104 PUTTING INTO CONDITION. 



Look after your horse yourself : make much of him 

 always on mounting and on dismounting ; and see that 

 he is made comfortable in his stall : by this means a 

 bad-tempered horse will grow fond of you.* 



CHANGE FROM STABLING TO THE OPEN AIR, 



As walled-in stables are now universal in every 

 cantonment, and as little probability exists that you 

 will alter those attached to your habitation to that 

 form of structure most congenial to a horse's health, 

 you may easily suppose, that when brought from one 

 of these warm stalls to sleep in the open air in the cold 

 weather, and no precautions taken,iflness of some kind, 

 as a matter of course, will follow. A warm bed-blan- 

 ket, head and body piece, wrapping well under the 

 belly, should always be put under the ordinary jhool 

 on these occasions, and the horse kept close under the 

 tent-walls, out of the wind : this, with half a masallah 

 at night, and taking care the gora-walla mounts at 

 day-break, or before, (but without taking off more 

 than the upper jhool,) for a good hour's walk, will be 

 found the best preventive against those colds and 

 coughs, which bring on a staring coat, debility, loss 

 of flesh, and general bad condition. 



If unexpectedly taken out during the monsoon, and 

 rain should fall during the night, change the jhool ? 

 give a small masallah, and trot him for a quarter of 

 an hour immediately the shower is over. A single 



* Lawrence, vol. i. p. 279. "The tempers of horses, like those of their 

 masters, are various, endowed with a greater or less proportion of intelligence, 

 sagacity, and feeling ; and it is but too often the beast evinces the greater 

 degree of rationality." 



