Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 159 



discarded their horses and invaded Bactria and India on foot, it 

 follows that in the century before the Christian era many horses 

 from the Caspian steppes had made their way into Kathiwar 

 and the contiguous regions. It is not then surprising to find 

 light dun horses in that area. But, as we know from Marco 

 Polo, that vast numbers of horses were imported from the 

 Persian Gulf and Arabia* to Bombay and the surrounding 

 region, and as we have repeatedly seen that Turcomans, 

 Mongols, Malays, and Hindus are ever eager to improve their 

 native breeds by crossing them with Arab blood, there can be 

 no doubt that the Kathiwar horse is a cross between the dun- 

 coloured horse of upper Asia and the Arab, and the better bred 

 they are, the more of the latter blood there is in their veins. 



As it is absolutely certain that the native horses of Kathi- 

 war have been long saturated with the blood of Arab horses, 

 which have been continually introduced, it is important to 

 notice that in addition to the dun colour which we habitually 

 associate with the Mongolian pony, we here meet both rufous, 

 grey, and bay horses, all of which show a great tendency to 

 dorsal and other stripes, as is the case with ponies of Sumatra 

 also saturated with Arab blood, and likewise with the tangums 

 of Tibet. In view of these facts it would indeed be rash to 

 assume that " the Indian domesticated horse " with a preorbital 

 depression was of an indigenous stock and not rather like all 

 the country-bred Indian horses, of which we have any evi- 

 dence, a. blend of the Mongolian pony and the Arab. But as 

 Bend Or, the racer of Arab lineage, had a similar depression, 

 and all the evidence shows that the Arab has not been derived 

 from Hindustan, we must look for the source of Mr Lydekker's 

 "domesticated Indian horse" and Bend Or in some region 

 farther west, and to this point I shall return (p. 470). 



According to Captain Hayes 1 the horses of Cabul, Balu- 

 chistan, and other trans-Indus horses, " which are largely used 

 in India, and which, though stouter and shorter on the leg, 

 are neither as smart nor as hardy in hot climates as the 

 * country-bred/ may be considered as intermediate between 



1 The Points of the Horse (ed. 3), pp. 630-1. 



