushra and her Mahruss colt are in your hands and you were
fortunate to get them. (2) And you see how right are
the Arabs to attach a peculiar importance to particular strains. In the
center and south of Arabia they have remained much more exclusive in that
respect than in the North. Moreover they apply the term "Shemalieh"
(Northerner) to the horses of the northern tribes as indicative of the
suspicion with which they regard all such, excepting only those bred by
certain known families amongst whom Ibn Sbeyni, Ibn ed Derri and others
you will have heard of.
It
is a pleasure to have good news of Markisa. (3) I
trust she will do credit to her ancestry. She is, you know, like Bushra,
a Seglawieh Jedranieh of Ibn ed Derr's strain.
I
do not, at present, see my way to selling any of my few mares of the Hamdani
Simri strain. I am afraid that these precious strains are becoming so very
rare owing to the destruction of mares through the use of fire-arms in
the war now raging in Nejd, (4) that very great caution
will be more than ever necessary in parting with representatives of them.
Apart from this new reason for caution, I want to guard against a recurrence
of mistakes formerly made more than once at the Stud in not securing a
sufficient number of representatives before parting with a mare or horse.
Shahwan, whom you mention, is a case in point. (5) He
was a Dahman Shahwan of the strain in the Abbas Pasha (6)
collection, and is quite inadequately represented, as accidents happened
unfortunately to almost all of his stock. N.B. -- they were too few when
the horse was gone.
Bushra's
dam, Bozra, was by imported Pharoah, a Seglawi Jedran of Ibn ed Derri's
strain and her sire imported Azrek being of the same strain, she is altogether
of that blood. Mahruss was a descendant of Abbas Pasha collection -- the
strain, Dahman Nejib, existing with the Beni Hajar and Ajman tribes southeast
of Nejd. Abbas Pasha got that and Dahman Shahwan and Kehilan Jellibi through
Ibn Saoud, the powerful prince of Riad of those days. As an instance of
the prices the Viceroy would pay, I may mention that I had it on high authority
that he gave lbs 7000 for the original Kehileh Jellabieh brought to him!
I
am delighted to hear of the excellent support your stud is having
in the large order for half-Arab cavalry remounts. That is something like
support -- and your government is wise to give it.
I
shall always be interested whenever you care to report further progress.
Believe
me to be yours faithfully,
Anne N. Blunt
(1)
Lady Anne wintered in Egypt at her home near Cairo, Sheykh Obeyd Garden.
According to her published Journals and Correspondence in 1907 she left
England on November 19 and arrived at Sheykh Obeyd by November 26.
(2)
*Bushra (Azrek X Bozra) was a bay mare bred at Crabbet and foaled in 1889.
She was sold at the 1900 Crabbet sale and imported that year to the United
States, carrying a colt by the Crabbet sire Mahrus. This colt was foaled
in 1901 and eventually registered as *Ibn Mahruss. Davenport acquired *Bushra
and *Ibn Mahruss several years after they arrived in America.
(3)
*Markisa (Narkise X Maisuna) was a 1905 bay filly bred at Cabbet. Davenport
had purchased her from Crabbet and she had arrived in the United States
in February of 1907.
(4)
Nefd is a region in the north central part of the Arabian peninsula.
(5)
*Shahwan was a grey stallion foaled in Egypt in 187. The Blunts had purchased
him in January of 1892, used him at stud in Egypt briefly, and imported
him to England that spring. The Blunts used him for breeding at Crabbet
in 1892, 93, and 94, then sold him in September of 1895 to Mr. J.A.P.Ramsdell
for export to America. By the time of this letter, apparently *Shahwan's
only representatives at the Crabbet Stud were Shibine (out of his daughter
Shohba) and Ibn Yashmak. Ibn Yashmak's dam, Yashmak (by *Shahwan), was
still owned at Sheykh Obeyd in 1907.
6)
Abbas Pasha was Viceroy of Egypt from 1848 to 1854. His collection of Arabian
horses provided foundation stock for the stud of Ali Pasha Sherif, from
whom Lady Anne began acquiring horses in 1889.
Thanks to the generosity of the Arabian Horse Trust
in making its files available to members of the Arabian Horse Historians
Association during the AHHA annual meeting.
PART
I
PART
II
ADDITION
I
Articles of History
Craver
Chronicles
Arabian
Visions
Arabian
Visions' Archives
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