558 CONTINENTAL HORSES. 



Half-wild Horses. — According to de Simonoff and de 

 Moerder, the horses which come under this heading, 

 are those of the Kalmouks and the Keergeez ; the former 

 being bred in the southern portion of the country, between 

 the rivers Volga and Ural ; and the latter in the steppes 

 to the north-east of the Caspian Sea. Both are coarse 

 bred animals, but are extremely hardy and enduring. 

 The Kalmouk horses are about 15 hands high, and many 

 of them are sold as remounts for the Russian cavalry of 

 the line. The Keergeez breed are ponies which rarely 

 exceed 14. i in height. 



On the Keergeez and Kalmouk steppes, each stallion 

 has his kossiak of fifteen to twenty brood mares, which 

 are generally chosen by the stallion and are protected 

 by him. The young mares which have not had a 

 foal and the geldings keep together without appa- 

 rently any form of equine government. Several kossiaks 

 form what is called in Russian a taboime, which may 

 consist of hundreds and sometimes thousands of animals 

 that "have to shift for themselves. As these horses very 

 rarely get any food, except what they have to pick up 

 for themselves, they undergo terrible privations during 

 the extremely severe winters. As their Cossack owners 

 love to drink koomiss, which is fermented mares' 

 milk, the unfortunate foals are rarely allowed to suck 

 their dams after they have been a day or two old. Under 

 these conditions, they naturally take a long time to 

 mature and are seldom fit for work until they are fi\-e 

 years old. 



On all the steppes, the unbroken horses are caught 

 by means of a lasso, which often causes severe and not 

 unfrequently fatal injuries, and has the further serious 

 objection that in any case it hurts, to a greater or less 

 extent, the part of the neck which is close to the head, 

 and consequently it renders the animal difficult to bridle, 

 and sometimes even to approach, as I often found to my 

 cost, when breaking recently-caught horses at the cadres 



