SOUTH AFRICAN HORSES. 



493 



pony point of view. Their blood is so mixed that it is 

 impossible to divide them into distinctive classes, according 

 to the districts in which they are bred. Of course I here 

 refer to the ordinary South African horse or pony, which- 

 ever name we may hke to give him ; and not to thorough- 

 breds specially intended for racing, or the produce of 

 recent foreign crosses. The South African as a rule is 

 hardy, docile, sound, capable of standing a great deal 



f 



Photo by] 



Fig. 501. — Well-bred Cape pony (13.2). 



of hard work, but is somewhat lacking in speed. Although 

 his want of size and substance put him altogether out of 

 the hunter class or the misfit hunter class, from which 

 the English cavalry trooper is obtained, he makes a very 

 useful hack, and an admirable mounted-infantry remount. 

 His deficiency of blood and the semi-starvation diet which 

 he has had to endure for several generations, unfit him as 

 a rule for high-class polo. 



The best horse-breeding districts I have seen in South 



