- Mr. Nelson says of the Madura country: "The horse is a
miserable, weedy, and vicious pony; having but one good quality,
endurance. The breed is not indigenous, but the result of constant
importations and a very limited amount of breeding." (The Madura
Country, Pt. II. p. 94.) The ill success in breeding horses was
exaggerated to impossibility, and made to extend to all India. Thus a
Persian historian, speaking of an elephant that was born in the stables of
Khosru Parviz, observes that "never till then had a she-elephant borne
young in Iran, any more than a lioness in Rum, a tabby cat in China (!),
or a mare in India." (J.A.S. ser. III. tom. iii. p. 127.)
[Major-General Crawford T. Chamberlain, C.S.I., in a report on Stud
Matters in India, 27th June 1874, writes: "I ask how it is possible that
horses could be bred at a moderate cost in the Central Division, when
everything was against success. I account for the narrow-chested,
congenitally unfit and malformed stock, also for the creaking joints,
knuckle over futtocks, elbows in, toes out, seedy toe, bad action, weedy
frames, and other degeneracy: 1st, to a damp climate, altogether inimical
to horses; 2nd, to the operations being intrusted to a race of people
inhabiting a country where horses are not indigenous, and who therefore
have no taste for them...; 5th, treatment of mares. To the impure air in
confined, non-ventilated hovels, etc.; 6th, improper food; 7th, to a
chronic system of tall rearing and forcing." (MS. Note. - H.Y.)]
NOTE 14. - This custom is described in much the same way by the
Arabo-Persian Zakariah Kazwini, by Ludovico Varthema, and by Alexander
Hamilton. Kazwini ascribes it to Ceylon. "If a debtor does not pay, the
King sends to him a person who draws a line round him, wheresoever he
chance to be; and beyond that circle he dares not to move until he shall
have paid what he owes, or come to an agreement with his creditor. For if
he should pass the circle the King fines him three times the amount of his
debt; one-third of this fine goes to the creditor and two-thirds to the
King." Pere Bouchet describes the strict regard paid to the arrest, but
does not notice the symbolic circle. (Gildem. 197; Varthema, 147;
Ham. I. 318; Lett. Edif. XIV. 370.)
"The custom undoubtedly prevailed in this part of India at a former time.
It is said that it still survives amongst the poorer classes in
out-of-the-way parts of the country, but it is kept up by schoolboys in a
serio-comic spirit as vigorously as ever. Marco does not mention a very
essential part of the ceremony. The person who draws a circle round another
imprecates upon him the name of a particular divinity, whose curse is to
fall upon him if he breaks through the circle without satisfying the
claim." (MS. Note by the Rev. Dr. Caldwell.)
NOTE 15. - The statement about the only rains falling in June, July, and
August is perplexing. "It is entirely inapplicable to every part of the
Coromandel coast, to which alone the name Ma'bar seems to have been given,
but it is quite true of the western coast generally." (Rev. Dr. C.)
One can only suppose that Polo inadvertently applied to Maabar that which
he knew to be true of the regions both west of it and east of it. The
Coromandel coast derives its chief supply of rain from the north-east
monsoon, beginning in October, whereas both eastern and western India have
theirs from the south-west monsoon, between June and September.
NOTE 16. - Abraham Roger says of the Hindus of the Coromandel coast: "They
judge of lucky hours and moments also by trivial accidents, to which they
pay great heed. Thus 'tis held to be a good omen to everybody when the
bird Garuda (which is a red hawk with a white ring round its neck) or
the bird Pala flies across the road in front of the person from right to
left; but as regards other birds they have just the opposite notion.... If
they are in a house anywhere, and have moved to go, and then any one
should sneeze, they will go in again, regarding it as an ill omen," etc.
(Abr. Roger, pp. 75-76.)
NOTE 17. - Quoth Wassaf: "It is a strange thing that when these horses
arrive there, instead of giving them raw barley, they give them roasted
barley and grain dressed with butter, and boiled cow's milk to drink: -
"Who gives sugar to an owl or a crow?
Or who feeds a parrot with a carcase?
A crow should be fed with carrion,
And a parrot with candy and sugar.
Who loads jewels on the back of an ass?
Or who would approve of giving dressed almonds to a cow?"
- Elliot, III. 33.
"Horses," says Athanasius Nikitin, "are fed on peas; also on Kicheri,
boiled with sugar and oil; early in the morning they get shishenivo."
This last word is a mystery. (India in the XVth Century, p. 10.)
"Rice is frequently given by natives to their horses to fatten them, and a
sheep's head occasionally to strengthen them." (Note by Dr. Caldwell.)
The sheep's head is peculiar to the Deccan, but ghee (boiled butter) is
given by natives to their horses, I believe, all over India. Even in the
stables of Akbar an imperial horse drew daily 2 lbs. of flour, 1-1/2 lb.
of sugar, and in winter 1/2 lb. of ghee! (Ain. Akb. 134.)
It is told of Sir John Malcolm that at an English table where he was
present, a brother officer from India had ventured to speak of the sheep's
head custom to an unbelieving audience. He appealed to Sir John, who only
shook his head deprecatingly.
