Tartars. Arab and Spanish Crosses, 29 



TARTARS OF THE KIRGHIZ STEPPES. 



No horses are so hardy as the Tartars of the Kirghiz steppes, says Captain Fred Burnaby 

 in his celebrated " Ride to Khiva." The feeble ones die of starvation in hard winters. 



The Kirghis never clothe their horses in the coldest winters. They get snow instead of 

 water. Early in the spring the animals gain flesh and strength, and are capable of performing 

 immense marches, a ride of a hundred miles on end not being uncommon in Tartary. 



The Tartar horses are not generally well shaped, they cannot gallop very fast ; but they 

 can travel enormous distances without forage, water, or halting. 



For very long journeys they employ two horses, one carries a little water, and from time 

 to time they change horses. 



In 1870, Count Borkh, a Russian general, made a forced march of 266 miles in six days 

 over a most difficult country ; on some days they marched sixty miles through rocky defile 

 and barren sandy wastes destitute of forage and water. The heat was excessive during the 

 day, sometimes reaching 117° Fahrenheit, while the nights were cold and frosty. There v/ere 

 only twelve horses with sore backs, which had been ridden, not by Cossacks, but by riflemen, 

 who had neglected to adjust their saddles properly before mounting. 



Captain Burnaby, who weighed, with his cold-defying clothes, furs, and accoutrements, 

 twenty-two stone, purchased for his journey a black horse about 14 hands high, with gaudy 

 painted saddle and bridle, for ^^5. 



" The guide and myself pushed forward at the slow ambling pace peculiar to horses of the 

 steppes, which some of them can keep up for twenty-four hours on an emergency. Not so 

 fast as the huntsman's joggle when returning with his pack to the kennel, but much more jolting. 



"We galloped across the frozen surface of the Syr Daryon, and pulled up at NurozofTs 

 hostelry. We had ridden 371 miles in nine days and two hours, thus averaging more than 

 forty miles a day, with an interval of only nine days rest, having previously carried me five 

 hundred miles. With my twenty stone he had neither been sick or lame during the journey, 

 and had galloped the last seventeen miles in one hour and twenty-five minutes." 



Merv, brought to England by Baker Pacha, was stationed as a stallion at Newmarket, with a 

 fee of eighty-five pounds ; but breeders of race-horses would have nothing to say to him. He was 

 afterwards offered to owners of half-bred mares, but did not meet with any favour. A corre- 

 spondent wrote me in 1S77 — " In looking for a horse to put my hunting brood-mare to, I came 

 across Merv. He looked to me to stand about sixteen hands high, fine shoulders, good head 

 and neck, fine skin, good wearing legs, bad feet, and leggy. I thought him unsuited to breed 

 hunters : thought he would do to put to a Suff"olk cart mare, or get hacks out of Norfolk cobs. 

 The high fee (;^85) put him out of the question. He looked to me about an eleven-stone horse, 

 and not like going through dirt." In the end no mares were covered by Merv while at 

 Newmarket ; and in 1877 he was sold to the Earl of Charlemont for his breeding stud in 



Ireland. 



ARAB AND SPANISH CROSSES. 



In the preceding pages are embodied the opinions of writers who are enthusiastic admirers 

 of the Arab, who have been charmed by his endurance, his fire and courage, and not a little 

 by his picturesqueness, if such a term may be applied to a horse. But in order to do justice to 

 this subject I shall present the other side of the question, in the words of one who was, in all that 

 concerns the horse, in the strictest sense of the word, an expert — one who had been engaged in 

 dealing in the best class of horses all his life ; who has bred horses, trained them, ridden them, 



