X PREFACE. 



tunately, saved me from publishing a book which would not 

 have satisfied my more matured judgment. In 1884 I gave 

 in London a short course of private lectures on the conforma- 

 tion of the horse, to some of the best known English artists. 

 While endeavouring to convey instruction, I found great help 

 from the use of a few photographs I had by me as illustrations, 

 and accordingly determined to learn photography, and to 

 utilise it in the preparation of the new book on the "shape 

 and make " of horses which I had already begun, though on 

 different "lines" to those on which the lost volume had been 

 completed. On the following year I went abroad on a horse- 

 breaking tour,andhave spent the eight years which have elapsed 

 since then, in hard practical work (breaking, training for 

 racing and chasing, and horse dealing) among horses in India, 

 Burma, Ceylon, China, Japan, Egypt, South Africa, England 

 and elsewhere. The facilities afforded by such an active and 

 public life have enabled me to procure for this book a number 

 of illustrations which it would have been impossible for me to 

 have obtained under less favourable circumstances. No one 

 who has not made the attempt oneself, can form an idea of the 

 difficulty there often is in getting horses which have the 

 required " points " (bad or good). For instance, I once 

 examined 600 horses belonging to a dealer, and only obtained 

 one specimen for my camera. Another time, a search through 

 the troopers of two cavalry regiments was fruitless of results. 

 For the photographs in this book, I have " run my eye " over 

 certainly more than 10,000 horses ! From this statement my 

 readers will be able to form some idea of the extreme kindness 

 and forbearance with which I have been treated by my horse- 

 owning friends. Having obtained an animal with a re- 

 quired "point," the next thing to do was to photograph 



