276 
REVIEW. — MOORCROFT’S TRAVELS. 
a different ship, with the writer of this notice, who, when he occa- 
sionally saw Mr. Moorcroft during the voyage, as the vessels 
spoke, or on their touching at Madeira, little anticipated that he 
should ever become his biographer. 
The Company’s stud was instituted for the purpose of improving 
the indifferent breed of horses indigenous in Hindustan, for the 
special service of their own cavalry. That the object had not been 
successfully prosecuted is to be inferred from the necessity of ob- 
taining scientific superintendence from England. That it was at- 
tained in a very eminent degree within a reasonable period after 
Mr. Moorcroft’s appointment, the observation of persons in India, 
however little conversant with the subject, could not fail to remark. 
In the letter above cited, Mr. Moorcroft observes, that, at the time 
he left the stud on his present travels, there was not above one 
horse diseased for ten that he had found when he took charge of 
it. This amendment he attributes, amongst other things, to the 
use of oats as food, the cultivation of which grain he introduced 
into Hindustan. In order, however, to improve essentially and 
permanently the cavalry horse of India, and especially in size and 
strength, Mr. Moorcroft strenuously urged the introduction of the 
Turkman or English in preference to the Arab horse. His repre- 
sentations were at one time so favourably considered by the authori- 
ties in India, that he was on the eve of being permitted to return 
to England to select a batch of suitable stallions ; but the purpose 
was abandoned, and his thoughts were thenceforward fixed exclu- 
sively upon the neighbourhood of Balkh and Bokhara. This was 
the leading motive of his journey across the Himalaya, and this 
purpose prompted the second journey, which terminated fatally for 
his project and himself. 
Coupled with the conviction that the native cavalry horse of 
India could be ameliorated only by an infusion of the bone and 
blood of the Turkman steed, was an equally strong belief in Mr. 
Moorcroft’s mind of the possibility of establishing a commercial in- 
tercourse with the Trans-Himalayan districts, which should be 
highly advantageous to Great Britain. In some respects the 
belief was founded on sufficient premises. To the anticipation of 
an extensive demand for British fabrics, both of hardware and of 
woollen cloth, from the known absence of all manufacturing skill 
in the countries of Central Asia, and the necessity of warm cloth- 
ing imposed by the climate, was added an acquaintance with the 
fact, that these very articles, some of continental and some of British 
manufacture, found their way from Russia across the whole of the 
intervening regions, even to Afghanistan and the Panjub. To 
secure a part, if not the whole, of this commerce, was an object 
which Mr. Moorcroft entertained with the ardour and tenacity of 
