436 
THE KING AND VIZIER. 
and broad over the loins, capable of enduring the fatigue 
and privations of a campaign — not such horses, quite the 
contrary, as described by Mr. Hurford, in The Veterinarian , 
No. 59. But I fear it was very little use this judge of what 
a cavalry horse should be writing this letter. No one knew 
better than the late General Sir W. II. Gilbert, who was 
secretary to the Board at the formation of the present stud 
system ; but the working of it depended on the knowledge of 
the superintendents of the form of horse required for ca- 
valry. 
Dependence cannot be placed on Russian statistics, yet, 
by all accounts, that government has beaten that of India for 
the time she has attended to the encouragement of the im- 
provement of the breed of horses. But in the production 
of army horses, I believe that has arisen from the Tartar 
blood being most predominant, rather than from any sys- 
tematic proceeding. The late Mr. Moorcroft, poor man ! was 
so aware of the want of this in India, that he not only sa- 
crificed his own life, but that of his fellow-traveller, Mr* 
Trebeck. He had procured some valuable Turkoman stal- 
lions for the stud ; and it was supposed both were poisoned to 
get possession, the more easily, of their horses and property. 
We find the purchasing officer, and Mr. Hurford, of the 
15th Hussars ( vide his letter in No. 59)? preferred the 
Toorkies of Candahar* to the stud horses of late years, about 
which of course I cannot write, but in my time the stud 
horses were the lest procurable in India for the army ; of the 
cause of the failure since, some other of your correspondents 
there may be able to explain. Mr. Hurford has partly done 
so ; he should have got hold of a printed but unpublished 
pamphlet by the late Mr. Moorcroft, being his correspondence 
with the then Board of Superintendence, which would have 
let him into the origin of the stud system. The Board has 
been composed of gentlemen who had to take into their 
consideration other things besides the practically carrying 
out the improvement of the breed of horses, the principal 
* It was easy enough for the officer and Mr. Hurford to purchase in 
Candahar during occupation; at other times the risk to horse mer- 
chants is very great. In Runjeet Sing’s time few passed through the 
Punjab. They came via Bahawulpore, Butnier, and Hissar. While I was 
there, one party on its return, although escorted by Skinner’s Horse, were 
robbed at Tuttiabad, twenty-one miles from Hissar, by the Batties, a tribe 
on the border of the desert, to whom the place belonged. They had to wait 
months at Delhi, and military force was obliged to be sent to compel 
restitution from the chief. These chiefs give protection through their own 
territory, and if it is not obtained, always share in the plunder. One mer- 
chant had been at Moscow in 1811, in 1817 he was at Hissar. 
