horse seemed in some shadowy way familiar. His head
was not the lean head of the Kathiawar, nor his crest the crest of the
Marwarri, and his forelegs did not belong to these stony districts.
"Where did he come from?" The sowar pointed northward and said, "from
Amritsar," but he pronounced it "Armtzar." Many horses had been bought
at the spring fairs in the Punjab; they cost about two hundred rupees
each--perhaps more, the sowar could not say. Some came from Hissar and
some from other places beyond Delhi. They were very good horses. "That
horse there," he pointed to one a little distance down the street, "is
the son of a big Government horse--the kind that the Sirkar make for
breeding horses--so high!" The owner of "that horse" swaggered up, jaw
bandaged and cat-moustached, and bade the Englishman look at his mount;
bought, of course, when a colt. Both men together said that the Sahib
had better examine the Maharaja Sahib's stable, where there were
hundreds of horses, huge as elephants or tiny as sheep.

To the stables the Englishman accordingly went, knowing beforehand what
he would find, and wondering whether the Sirkar's "big horses" were
meant to get mounts for Rajput sowars. The Maharaja's stables are royal
in size and appointments. The enclosure round which they stand must be
about half a mile long--it allows ample space for exercising, besides
paddocks for the colts. The horses, about two hundred and fifty, are
bedded in pure white sand--bad for the coat if they roll, but good for
the feet--the pickets are of white marble, the heel-ropes in every case
of good sound rope, and in every case the stables are exquisitely clean.
Each stall contains above the manger, a curious little bunk for the syce
who, if he uses the accommodation, must assuredly die once each hot
weather.

A journey round the stables is saddening, for the attendants are very
anxious to strip their charges, and the stripping shows so much. A few
men in India are credited with the faculty of never forgetting a horse
they have once seen, and of knowing the produce of every stallion they
have met. The Englishman would have given something for their company at
that hour. His knowledge of horse-flesh was very limited; but he felt
certain that more than one or two of the sleek, perfectly groomed
country-breds should have been justifying their existence in the ranks
of the British cavalry, instead of eating their heads off on six
seers[1] of gram and one o