French Protestant Missionary relates how proud Letsie was of his 

 accomplishment of riding bare back on a horse stolen from the emi- 

 grant farmers of that period. 



It is quite probable that Basutos were in possession of horses 

 long before that date; for cattle and horse thefts were a great 

 annoyance to the frontier farmers all through the 18th Century. 

 During the last decade of that century over 300 horses along with 

 thousands of cattle and sheep were stolen and taken into the moun- 

 tains of Basutoland and neighborhood." The Basuto conquered 

 these hordes and occupied and settled Basutoland and some of these 

 horses must have been among the spoils. 



The neighboring territory now the Orange Free State was first 

 occupied in 1838 by the emigrants from the Cape Colony. Basutos 

 were largely employed as farm hands and were paid in stock and 

 speculators exchanged large droves of horses for slaughter stock 

 with the Basutos who were very a]ixious to possess horses. They 

 were a sporting race and many well-bred stallions liave found their 

 way into the counti'y. "Representatives of Tormentor (by Wild 

 Dayrell), Sir Amj'as Leigh (Adventurer), Bellandrum (Stock- 

 well) and many others are to be traced in the hands of the natives 

 crossed with the old Dutch (Cape) breed obtained from the 

 farmers."*^ 



Owing to the severity of the winter in this mountainous coun- 

 ary — the Thermometer often indicating 10°-15" of frost in the 

 valleys and plateaus, while the peaks are snow covered — the pro- 

 geny of these horses while retaining many of the valuable equalities 

 of their progenitors and improving in hardiness l^ecame more and 

 more stunted in size and gradually developed in the famous Basuto 

 Pony." 



The Basuto pony is somewhat thickest with a rather long body 

 on short strong legs and extremely hard hoofs combining extraor- 

 dinary secure footing and comparative high speed. 



"Of the endurance and aetivitj' of these animals I cannot speak 

 too highly. They seldom or ever get anything more than they can 

 pick up on the Veldt and yet they commonly do journeys of 60-80 

 miles in the day and this with carrying 18-14 stone. Th?y are 

 wonderfully sound and are seldom if ever shod, although some of 



(41) G. E. Ciry. The Rise of South Africa 1913. 



(42) ,S'. Barrett "The Field" Jiilii. IDOl. 



(43) /. W. Bowler "Racing Calendar" 1001. 



100 



