on the scantiest rations and are very quiet. On the veld they are 

 as sure-footed as goats. Their paces are a slow canter and a shuf- 

 fling walk. The Basuto pony is the best of all. ' ' 



This extract in short describes the stock that was left to South 

 Africa after the war ; for the farmers bought the remaining horse 

 material of the British forces and amongst these were a large num- 

 ber of mares. Thousands of breeding stock have also been imported 

 from abroad and unluckily most of the horses were imported from 

 the Argentine, owing to low prices. These horses were the worst 

 the British Army had used and their influence was not at all satis- 

 factory ; but the people were exhausted by the disastrous effects of 

 the war and beggars cannot choose. But things righted themselves 

 very soon. The larger part of the 3,000,000 pounds sterling paid 

 by Great Britain to the Republics as part of the conditions of the 

 Peace of Vereniging went to rehabilitate the farming industries. 

 The Governments of the old Republics placed large sums of monies 

 at the disposal of the farmers on very easy terms for the purpose 

 of buying pure-bred sheep and other live stock in the Cape Colony 

 or imported from abroad. 



The great reputation the Cape Horse once more gained on the 

 field of battle and general campaign duty seemed to have attracted 

 horse breeders' attention anew and its breeding and improvement 

 became one of the most serious interests throughout South Africa. 



The great horse breeders of the Hantam of ancient fame col- 

 lected as many of the old stock as they could lay hands on and some 

 of the best Thoroughbred stallions were imported from England. 



Dr. F. D. McDermott, Director of the Cape Agricultural De- 

 partment giving a full description of the various great studs in this 

 region three years after the war, makes the following remarks on 

 the breeding stock: "The class of mare mostly bred from here is 

 the colonial type, as mvich as possible on the line of the old Hantam^. 

 animal, but it has been so difficult to secure this type of mare since 

 the war, that the old Hantam horse seems to be almost doomed. It 

 is to be hoped that with all the new blood in the district we shall 

 soon have a new Hantam horse with the characteristics of the old 

 one and a few improvements. Soil and climate have a great deal 

 to do with horse-breeding so that there is no reason to fear that what 

 has been done before cannot be done again. "^°^ 



(103) F. D. McDennot. Eural Cape Colony. Agricultural Journal of the Cape 

 of Good Eope. Vol. XXVII, 1905. 



57 



