Captain Burnaby, in his well-known book, _A Ride to Khiva_, describes
the animals brought up for his inspection at Kasala, in Turkestan, when
his wish to buy a horse was made known:--
"The horses were for the most part of the worst description,
that is to say, as far as appearance was concerned.... Except
for their excessive leanness, they looked more like huge
Newfoundland dogs than as connected with the equine race, and
had been turned out in the depth of winter with no other
covering save the thick coats which nature had given them....
At last, after rejecting a number of jades which looked more
fit to carry my boots than their wearer, I selected a little
black horse. He was about 14 hands in height, and I eventually
became his owner, saddle and bridle into the bargain, for the
sum of L5, this being considered a very high price at Kasala."
The reader may be reminded that the winter of 1876-7, during which
Captain Burnaby accomplished his adventurous journey, was an
exceptionally severe one even for that part of the world, where long and
severe winters are the rule. On the day of his departure from Kasala the
thermometer stood at eight degrees below zero. The traveller was by no
means favourably impressed with the powers of the horse he had selected
as the least bad of a very poor lot, and the native guides started
apparently satisfied that it would break down under its heavy rider clad
to resist the penetrating cold.
After his second march, Captain Burnaby began to acquire a certain
measure of respect for this pony:--
"What had surprised me most during our morning's march was the
extreme endurance of our horses. The guide frequently had been
obliged to dismount and to clean out their nostrils, which were
entirely stuffed with icicles; but the little animals had
ploughed their way steadily through the snow.... The one I
rode, which in England would not have been considered able to
carry my boots, was as fresh as possible after his march of
seventeen miles. In spite of the weight on his back--quite
twenty stone--he had never shown the least sign of fatigue."
Again, a few days later, the conditions of the journey having been no
less trying:--
"From Jana Darya we rode forty miles without a halt. I must say
that I was astonished to see how well the Kirghiz horses stood
the long journeys. We had now gone 300 miles; and my little
animal, in spite of his skeleton-like appearance, carried me
quite as well as the day he left Kasala, this probably being
owing to the change in his food from grass to barley. We are
apt to think very highly of English horses, and deservedly as
far as pace is concerned; but if it came to a question of
endurance, I much doubt whether our large and well fed horses
could compete with the little half-starved Kirghiz animals.
This is a subject which must be borne in mind in the event of
future complications in the East."
It is clear that Captain Burnaby was somewhat puzzled by the qualities
displayed by a steed which looked so unpromising; he seeks to explain
its performance by the better food it had enjoyed while on the march,
and begins to compare the staying power of English horses with those of
the Kirghiz pony with doubts as to the superiority of the former. At a
later date he records without surprise that his party travelled forty
miles in six hours, the horses having gone all the time at a slow steady
trot. On his return journey, while staying at Petro-Alexandrovsk, he was
given a mount on a little bay, hardly 14 hands high, for a day's
hunting; and records that it "danced about beneath me as if he had been
carrying a feather-weight jockey for the Cambridgeshire." The Kirghiz
and Bokharans who accompanied him evidently thought his weight would
prove too much for the pony, and when there was a ditch to be jumped
looked round to see how the bay would manage it. "Never a stumble ...
the hardy little beast could have carried Daniel Lambert if that worthy
but obese gentleman had been resuscitated for the occasion."
Finally, Captain Burnaby sums up the performance of this fourteen-hand
pony:--
"We had ridden 371 miles in exactly nine days and two hours,
thus averaging more than 40 miles a day! At the same time it
must be remembered that, with an interval of in all not more
than nine days' rest, my horse had previously carried me 500
miles. In London, judging by his size, he would have been put
down as a polo pony. In spite of the twenty stone he carried,
he had never been either sick or lame during the journey, and
had galloped the last 17 miles through the snow to Kasala in
one hour and twenty-five minutes."
The same author describes a remarkable forced march made in the summer
of 1870 by Count Borkh in Russian Tartary. The Count's mission was to
test the possibility of taking artillery over the steep and difficult
passes in a certain district, and his force consisted of 150 cossacks,
and 60 mounted riflemen and a gun. The troops accomplished their journey
out and back, 266 miles, in six days; the heat was excessive, the
thermometer marking sometimes as much as 117 deg. Fahr. during the day; yet
the ponies were none the worse of their exertions, the "sick list" at
the end comprising only twelve, all of which suffered from sore backs
caused by careless saddling. Other expeditions under similar conditions
are mentioned; these go to prove that the endurance of the Tartar pony
is affected as little by heat as by cold.