mares being branded to prove their right to service, and also 

 to prevent their purchase by native cavalry or police horse 

 buyers. A system of prize-giving at fairs and shows, with 

 some slight advantages to the produce of branded mares, was 

 instituted ; some assistance was to be given in teaching and 

 encouraging the practice of castration among native breeders ; 

 and all horses fit for Army service were to be purchased at 

 remunerative prices by Government. 



The number of Remounts required for horse and field 

 artillery, British and native cavalry, amount, on the average, 

 to 4,630, including a reserve of 1,000 horses, each year. 



For all reasons, both political and economical, it has 

 always been held most desirable that India should produce the 

 horses necessary to mount both British and native cavalry, and 

 to horse the artillery. Colonel Hallen gave a list of thirteen 

 breeds of Indian horses (excluding the Arab and Persian), all 

 of which he described as " possessing good powers of endur- 

 ance, and showing thereby Uood, but generally wanting in size, 

 and many too small for the work of the Indian Army, consti- 

 tuted as it now is ; though some of purely local breeds can be 

 found fit for native cavalry." In another paper '■= Colonel 

 Hallen described these breeds with more exactness : — 



" The majority of country-bred mares may be said to range in height 

 from 13 hands 2 inches to 14 hands 2 inches, and some few are found as 

 "high as 15 hands, and in weight from 5 to 8 cwts. They are, as a rule, 

 remarkably well-bred, rather light in barrel, not evenly put together, often 

 of an angular and ragged appearance, with small but steel-like bone of joints 

 and limbs, and measuring from 6J. to yj inches under the knee at the top 

 of the shank bone. They have wonderful powers " of endurance under 

 either tropical sun heat or intense cold, with a light weight, say from 10 

 to 12 stones in saddle or light draught, and after the hardest day's work 

 are never off their feed, but always ready for it ; moreover, thej- will 

 .continue doing work on the scantiest of food." 



Colonel Hallen observed that these mares offer a grand 

 ■structure on which to engraft more power and size — that, 

 indeed, a more suitable basis to work on could not be desired. 



It may be observed that the officers in charge of the Indian 



* Horses required for the Indian Army: (Read at a meeting of the 

 United Service Institution of India, 25th August, 1888.) 



53 



