XVni INTRODUCTION 



no frontier officer can have observed an attenuated thirteen- 

 hand pony draw, between sun-up and sun-down on a scorching 

 June day, its ikka-load of fat gliT-perspiring Baniyans from Kohat 

 to Kliushalgarli and from Khushalgarh to Kohat, a distance of more 

 than sixty miles on a road not devoid of hills, without having been 

 struck with the invigorating powers of nihdrl. Native cavalry 

 regiments in the north still " soiP^ their horses by the system of 

 hhuld-qasll, while, for fattening for the vSpring fairs in the Punjab, 

 native dealers employ the method of bandqasil exactly as detailed on 

 pages 16-17. A Raja who kept a large stud of elephants for tiger- 

 shooting told the translator that unless he laid up his elephaiits 

 and '' soiled" them during the rains, they were unfit for hard work 

 in the following cold weather. What is suitable for India is not 

 suitable for England, and vice versa. Indian country-breds will eat 

 and thrive on food that would probably kill English horses. In 

 the Persian Gulf and elsewhere, locusts, fish, and dates are re- 

 garded as legitimate food for cattle and horses; in Thibet, the 

 tdnghans are given pig's blood and raw liver; in the cold regions 

 of Central Asia meat is regarded as a necessity for horses. 



Fantastic Colours. — With the introduction of Government 

 stallions, old-fashioned fantastic colours amongst horses have 

 disappeared and with them the very names of those colours. White 

 horses with black spots the size of a rupee, may still perhaps be 

 occasionally found in circuses, but white horses with black ears, or 

 horses with black bodies and white legs, or white bodies with black 

 legs, or with legs of four different colours, may be searched for 

 in vain ; yet once these and many other colours were sufficiently 

 common to merit distinct names. ^ Here and there an aged horse- 

 dealer survives who recollects the old-fashioned artificial paces and 

 their names. For the technical terms about horses, as also for the 

 technical terms of falconry and cocking, and the names of birds 

 and plants, &c., the dictionaries are not to be relied on. The 

 vocabulary in the Appendix has been compiled not merely from old 



1 " The animals most liked are the stallions of Marwar or Kathiawar. 

 White horses with pink points, piebalds, and leopard spotted beasts are 

 much admired, especially when they have piuk Roman noses and light- 

 coloured eyes with an uncanny expression. Their crippled, highly 

 arched necks, curby hocks, rocking gait, and paralytic prancing often 

 proclaim them as triumphs of training." — Man and Beast in India. 



