Page:The Six Voyages of John Baptista Tavernier.djvu/168

The lesser Tartars have a very ancient race of Horses, which they breed up even to Superstition; so that it would be among them an act of Sacriledge to sell them to strangers, as being not a little curious how they sell them to one another. These are the Horses which they ride, fifty or sixty in a Troop together when they go a thieving and sometimes a hunder'd together, when they design any Incursion upon their Enemies. When the old Men come to be infirm and impotent, if they know any stout young Man that is a Souldier, they will send him one of their Horses (if he have none of his own) to make an Incursion, upon condition to have half of the Booty. Many times they run up as far as Hungary, near to Comora and Javarin. These Horses, partly by nature, partly by early custom, will travel four or five days together with a handful of Grass giv'n them once in eight or ten hours, and a little Water every four and twenty hours. But they never go a robbing with them 'till they come to be seven or eight years old: besides that, they must undergo a very severe education ere they make use of them in those hardships. Their Bit is only a piece of Iron with a Buckle on each side, to which they fast'n the Bridle and Head-stall. For eight days together they put under the Saddle a bag of Gravel or Earth. The first day the Sack is a Horse-man's weight; and so they add to it every day, 'till it come to be double the weight at the end of the eight days. As they increase every day the weight upon the Horses back, they abate every day the Horse's Provender and Drink. During these eight days, they get up and walk the Horse two or three Leagues. The next eight days, they abate every day of the weight, 'till the Sack be quite empty. Proportionably also they abate him of his Meat and Drink as in the first eight days, and every day take up the Girt a hole shorter. The three or four last days they afford the Horse neither Provender nor Drink, according as they find him able to endure hunger and thirst, and the labour which he is to undergo. The last day, they work him 'till he be all over of a Sweat, then they unbridle and unsaddle him, and pour upon him the coldest Water they can meet with. That done, they lead him into a field, and tye him by the leg with a Cord, at such a length as they intend he shall feed; yet still from day to day allowing him more Rope, 'till at last they let him loose, and feed with the rest of the Horses. This terrible fasting and labour, during which time, that little which they do eat and drink, they eat and drink with the Bit in their mouth, brings them to be so lean and out of flesh, that their very bones are ready to start out of their skins: So that if any one should see them in that miserable condition, that does not know the nature of the Horses, would think they would never be fit for good service. The hoofs of these Horses are so hard that they never shooe them, and yet they will leave the prints of their feet in the Earth, or upon the Ice, as if they had been shod. These Tartars are so curious in having Horses that will endure labour, that so soon as they see any handsom Colt in their Breed, they presently take him up, to school him as I have related: but hardly ten in fifty endure the tutoring.

As for their Diet, 'tis a great advantage for these Tartars to ride a Mare, in regard they drink the Milk. They that ride Horses, carry along with them a little Bag full of pieces of Cheese dry'd in the Sun; they have also a small Boracho of Goat-skin, which they fill with Water where they meet with it, into which they put two or three bits of their hard Cheese, which softens with the motion of the Horse, the Boracho being ty'd under his Belly: and thus the Water becomes a kind of sowr Milk, which is their ordinary Drink.

As for their Instruments of Cookery, every Horse-man has a large wooden Ladle hanging at the Pommel of his Saddle, out of which the rider drinks himself, and gives his Horse likewise to drink. They that encounter them, can hope for no better Bootythan