142 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



much more sturdy in build than Battak ponies. They have 

 heavy crests and good shoulders, similar to the latter breed, 

 but their legs are shorter and thicker, and they are stronger 

 behind. They are not nearly so fast nor so fiery as the Battaks." 

 Captain Hayes 1 believes " that they have not been crossed 

 nearly so much with foreign blood as the Battaks." How it 

 comes that the Battaks have better blood than their neigh- 

 bours is readily explained by the fact that some sixty years 

 ago the sultans and princes of Achen kept high-caste Arabs 

 and supplied the Battaks with Arab blood to improve their 

 ponies, "the result being a blend which combines in almost 

 perfect harmony the fire and the beauty of the Son of the 

 Desert, with the hardiness and endurance of the Battak pony." 

 The original colour of the unimproved Battak ponies is said 

 to have been mouse-grey, with a black stripe down the back ; 

 skewbalds and piebalds are in the majority, although all other 

 colours are met with except creams and greys. " Pure white 

 ponies with red eyes (albinos) and without any marks, remain 

 the property of the chief of the district, and cannot be obtained 

 by purchase." But it would be rash to assume that " the 

 original Battak pony," the type which existed before the in- 

 troduction of Arab blood sixty years ago, was free from all 

 admixture of the latter, since it is more than probable that 

 many centuries earlier Arab horses were imported into Sumatra 

 and Java. And we shall find it also highly probable that the 

 Shan and Manipur ponies owe their peculiar qualities and 

 their resemblance to the Sumatran and Javanese ponies from 

 their having a similar admixture of Arab blood, but in varying 

 degree, as is the case with the Battak and Gayoe breeds. 



The striped ponies of Java have been cited by Darwin 

 as examples of primitive horses which still retain ancestral 

 stripings. Mr Lydekker holds that because E. sivalensis of 

 the Indian Pliocene is usually characterised by large first pre- 

 molar teeth in the upper jaw, and as large functional premolars 

 are found in some Javanese and Sulu ponies (as also in some 

 zebras), lineal but somewhat modified descendants of E. sivalensis 



1 Hayes, op. cit., pp. 633-6 (who also embodies notes from Mr Fitzwilliams 

 and Mr Carl Maschmeyer). 



