638 ASIATIC AND NORTH AFRICAN HORSES. 



them to any expense or trouble. Also, Muhammadans do 

 not like mares in their carts. The mares and foals feed 

 all day on the grassy plains outside the villages ; at night 

 they return to their owner's house, which stands on poles 

 about ten feet high, and under which they spend the night 

 in excellent fellowship with the cows, goats, fowl and other 

 domesticated animals. Nothing is done in the way of 

 taking care of them. Only when the colts have attained 

 a saleable age, they get their first and last toilet, which 

 consists of a slight rub-down with half of a cocoanut as a 

 curry-comb, and then they are taken to market, in a halter 

 made out of the fibrous part of an Aringa palm, and orna- 

 mented with white horse-hair tassels, as rosettes on each 

 side. It is therefore easy to understand why the Battaks 

 do not want to part with mares, unless these animals are 

 barren, or worthless in other ways. 



" Among the Battaks, horse-breeding is almost exclu- 

 sively in the hands of the princes and village chiefs. The 

 poor man is content if he can get a sufficiency of rice. If 

 he succeeds in obtaining a brood mare, he cannot enjoy 

 his possession, because the village chief would instantly 

 become jealous, and would take the first opportunity to 

 confiscate the cause of his ire." 



Corean Ponies — The indigenous pony of Corea 

 is an extremely small animal, often not more than 

 nine hands high. He is very handsome, being built on 

 fine and graceful lines ; in fact, he looks like an Arab, 

 or like the Iceland pony in Fig. 527. Despite the small- 

 ness of his size, and the slightness of his build, he is 

 capable of doing a good deal of hard .work. He seems 

 to be of quite a different breed from the Manchuria 

 pony. 



Japanese Ponies are weak-bodied, long-legged 

 animals of about 14 hands high. When I was in Japan 

 in 1888, the ordinary working ponies of that country, 



