WILD TARPAN AND ITS RELATIONS 115 



between horses and kiangs, and in any case, if 

 tanghans were found wild, they must have escaped 

 from captivity. As regards their origin. Professor 

 Ridgeway ^ states that "on the whole the balance 

 of probability is in favour of the piebald colour of 

 the tanghans ^ of Tibet being due to the crossing of 

 the Mongolian and Arab stocks, as seems certainly 

 the case with the piebalds of Sumatra." 



The ponies of the Mongolian type which formed 

 the ancestral stock of the modern Kathiawaris were 

 probably brought into Western India by the ancient 

 Scythians from the neighbourhood of the Caspian ; 

 and as these warriors also invaded Baluchistan and 

 Afghanistan — the ancient Bactria — there is little 

 doubt that the horses of these countries have a 

 strong Mongolian element in their blood, although 

 some of this may have been derived from the dis- 

 tricts lying immediately to the north. On this point 

 Captain Hayes ^ remarks that the Cabuli, Baluchi, 

 and other trans-Indus horses so largely used in India, 

 which, although stouter and shorter in the legs, are 

 less smart in appearance and less suited to a hot 

 climate than the so-called " country-breds," may 

 be considered as intermediate between the latter 

 and Mongolian ponies ; this being, in fact, equi- 

 valent to saying that they are of mixed Arab and 



' Origin of the Thoroughbred Horse ^'^. 156. 



^ I have ventured to alter Professor Ridgeway's spelling, 

 '^ tangums," to accord with that adopted here. 

 ^ Points of the Horse, 3rd ed. p. 603. 



