LIGHT HOUSE. 195 



However, an economical Government is not likely to stand 

 a double set of stabling to each regiment, one for summer 

 and another for winter ; so it is no good thinking or talk- 

 ing of such a thing. Yet it is to be hoped that if 

 Government ever does attempt a breeding stud for troop 

 horses, its members will remember that, though the Arab 

 is not the best hunter, hack, or racer in the world, he is 

 beyond doubt, "taken all round," the best horse, and, 

 above all, the best war horse. 



Passing from Hounslow to (say) Poonah, it will be 

 found that all Indian cavalry officers prefer the little 

 Arab to the stud-bred or the much larger Cape horse, or 

 Australian, while the country-bred animals are, or until 

 lately were, considered the worst of the four sorts. Col. 

 Shakspear, in a recent instructive letter in the Field, on 

 breeding Indian remounts, objects to the Arab and he 

 is the only Indian officer I have ever heard of as doing 

 so considering him to be too fiery and hot-tempered for 

 the ranks. This is not the general character of the 

 animal ; and, if it were, it is a good fault on service, 

 where work is usually in excess of food. But Col. Shake- 

 spear, very naturally, may be prejudiced in favour of his 

 own service. Everyone is so more or less. The Irre- 

 gular Cavalry of India are nearly always mounted on 

 country-bred horses, and they get about so well on them 

 that for their use such horses may be preferable to Arabs 

 or Gulf horses, which latter were always more numerous 

 in the ranks than the high-caste desert-born charger, 

 whose price is usually considerably above regulation 

 troop-horse price, this being 750 rupees. The Irregulars 

 had, and have, to my thinking, an advantage, inasmuch 

 as they ride mares in the ranks, which the Europeans 

 never used to do, and probably do not do now. One 



02 



