So urn African. 153 



horses to yards prepared for the purpose, and there to slaugliter them. If any of them be 

 branded, thereby showing that they are not in truth wild, but are or have been the property 

 of some individual, the brands are advertised and the horses pounded, so that the owner 

 may recover them on paying the expense. This is at least what should be done. It is, I 

 fancy, generally found easier to shoot them and to destroy the skin, so that no testimony may 

 be left as to the brand. The skins and hair of those which are really wild are sold, and the 

 carcases are destroyed. Now and again a wild horse may be found as to which it is decided 

 that he shall be kept, and broken in, and used. The value of the animal, however, seldom 

 pays for the trouble and cost. They are very pretty to look at as they are seen scouring 

 over the plain or rushing into the thick scrub ; they are sleek, and bright-eyed, well furnished 

 with mane and tail, and they go with a free action, but they are not often well made or fit 

 for use, having almost always poor shoulders, with straight limbs, and narrow chest. They are 

 already becoming a pest to the squatter, destroying his fences, eating his grass, and enticing 

 his own horses out of the horse paddock. The work of running them in is not bad sport ; 

 but they who do it must be well mounted, and the doing of it is utterly destructive to the 

 horses ridden. . ^ 



"A Victorian coach, with six or perhaps even seven or eight horses, in the darkness of the night, 

 making its way through the timbered forest at the rate of nine miles an hour, with the horses 

 frequently up to their bellies in mud, with the wheels running in and out of holes four or five feet 

 deep, is a phenomenon which I should like to have shown to some of those very neat mail- 

 coach drivers whom I used to know at home in the old days. I am sure that no description 

 would make any of them believe that such feats of driving were possible. I feel that nothing 

 short of seeing it would have made me believe it." 



CAPK HORSES. 



Cape horses acquired a high reputation amongst military men when we kept a number 

 of regiments permanently to defend the colonists from Kaffir invasion at the expense of the 

 Imperial Government, and when the Cape was the regular half-way station of all ships bound 

 to India. The following extract of a letter addressed to the Country Gentleman's Paper, dated 

 "King William's Town, 21st August, 1S78," gives late information on a very important 

 subject : — 



" Having been in King William's Town, the headquarters of the army during most of 

 the campaign which has now come to an end, I have had opportunities of seeing some thousands 

 of horses sent down for remount purposes, for artillery, mounted infantry, and volunteers. The 

 neighbourhood of King William's Town is not a horse-producing country, so most of the 

 horses bought for remounts were purchased between Oueenstown and the Orange Free State 

 by men sent up by Government. The price allowed by Government for mounted infantry 

 and volunteer horses was ^^25, but the average price given was about ^"21. The animals 

 sent down were what in England would be called ponies, of from 13.2 to 14 hands, certainly 

 capable of doing hard work with a small amount of food, and suffering hardships which would 

 kill an English horse, as during the campaign they have had to stand out at night without 

 blankets, sometimes in pouring rain, and at others with the thermometer under 30°. But 

 this class of horse would be quite unfit to mount an English regiment of cavalry, as they could 

 neither carry the weight of a man in marching order, nor move at the pace required. 



"A horse of 15 hands is looked upon out here as quite a rara avis, so much so that when 

 U 



