42 HORSE MANAGEMENT IN INDIA. 



carnivora, whose bodily weight and internal temperature 

 can be sustained on a diet of lean meat alone. 



When long distance walking and swimming came into 

 vogue a few years ago, it was thought that concentrated 

 food, of a highly nitrogenous nature, was the most suit- 

 able for the athlete while attempting such feats ; the 

 fallacy of this was proved by experience, for it was found 

 that incomparably greater trials of endurance were per- 

 formed under a regimen rich in fat, than under the old 

 system of training on lean meat and dry b read. This was 

 notably shewn in the case of Gale, while walking 1,500 

 miles in 1,000 hours, for his diet consisted of ordinary meat, 

 buttered toast and bread, eggs, &c. Weston, the pedes- 

 trian, was, I believe^ one of the first to demonstrate, in 

 England, the advantages of this system ; Webb, too, was 

 another instance. The Indian wrestlers, on the contrary, 

 have for ages practiced what European physiologists are 

 just beginning to understand. I am thoroughly con- 

 vinced that the fact of modern feats of endurance, so 

 totally eclipsing the performances done in former days, is 

 mainly owing to a larger supply of fat and starch having 

 been introduced into the diet of athletes. This lesson 

 we should utilize in the case of hard- worked horses. 

 Unfortunately our choice in the matter of food is here 

 but small, when we are limited in the matter of expense, 

 except in the case of linseed, which is a most suitable 

 article ; we might, however, in some cases, supplement it 

 with milk, eggs, ghi (clarified butter), and goor (unrefined 

 sugar). 



We find that, for the maintenance of health, a man 

 requires, in his food, a supply of fat as well as of starch, 



