Page 194 - UAE Truncal States_Neat

The Traditional Economics

usually undertaken by three or four families together, took about
fourteen days; messengers and fighting men could cover the 160
kilometres in about three days.
The inhabitants of the Llwa owned enough camels to carry
everything and everybody on their own animals for their frequent
journeys to Abu Dhabi town or to the coast where travellers used
to meet local coastal craft to lake them to Abu Dhabi or Dubai. In
the days before Landrovers, camel-riders were coming and going
between the Llwa or the Buraimi oasis and Abu Dhabi almost
every day.
Besides camels, donkeys played an important role as beasts of
burden almost everywhere in the Trucial States. They were as useful
in the mountains for short distances as in the narrow lanes of the suq
and the living quarters of the towns. They carried the rider as well as
a load of animal fodder, crops for the market, or drinking-water for
sale. It is not certain whether the donkey used throughout the Trucial
States was locally bred from the wild asses which were until very
recently found in the foothills of the Hajar range, or whether it was
imported from abroad.8
Horses were never widely used in the Trucial States, either for
carrying or for agriculture or warfare.9 The ground is frequently loo
soft for their pointed hooves and, because feeding and watering them
presented problems, they were not used very much in raids where
their speed might have been an asset, nor for journeys in the
mountains and wadis over the rough terrain. However, since every
Arab has learnt to appreciate the value of horses, which figure so
prominently in written and oral Arab poetry, most shaikhs would
like to own some. A good horse has always been considered to be an
appropriate gift between shaikhs. In Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi
merchant families also owned horses and rode them within the
towns.
Among the domestic animals traditionally kept by the population,
cattle rank very low on the list, but a number were raised in oases
where lucerne could be grown under the date palms, therefore
excluding the Llwa and other oases without falaj irrigation. Cattle
were kept primarily for milk, but in the oases such as Buraimi where
wheat was planted, oxen were used for ploughing the fields.10 In the
Shamaillyah, where cattle were also used for ploughing, they were
fed on dried sardines boiled with old dates, leaves and other
vegetable refuse found in the date gardens. There, oxen were also

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