. . .Across the breadth nowadays is about as peculiar a ferry as was ever devised. Long, shallow, flat-bottomed boats, square as to bow and stern, are towed from side to side of the river by swimming horses. This would not be a matter of so much surprise if the horses employed for the purpose were powerful animals from fourteen to fifteen hands in height, but the remarkable feature about the Kilif stud is the diminutive and ragged crew of underfed ponies which it produces. And yet two, or even one, of these inefficient-looking little animals will tow across a barge of twenty feet or so in length, crowded with weighty bales of Bokhara merchandise, and filled as to interstices with its owners and their servants. The ponies are attached to outriggers with a strap from a 90 surcingle or belly-band buckled to their backs, thus supporting their weight in the water at the same time that it takes the haulage. With their heads just above stream, snorting and blowing, they swim w. . . Read More