178
ON' THE LIVE-STOCK
tirely to chance. Iii summer, and early in autumn, one halfof the horses and marcs range freely and unconfined amidst-the mountains, whence they are not brought to the differentfarms and hamlets for work until the harvest is ended, thecrop to be carried home, and the peats or fuel to be secured.They are then hunted after like so many wild beasts, andeach tenant or proprietor endeavours to procure his own,which he has not perhaps seen for many weeks before. Theyare driven into inclosed fields or pen-folds, frequently intobogs or morasses, before they can be laid hold of, and some-times injured severely in the process. Their manes are thencut, the hair laid up for rope-work, and other purposes, andthe voung horses are gradually broken in for the labours andcruel hardships of winter. Very few are housed, or in anyother way protected from the inclemency of the weather,and the rigours of a scanty and unsheltered pasture* thanmerely by a winter inclosure, fenced with a miserable turfdike or walk along the sides of which tlicv stand shiveringwith cold, and half famished with hunger, the live-long win-ter nights. Any horses brought from other districts ofBritain , to undergo this treatment all at once, fall off rapidly*and soon perish
It is unnecessary to add, that by far too great a number iskept on any given space of land, particularly in the kelp is-lands ; that their labour is precarious, irregular and desulto-tory; and that though the value of their food and harness isvery small, probably does not exceed L. 4 or L. 5 yearly, theexpence of labour in the Highlands is perhaps as great, oro-reater than in the low country, where the maintenance ofa horse cannot cost less than nine times that of a garron.
This ancient race has been frequently crossed with largerhorses from the low country; and where improved cultivationhas been adopted in the north of Scotland , it is common torear such horses, or to purchase them from the arable dis-