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THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
As the expence of importation must be added to the price 
of sheep and horses, and as a great proportion, particularly 
of the former, die on being landed in the island, these ani- 
mals are in consequence much dearer here than in any other 
part of India. Sheep sometimes fetch ten and even twenty 
times the price they do on the opposite coast of Coromandel. 
In Ceylon, or indeed in any part of India, horses are 
never employed in servile work, or for drawing burthens. 
As they are scarcely ever castrated, they are indeed so 
spirited and vicious as in some degree to be unfitted for these 
purposes. The care and attendance which they require is also 
too great to allow their being kept by any but the wealthy 
for pleasure. Two attendants are constantly attached to each 
horse: one of them is employed in cutting and fetching him 
as much grass as he requires to eat ; while the other takes 
care of him, cleans him, feeds him, and makes him ready for 
his master to mount. The last attendant never quits his 
horse, but follows him wherever he goes, and is ready on all 
occasions to take charge of him. I have seen some of these 
horse-keepers, as they are called, keep up to my horse for 
twenty or thirty miles together, while I was proceeding at 
the rate of five or six miles an hour. 
The Indian horses are extremely spirited, and often defend 
their riders against the attack of other animals, and I have 
myself been indebted to their prowess for my preservation 
from the fury of a buffalo. It is only when so vicious, as 
to be perfectly unmanageable, that these animals are ever 
