496 COLONIAL HORSES. 



year by year, both from the Orange Free State and Cape 

 Colony, by speculators, who exchanged them for oxen. 

 The Basuto are a sporting race, and many well-bred 

 stallions have found their way into the country ; bought 

 originally by the chiefs for racing purposes, and afterwards 

 relegated to the stud. Representatives of Tormentor (by 

 Wild Dayrell), of Sir Amyas Leigh (by Adventurer), of 

 Libertine (by The Rake), of Berkeley (by Teddington), 

 of Belladrum (by Stockwell — Catherine Hayes), and many 

 others too numerous to mention, are to be traced in the 

 hands of natives, crossed on the old Dutch breed obtained 

 from the farmers, as above described. The comparatively 

 small size and sturdy frame of the Basuto pony is to be 

 ascribed to the influence of climate. The breeding stock 

 live in the mountains winter and summer, exposed to the 

 wildest weather and extremes of heat and cold, the ther- 

 mometer in winter often indicating from io° to 15° of 

 frost in the rocky valleys and arid plateaux of the Maluti 

 and Drakensberg Mountains, where the ponies are mostly 

 bred. The spring and early summer are spent in recovering 

 the condition lost during winter, and in April the frosts 

 commence again, so that only a few months' growth can 

 be made yearly, and the result when mature is the hardy 

 thick-set Basuto pony. Its evolution is a simple enough 

 matter when the conditions are known, and I fail to see 

 the object of ascribing the virtues of the breed to mythical 

 Shetland stallions, of which no local tradition exists ; 

 whereas what is perfectly well known is that the earlier 

 Dutch and colonial strain has been of late years repeatedly 

 crossed with and improved by the English thorough-bred 

 and by Arabs imported by Government." 



