darling felt me shudder as we left, and she
thought I was cold. Cold! I was thinking—I
might actually have married that woman!"

HORSES FOR INDIAN SERVICE.

'The Indian public are at last beginning
to consider seriously the best mode of
supplying the army with horses, in consequence
of the supply from Persia and Arabia being
cut off, and that received from Australia
being of very inferior quality. It is surprising
that a country like India, possessing in various
parts a climate eminently adapted for breeding
horses, should be entirely dependent on foreign,
countries for horseflesh.

There is an unaccountable prejudice existing
in the minds of nearly all European residents
in India-- a prejudice which seems to have been
handed down from time immemorial, and which
is accepted and adopted by each new comer
with little or no inquiry—that horse breeding
in India is a delusion and a snare. The majority,
when questioned on the subject, would, in all
probability, be unable to give any more
satisfactory reason for their opinion than that India-
bred horses are " brutes." Indeed, every kicking,
rearing, vicious, and unbreakable brute is at
once stigmatised as a " country bred." Those
that are frequently seen on the commons near
villages, whose dams are cat-ham'd Tattoos, and
whose sires are screaming, wall-eyed, and vicious
"Belooches," certainly do not possess much to
recommend them, either in shape or temper;
but it would be as unjust to accept these as
specimens of what India could produce, as it
would be to suppose that a very bad cab-horse
is a fair type of the only species of equine animal
that can be produced in England. In the
Madras Presidency, the government breeding-
stud is understood to have been abolished in
consequence of the number of under-sized horses
that were produced, and not, as is often
supposed, in consequence of the produce being
worthless and unmanageable. Nevertheless, the
generally adopted idea, that "country breds"
are brutes, has been fully entertained by cavalry
officers, as the following anecdote will show.

When the Marquis of Tweedale was governor
and commander-in-chief of the Madras army, he
informed the late General Hill, who was then
superintendent of the stud department, that he
had received several complaints regarding the
inferiority of the animals supplied from the
stud—that they were vicious and unbreakable,
and that they did not last long. The general
was much surprised, and requested his
Excellency to be kind enough to call for returns
showing the number of "stud breds" there
were in each regiment, and showing the length
of time each different caste of horse, Australians,
Capes, Persians, Arabs, and stud breds,
lasted in an efficient state. His Excellency
complied, and the order went forth. Officers,
when asked by their colonels how many " stud
breds" they had in their troops, replied, " Oh,
only two or three brutes;" but, to their
surprise, when they came to make up the required
returns from official records, they found that
they had a great many more stud breds than
they imagined, and, moreover, that the much-
abused "stud breds" were, next to Persians,
the longest efficient workers; that Arabs came
third in order of merit; and Capes and Australians
last.

The enduring properties of the Persian horse
are undoubtedly due to his phlegmatic temperament
and deep-rooted objection to do more
than is absolutely necessary; an exactly opposite
temperament, and the habit of exerting
himself to the utmost where a moderate amount of
exertion would be sufficient, is the cause of the
Arab failing sooner than the Persian and stud
bred. The stud bred were undoubtedly wiry
useful little horses, hard as nails, but perhaps a
little difficult to break in. Experience has long
proved that, in a tropical climate, the cross
between the Arab and English blood deteriorates
at least in height, and very frequently in many
other essential qualities; the system adopted
at the Mysore stud failed, as already said,
principally from the deterioration in size. The
writer has long thought that the breeding of
thorough-bred English stock on hard dry food
would be attended with great success, and the
opinion has been considerably strengthened by
reading an account of a gentleman's experience
in this particular line at Aleppo, which appeared
in the Sporting Magazine for March, 1864;. It
is a quotation from a letter received by a Scotch
gentleman who had imported two Arab mares
for breeding purposes.

"I have made five experiments in horses
here.

"1st. Out of thorough-bred English mares
by Arab stallions.

"2nd. Out of the best Arab mares by
thorough-bred English horses.

"3rd. Rearing the best Arab blood on
succulent forage, as in England.

"4th. Rearing thorough-bred English stock
in the Desert on dry food.

"5th. Buying colts and fillies superior to
those usually sold by the Arabs.

"The first experiment has led to no great
results, the produce being merely handsomer
than English horses, without being faster.

"The second experiment has succeeded
occasionally; but, out of four, three are leggy, weak,
and unfit for racing.

"The third experiment is a complete failure,
excepting in increasing the size. The produce has
the defects of the English horse, without having
the merits of the Arab.

"The fourth experiment is perfectly successful,
the stock, though smaller than their
parents, being better able to stay a distance.
The heat of the Desert, the dryness, the
constant galloping (from their birth after their
dams, and ridden by children from a year and
a half), the she-camel's milk with which the
Arabs feed their foals (and which they think
imparts the camel's endurance), the oxygenation