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NARRATIVE. 
most affectionate way. The Yarkandis are very good 
riders, and are very careful of tlieir animals. They 
have a curious custom of walking the horses up and 
down for hours, after coming into camp off a long 
day's march. If this were only done for a few minutes, 
to allow the horses to cool, I could understand the 
meaning of it ; but I have often seen them continue 
this exercise for two hours before the horses were 
given their grain or sent to graze. In crossing the 
high desert region horses very often drop down ill, 
apparently suffering from colic, which may be caused 
by the very bad grass or other herbage they are 
obligedto eat, or by their swallowing quantities of grain 
without mastication after long fasting. The traders 
have an idea that horses when at great altitudes 
should be stinted of grain. In the case of some of our 
horses which died, the fatal result was attributed to 
giving pulse instead of Indian corn. When a horse 
thus drops down, the practice is to slit open the nose, 
and extract pieces of the nasal cartilages. I think 
the balance of evidence was in favour of letting the 
animals alone, for those operated on all died, whilst 
of those let alone a few recovered. 
Horses and donkeys are used in Yarkand for 
treading out the corn ; and the man who drives them 
during this work always rides. In fact, a Yarkandi 
never walks a yard if he can possibly be mounted. 
Horses are not used for ploughing ; this labour is 
reserved for the cattle, which are yoked very wide 
apart — at least five feet — to a plough, very 
closely resembling the Indian one. Donkeys are in 
universal use amongst the villagers for carrying loads 
and for riding purposes, and some of these are 
