TRE AOBIGULTURAL JOURNAL. 



827 



The Horse in South Africa. 



THE following interesting history of the 

 horse in South Africa is contributed by 

 Mr, Charles Cowen to the " Cape 

 Times " : — 



We have no well-traced record of the 

 history of the horse in the sub-continent 

 of Africa. It is one of the many subjects 

 which has yet to be dealt with by a com- 

 petent hand. The work I believe to be 

 easy and the material sufficient. The 

 exploiter of the information has not far 

 to seek for it. 



The following memorandum, written 

 without facilities of reference, may there- 

 fore not be wholly uninteresting : The 

 earliest accounts tell us that in the days of 

 Van Riebeek the horse was an unknown 

 animal at the Cape of Good Hope. Nor 

 was it known across the Great Gariep by 

 the natives even in the third decade of 

 the past century. For very obvious 

 reasons of policy, the Dutch East India 

 Company would not ship horses to their 

 new settlement for many years ; it was 

 against their policy to allovv their settlers 

 and officials to make way beyond the 

 narrow limits of the little plantations, 

 lest they should provoke the ire and 

 offensive force of the natives against 

 them. At last, on the urgent solicitation 

 of one of the Governors (which one I do 

 not remember), the Council sent out a 

 Barb, which was soon followed by other 

 equine beauties. To that stock we owe 

 our far-famed Cape horse, our Hantam 

 breds, and our Basuto pony. 



The Hantam area was the range of 

 country which extended from the Atlan- 

 tic to the present Herschell Reserve, with 

 the Orange River along its entire northern 

 line, and became ever celebrated for its 

 compact, swift, enduring, fine-tempered, 

 intelligent, and docile horses. This char- 

 acter it still maintains. 



Whether the Barb mentioned arrived 

 in the I7th or the early part of the 18th 

 century, I do not remember. It is 

 certain, however, that by the middle of 

 the latter century the horse was a com- 

 monly known animal in many parts of the 

 country, though not across the Great Fish 

 River, and it is equally certain that the 



entire stock was of good blood wherever 

 it was found, for only such had been 

 imported and bred from. 



In 1795, when the British were about 

 to land, the Dutch Governor put nearly 

 two thousand mounted men into the field 

 to oppose their advance at Muisenberg, 

 This shows how plentiful this useful 

 animal had already become at the Cape, 



An English cavalry officer, writing of 

 the Cape horse in 1800, says there were a 

 small race, spirited and hardy, worked on 

 little food, and were capable of enduring 

 a great amount of fatigue. They did not 

 exceed, as a rule, fourteen hands in height, 

 and up to that time were not deemed 

 swift. 



In those days the Dutch used to culti- 

 vate carrois extensively for their horses 

 and sheep, A bunch or two were con- 

 sidered equal to acorn feed for an English 

 horse. In some places the poor beast 

 got nothing else for the day, if he could 

 not nibble. This, of coiTrse, was in the 

 Peninsula. In the country districts the 

 feed was not the same. The ordinary 

 farmers exercised no care in breeding 

 horses ; these were what they were, in 

 spite of his neglect, sound, enduring, and 

 wonderfully tractable, 



A PAARL SALE IN 1858. 

 In 1858 I attended a sale of Hantam 

 horses at a farm midway between Malmes- 

 bury and the Paarl. There were about 

 200. Some of these had had a halter upon 

 them only occasionally. Others were 

 " touw-wys," while most had never been 

 handled at all. They came down just as 

 they had been roiinded up at the farm on 

 the veld. My host was .the royal dealer 

 at Capetown. He gave me the points of 

 the clump, and particularly directed my 

 attention to the temper and conduct of 

 those equine youths which were strangers 

 to the hand, and had never been haltered. 

 Buyers went into the midst of the stock, 

 selected their purchases, made their boys 

 slip halters on to them, lead them away 

 out of the kraal, mount, and then handle 

 them on the open veld. The spectacle 

 was an amazing one to me, for the animals, 

 at first apparently puzzled and bewildered. 



