When the horses are looking rough, the Natives feed them with a mixture of coarse brown sugar and ghee, which they say gives sleekness to the skin, and improves the constitution of the horse.  When their horses grow old, they boil the gram with which they feed them, to make it easy of digestion; very few people, indeed, give corn at any age to the animal unsoaked, as they consider it injudicious to give dry corn to horses, which swells in the stomach of the animal and cannot digest:  the grain swells exceedingly by soaking, and thus moistened, the horse requires less water than would be necessary with dry corn.

The numberless Native sports I have heard related in this country would take me too long to repeat at present; describe them I could not, for my feelings and views are at variance with the painful tortures inflicted on the brute creation for the perverted amusements of man, consisting of many unequal contests, which have sickened me to think they were viewed by mortals with pleasure or satisfaction.  A poor unoffending antelope or stag, perhaps confined from the hour of its quitting its dam in a paddock, turned out in a confined space to the fury of a cheetah[27] (leopard) to make his morning’s repast.  Tigers and elephants are often made to combat for the amusement of spectators; also, tigers and buffaloes, or alligators.  The battle between intoxicated elephants is a sport suited only for the cruel-hearted, and too often indulged.  The mahouts[28] (the men who sit as drivers on the neck of the elephant) have frequently been the victims of the ignoble amusement of their noble masters; indeed, the danger they are exposed to is so great, that to escape is deemed a miracle.  The fighting-elephants are males, and they are prepared for the sport by certain drugs mixed up with the wax from the human ear.  The method of training elephants for fighting must be left to abler hands to describe.  I have passed by places where the animal was firmly chained to a tree, in situations remote from the population of a city, as danger is always anticipated from their vicinity; and when one of these infuriated beasts break from their bonds, serious accidents often occur to individuals before they can again be secured.

Amongst the higher classes tigers and leopards are retained for field sports, under the charge of regular keepers.  In many instances these wild inhabitants of the jungle are tamed to the obedience of dogs, or other domestic animals.  I have often seen the young cubs sucking the teats of a goat, with which they play as familiarly as a kitten with its mother.  A very intimate acquaintance of ours has several tigers and leopards, which are perfectly obedient to his command; they are led out by their keepers night and morning, but he always feeds them with his own hands, that he may thereby make them obedient to himself, when he sports in the jungles, which he often does with success, bringing home stags and antelopes to grace the board, and distribute amongst his English friends.