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To the six thousand horsemen the King gives horses free and gives provision for them every month, and all these horses are marked with the King's mark; when they die they are obliged to take the piece of skin containing the mark to Madanarque, the chief master of the horse, so that he may give them another, and these horses which he gives are mostly country-breds which the King buys, twelve or fifteen for a thousand PARDAOS. The King every year buys thirteen thousand horses of Ormuz, and country-breds, of which he chooses the best for his own stables, and he gives the rest to his captains, and gains much money by them; because after taking out the good Persian horses, he sells those which are country-bred, and gives five for a thousand PARDAOS, and they are obliged to pay him the money for them within the month of September; and with the money so obtained he pays for the Arabs that he buys of the Portuguese, in such a way that his captains pay the cost of the whole without anything going out of the Treasury.
Kittiwynk and the others came back, the sweat dripping over their hooves and their tails telling sad stories. "They're better than we are," said Shiraz. "I knew how it would be." "Shut your big head," said The Maltese Cat; "we've one goal to the good yet." "Yes; but it's two Arabs and two country-breds to play now," said Corks. "Faiz-Ullah, remember!" He spoke in a biting voice.
Some "country-breds" are fine fencers, but Arabs, delightful as they are for hacking, rarely distinguish themselves across country. The Calcutta natives were always on the look-out for squalls, like the Irish "wreckers" of olden days.
Good country-breds, heavy in the leg. More visitors arrive, and the house-party goes on. We farm-hands are busy measuring, ploughing, and sowing; some of the fields are sprouting green already after our work a joy to see. But we've difficulties here and there, and that with Captain Falkenberg himself. "He's lost all thought and care for his own good," says Nils.
The country is now stiff, and the stride of the waler tells. He is leading the country-breds a 'whacker, but he stumbles and falls at the last fence but one from home. His gallant rider, the undaunted 'Roley, remounts just as the two country-breds pass him like a flash of light. 'Nothing venture, nothing win, however, so in go the spurs, and off darts the waler like an arrow in pursuit.
Two Arabs and a couple of country-breds! That's bad. What a comfort it is to wash your mouth out!" Kitty was talking with a neck of a lather-covered soda-water bottle between her teeth, and trying to look over her withers at the same time. This gave her a very coquettish air. "What's bad?" said Grey Dawn, giving to the girth and admiring his well-set shoulders.
In the way he wore them there was something that spoke the man of the world, for in such a costume we of Black Log should feel dressed up and ill at ease; but his clothes seemed a part of him. They looked perfectly comfortable and he was unconscious of them. This is where the city men have an advantage over us country-breds. I can carry off my old clothes without being awkward.
It was said that the owners of big studs of country-breds dominated the arrangements for events, and that the programmes were made up in favour of such native-bred horses to the exclusion of imported stock.
They are imported in large numbers from the neighbouring island of Sandalwood, and great attention is being paid to the production of country-breds. An attempt is also being made to improve the breed by the importation of English and Australian thoroughbreds. I was also informed that in recent years a number of cattle had been introduced from India.
Some of the native subordinates also have ponies, or Cabool horses, or country-breds; and for the feed of these animals some few acres of oats are sown every cold season. In most factories too, when any particular bit of the Zeraats gets exhausted by the constant repetition of indigo cropping, a rest is given it, by taking a crop of oil seeds or oats off the land.
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