| THE TURKMEN Part 9 Turkmen Part 1 - Turkmen Part 2 - Turkmen Part 3 - Turkmen Part 4 - Turkmen Part 5 - Turkmen Part 6 - The Turkmen Part 7 -
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While taking this no hay is given to him, and this
food is much liked by the horse. After four days of this
food he is considered to be in prime condition, and
capable not only of attaining the greatest speed but also
of sustaining the most protracted fatigue. Then the yaboo
is discarded and left in the rear, while the Turkmen
on his charger goes forward to carry out the design which
has occasioned the whole enterprise. It is said that when
in this high state of training the Turkmen
horse can perform a daily journey of one hundred miles,
and continue the same degree of sustained speed for
several days. There is no valid reason for doubting this
statement, and the performance of this almost unequalled
feat rests upon testimony of the most unequivocal kind.
The grand secret of the treatment of their horses by the Turkmen
is undoubtedly to be found in the fact that they most
carefully prevent their taking any green food. The
character of the soil of Kara Kum is peculiarly favorable
to the practice of this sound theory, for it produces
only during the spring anything green at all. During that
period the Turkmen
are always quiescent; but in the month of August, and
sometimes before, the horse is put upon his regular
allowance of dry food, viz. seven pounds of barley mixed
with dry chopped straw, lucerne, and clover hay.
This treatment undoubtedly tends to give the horse a
stamina and higher temperature than any other horse of
which we know, not excepting the Arab. The horse is also
treated by these people with quite as much sympathy and
affection as he is in Arabia. He is never ill-treated,
and any Turkmen
who attempted to ill-use him would be visited with the
scorn of all men. The feeling is clearly traceable to the
companionship which exists between the master and his
horse from the time when the latter was a foal; and as
the Turkmen's
safety often depends exclusively upon the good qualities
of his charger, it is intelligible that that affection
should become stronger with age instead of weaker.
The Turkmen
horse is no doubt a cross-breed between some indigenous
animal and the Arab. At various known periods it has been
strengthened by a fresh importation of Arab blood; such
was the case when Timur distributed more than four
thousand mares amongst the tribes, and again when Nadir
gave six hundred to the Tekes, of whom his own clan of
Afshar was an off-shoot. But it probably owes its innate
excellence to the more remote period when the Arab
conquerors advanced into Persia and Turkmenia. Be that as
it may, however, there can be no question that in
personal appearance it is much inferior to the pure Arab,
although in its useful qualities, doubtless attributable
alone to the method of treatment adopted by its masters,
it equals its rival.* The neck, which is long and
straight, is proudly curved and slender, but the head is
decidedly too long to be in just proportion. The chest is
also too narrow to please an English eye, and the legs
are long and apparently ill-adapted for carrying the
exceptionally big body at any high degree of speed. The
task that this animal accomplishes falsifies its
appearance, and its merits and fame rest on what it has
done. There are, however, degrees of excellence among
even the horses of the Turkmen
tribes. Those of the Tekes, and particularly of the Akhal
Tekes, are considered to be the best; perhaps this is to
be attributed to the present of Nadir Shah. Then come
those of the Salor and Ersari, then the Yomuds —
whose political importance has now grown so much less
— then the Goklans, and lastly the Sarik. Much,
however, of the influence of the Salor and Sarik tribes
has become merged in the Tekes, and it is possible that
when the former lost Merv they were also deprived of many
of their belongings, particularly (See Ferrier's
“Caravan Journeys," and the “Travels of
Sir Alexander Burnes.") of their horses. Among the
Turkmen the Tekes possess confessedly the best. The
Uzbeks of Afghan
Turkestan have also a horse which, although smaller than
the regular Turkmen, possesses great qualities of
endurance and speed.
A useful horse may be purchased from the Turkmen for as
small a sum as thirty pounds, and a mediocre horse will
now and then be parted with for five times that sum. The
best breed of all is never sold, and very rarely do the
Persians succeed in capturing one. When they do, it is
always reserved for the Shah's stable. While the Turkmen
horse is better cared for, more fully appreciated, and
more thoroughly developed than any European horse, in one
point he suffers from the ignorance of his owners, and
that is in medical treatment. As M. Ferrier says,
"custom takes the place of science," and when
coping with disease custom is a very inefficient guide.
The common diseases are similar to those from which
English and other horses suffer, glanders, wind galls,
etc. The Turkmen
have, however, a strange plan of dealing with any young
animal which suffers from loss of appetite. They make an
incision in its nose and remove a kind of cartilage which
grows inside. There is also a terrible disease called by
the Persians nakhoshi yaman the wicked disease which is
always incurable and generally fatal in a few hours. It
appears to be similar to hydrophobia, but its exact
nature is not as yet known.
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