Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 147 



vicious pony, having but one good quality, endurance. The 

 breed is not indigenous, but the result of constant importations, 

 and a very limited amount of breeding 1 ." After hearing such 

 testimony as this we need have no hesitation in accepting 

 implicitly the statements of Marco Polo 2 respecting horses 

 in the same region. Speaking of South India he writes : 

 " Here are no horses bred ; and thus a great part of the 

 wealth of the country is wasted in purchasing horses; I will 

 tell you how. You must know that the merchants of Kis 

 (Kishm), and Hormes (Ormuz), Dofar, Soer, and Aden collect 

 great numbers of destriers and other horses, and these they 

 bring to the territory of this king and of his four brothers, 

 who are kings likewise, as I told you. For a horse will fetch 

 among them 500 saggi of gold, worth more than 100 marks 

 of silver, and vast numbers are sold there every year. Indeed 

 this king wants to buy more than 2,000 horses every year, 

 and so do his four brothers, who are kings likewise. 



The reason why they want to buy so many horses every 

 year is that by the end of the year there shall not be a 100 

 of them remaining, for they all die off. They bring these 

 horses by sea, aboard ships." 



Polo adds a very important statement : " another strange 

 thing is that there is no possibility of breeding horses in this 

 country, as hath often been proved by trial. For even when 

 a great blood mare here has been covered by a great blood 

 horse, the produce is nothing but a wretched wry-legged weed 

 animal, not fit to ride." 



A medieval Persian writer, in reference to the birth of an 

 elephant at Teheran, declared " that never till then had a she 

 elephant borne young in Iran, any more than a lioness in Rum, 

 a tabby cat in China, or a mare in India 3 ." 



In several other passages Polo gives full details of the trade 

 between Arabia and southern India, which was carried on in 

 ships built without any iron, being fastened together only by 

 trenails and twine, made from the husk of the Indian nut 4 , 



1 The Madura Country, Pt. n. p. 94. 2 Vol. n. pp. 325-6 (Yule). 



3 Jour. Asiatic Soc., Ser. 3, Vol. in. p. 127 (cited in Yule's note to passage of 

 Marco Polo just given). 4 Vol. i. p. 111. 



102 



