( 547) 
HORSE BUYING- AND BREEDING 
IN SOUTH AFRICA. 
BY 
CAPTAIN C. G. MACKENZIE, R.F.A. 
HORSE BUYING. 
S TARTING at a week’s notice we sailed from Southampton on the 
ist July to purchase in South Africa what animals might be 
necessary for the Imperial Government to persuade Mr. Kruger of the 
error of his ways. The Union Liner Scot , on which we embarked, was 
taking out about twenty soldiers of sorts chiefly special service officers, 
whose names did not appear in the list of passengers, but whose em¬ 
barkation, with full description was, I have no doubt, duly notified to 
Pretoria. 
Other fellow passengers were Mr. Rhodes, Sir Charles Metcalfe, 
a Russian Princess, a Transvaal Government Official, a Free State Bur¬ 
gher, an Oxford Don, and several men connected with the Mining 
Industry. The Remount party consisted of Colonel Stevenson, Assist¬ 
ant Inspector of Remounts, three veterinary officers, self and four farr¬ 
ier-majors (one from Blues, ist Life Guards, King’s Dragoon Guards 
and Royals ), all excellent men and very steady. We arrived at Cape 
Town on the 18th to be met by a rumour that Sir Redvers Buller had 
embarked on the Saturday before with 30,000 men, which news was, 
alas , to prove “ previous ” by at least three months. 
On arriving at the Castle, which is the South African Army head¬ 
quarters and the official residence of the old Dutch governors, we found 
that our business was the purchase of 900 cobs to mount a corps of ir¬ 
regular mounted infantry which was to be raised by Colonel Baden- 
Powell at Mafeking and Bulawayo and a, certain number of mules to 
complete the regimental transport of the infantry battalion, stationed 
in the Colony. 
A week was spent in tendering for contracts, and passing a small lot 
of 50 Army Service Corps cobs, already contracted for on the 26th 
July. Colonel Stevenson was permitted to make a contract for 450 
cobs, at Kimberley within a month. 
12. Vol. XXVI. 
