28 The Book of the Horse. 



however, decreasing tlie feed until the sack was empty ; finally giving him for two or three 

 days absolutely nothing at all, but merely tightening up the girths at intervals. 



"About the nineteenth day they worked him hard until he sweated, when they unsaddled 

 him, and poured buckets of ice-cold water over the animal from head to tail. He was then 

 picketed, all wet, to a peg on the open steppe, allowed to graze, or fed sparingly, giving him 

 every day a little more feed and more rope for seven or eight days more, after which he 

 was turned loose to run with the herd as usual. 



"A horse that had undergone this discipline was considered a valuable animal, and a 

 sort of fortune to a man, being able to travel almost continuously for four or five days 

 together, with only a handful of fodder once in eight or ten hours, and a drink of water 

 once in the twenty-four. 



"This training was, of course, a sort of epitome of what the animals often had to go 

 through on an actual foray, when they had frequently to swim semi-frozen rivers, to carry 

 great weights, to go for days almost without food, to be picketed on the steppes, perhaps 

 sweating from a long journey, in snow and sleet, without any covering, &c. 



"The Persian horse -which must not be confounded with the coarse showy animals 

 much affected by wealthy natives of India, and there called " Persian " horses, but which 

 come in reality from Khorassan — is another good Asiatic type, three-parts Arab, exceed- 

 ingly enduring, fleet, and hardy ; he, however, instead of being turned out into the snow 

 to rough it, like his Tartar cousin, is taken a great deal of care of, warmly clothed with 

 felts, carefully groomed and fed, and kept in warm stables, often underground. 



"This treatment, however, does not by any means seem to produce softness or 'want 

 of grit,' these animals doing a hundred miles cheerfully, and roughing it, on occasion, almost 

 as well as the Tartars. 



" An animal of this breed, or rather of the Karabagh (formerly a Persian province, now 

 under Russian rule), which is much the same, had a trick of rubbing off his blanket at night, 

 when on a journey, which he would often do with the thermometer near zero, yet never 

 appeared to suffer in the least from the cold, though his coat was as fine as an Arab's." 



In fact, all the horses of Asia Minor, Central Asia, Tartary, &c., whether taken care 

 of, groomed, fed, and clothed, in the Persian and Turkish fashion, or turned out to take 

 their chance in snow-storms, over-worked and half-starved, like those of the Cossacks and 

 Tartars, seem to possess an invincible hardness of constitution, chiefly, perhaps, owing to 

 climate; but, I believe, in great measure also to a judicious system of breeding and working. 

 They have great endurance, which, however, they lose in India ; the nearer they approach 

 the tropics, and the more they get within the range of the monsoon, the softer they become. 

 There was a tolerable breed for India in the Ueccan in the old Mahratta days ; and there 

 is now a very good breed, although impetuous, in Kattywar, but the climate of Kattywar 

 approaches nearer to that of Arabia than any other part of India ; however hot in 

 summer, or cold in winter, it is dry. The question of climate has a deal to do with good 

 breeds of horses. We see that our English breed, transported to Australia or the Cape, 

 though often roughly treated in comparison with home animal.s, and badly fed, begin to 

 display an endurance and stoutness in those dry climates rivalling the Asiatic races. Per 

 contra, a Kirghiz pony, however good, if transported to England, cannot perform the feats, 

 even if well fed and cared for, that he docs in a half-starved state on his native steppe. 

 He would miss the dry elastic air and familiar expanse, while his iron hoofs would begin to 

 soften in our damp climate and on oui muddy roads. 



