156 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



According to a recent traveller 1 the best Tibetan ponies 

 are creamy fawn-coloured, i.e. yellow-dun. " Many of the fawn 

 coloured Thibetan ponies are brindled, but none of the many 

 I have seen were marked so fully as an exceptionally fine pony 

 bought in Bhotan from a Thibetan merchant. It had a black 

 stripe down the spine ; the tips of the ears, nose, and tip of the 

 tail were black, and it had broad black stripes over the shoulders, 

 flanks and legs, and dappled spots over the haunches." 



We may here point out that the black colour often seen 

 in the coats of Tibetan ponies is also found in Turcoman 

 horses, which are the result of crossing Mongolian ponies with 

 Arab blood, and that the fawn-colour with stripes of the typical 

 Tibetan pony recalls the mouse-grey with dorsal stripe, the 

 colour of the old Battak ponies of Sumatra, which, as has been 

 shown (p. 142), were largely Arab in origin, whilst, with reference 

 to the bay colour and the stripes so frequently found in the 

 Tibetan ponies, we shall presently have something to say. 

 The very small size of the hock callosities is of the highest 

 importance in view of the fact that the same callosities are 

 frequently reduced in size in the case of the typical piebald 

 and skewbald ponies of Iceland, the Faroes, and in the other 

 ponies classed by Professor Ewart as 'Celtic' and the further 

 circumstance that many North African horses also lack these 

 hock callosities. 



On the whole the balance of probability is in favour of 

 the piebald colour of the tangums of Tibet being due to the 

 crossing of the Mongolian and Arab stocks, as seems certainly 

 the case with the piebalds of Sumatra. 



Amongst the ' country-bred ' horses of India, those of 

 Kathiwar hold a prominent position. They are lightly built, 

 the body being very long compared to its depth, but often 

 with good shoulders, good forearms and gaskins, and with good 

 bone below the knee, and they are capable of great endurance. 

 The Kathiwar horses are usually of a rufous grey or khaki 

 colour, and at one time they were not considered well bred 

 unless they had a dorsal band and stripes across the legs. 



1 L. A. Waddell, Among the Himalayas, pp. 248 sq. 



