82 SHANDROVKA 



even to approach. Every horseman knows that u head- 

 shyness " is one of the worst of vices. My procedure in 

 catching a wild horse which is at liberty, is the old English 

 plan of driving him into an enclosure (yard, corral, or kraal], 

 getting him into a corner and putting a halter on his head 

 by means of a long pole. The great art in this manoeuvre 

 is to induce the horse to stand still by touching and rubbing 

 his crest with the end of the pole, which is an operation 

 every horse enjoys, especially those whose manes are full of 

 dirt and insects. Although we cannot expect the broncho 

 to stand quite placidly, I have never found the slightest trouble 

 in slipping the halter on an unspoiled wild horse in this manner. 

 Before going to Russia, my experience in catching horses 

 which had never been touched by man, was confined to the 

 veldt horses of Cape Colony, Transvaal, Orange Free State 

 and Natal. In those parts, the animals in question were of 

 course as wild as hawks, but there was no trouble in driving 

 them into a kraal, and once I had got them there, the 

 slipping on of a halter was as easy as falling off a log ; for the 

 very good reason that they weren't head-shy and liked their 

 manes to be scratched. The head-shyness of the steppe 

 horses which have been lassoed, took a fair amount of 

 getting over ; but patience conquers all things. I need 

 hardly say that horses intended to be captured in the way I 

 advocate, would not have been spoiled by the lasso. Of 

 course, every Russian to whom I proposed this innovation 

 ridiculed its introduction to the steppes, where, I was gravely 

 informed, there were no enclosures to drive horses into. 

 The possibility that the construction of a kraal, which two 

 men and a boy could accomplish in a few days, was not 

 beyond the resources of Russian civilisation, did not suggest 

 itself to my critics. If horses are worth catching, they are 

 certainly worth the small trouble and slight expense of making 

 an enclosure, which need not be larger than a square of 



