ABSTRACT
During the eighteenth century, India was still part of a thriving interregional livestock trading system which originated in the major breeding areas of Central Asia, and included eastern Europe and the Middle East. As far as the eighteenth-century overland horse trade is concerned, a clearly perceptible rhythm and pattern comes into sight. After the horses were bought, they were prepared for the market by letting them graze on the natural maidans of Afghanistan and, after crossing the Sulaiman Mountains, on the wastes of the Jullundur Doab and the Lakhi Jungle. In 1814, the British agent Wyatt was commissioned to the Kathiawar and Kutch area in order to buy horses for the EIC's Bengal army. At the end of the eighteenth century the Indian provinces under the control of the ascending English East India Company experienced a marked decline in the quality and quantity of the available cavalry horses. The quality requirements for a good British dragoon horse were high indeed.
