ROCKY COUNTRIES, AND HARD, ROUGH ROADS. 115 



of these countries is also such that hard, rough, 

 stony ground very largely predominates outside 

 these breeding grounds ; although in some parts, 

 where the stone is small and loose, the roads 

 become excessively heavy and trying during the 

 rainy season. In some parts of these countries it 

 rains every day in the year, and in other parts they 

 get dry roads during six months, and wet ones 

 during the other six. The horses have to travel 

 over either, and over naked sheets of rock, as they 

 in turn present themselves ; and, as Mr. Douglas 

 says, ' without difficulty, and to the evident advan- 

 tage of their hoofs, they never suffer from contracted 

 feet, or from corns, sandcracks, &c.' Yet their work 

 is of the hardest. Many of them bring down from 

 the interior, many hundreds of miles, two bales of 

 cotton, which weigh with pack-saddle, &c., over 

 3 cwt., and in fording rivers have to carry the driver 

 across also. This is the way in which all the commerce 

 of the country is carried on. There is not a horseshoe 

 or a nail to be obtained over the whole route, and on 

 some roads at crop times nearly a thousand horses 

 will pass daily, descending, and a similar quantity 

 returning, inland, loaded with imports, sometimes 

 of the same cotton that they brought down the year 

 before, but which has been to Europe or the States 

 to get manufactured. 



In these countries the natives, when they * corral ' 

 or ' pen ' their horses, always look out for a hard 

 site for the purpose. Where stabling exists it is 

 paved with stone if obtainable, and where timber 



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