448 



THE ORIGIN OF THE LIBYAN HORSE 



[CH. 



derivatives. The statement that the best breed of Badakshan 

 had a peculiar mark in the forehead curiously confirms the 

 native belief that the strain had come from the westward. 



11. We saw (p. 154) that the Tibetan ponies are the most 

 richly decorated horses in Asia, and that they were mainly of 

 Mongolian stock, but had probably been crossed with Libyan 

 blood, like all the horses of western, north-western, and northern 

 India. They are frequently piebald and skewbald, like the 

 Sumatra ponies, sprung from the crossing of Arab horses with 

 native ponies of a mixed Arab and Upper Asiatic stock, and as 

 the Tibetan ponies also show dorsal and other stripes, like the 

 ponies of Sumatra and Java just mentioned, and the horses 

 of Kattywar, which are saturated with Arab blood, we may 

 reasonably conclude that the colouring and striping of the 

 Tibetan ponies are due to the blending of Arab blood with that 

 of the Mongolian pony. 



12. The Shan^ ponies have not unfrequently spinal, leg, 

 and shoulder stripes ; 13 the Burmese, and 14 Javanese j^onies 

 are frequently dun-coloured, and have three kinds of stripes 

 " in the same degree as in England'-^." 



15. Two bay Pegu ponies had leg stripes^ and 16 two 

 Chinese ponies — one of the Amoy, the other of the Shanghai 

 breed — in colour light-dun, had each the spinal stripe, the latter 

 an indistinct shoulder stripe ^ 



But I have already shown that all the horses of India, both 

 Hither and Further, have been largely mixed with Arab blood, 

 which has streamed for at least a thousand years into all parts 

 of Hindustan, and thence into the lands beyond, and along 

 with manifold other Arab influences into the great islands of 

 the Malay Archipelago, which previously possessed no horses 

 (pp. 142-6). 



We have seen (p. 141) that the Shan (Burmese) or Pegu 

 ponies, the Manipur ponies, and those of Sumatra and Java 

 resemble each other. But as the Javanese and Sumatran 

 ponies are largely impregnated with Arab blood, and as all the 

 horses of India are saturated with the same strain, we need not 



1 Darwin, Variatio7i, Vol. i. p. 61. 

 3 Ibid. 



2 Ibid. 



* Op. cit. Vol, I. p. 62. 



