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| The mount of
the Wagon Peoples, unknown in the northern hemisphere of Gor,
is the terrifying but beautiful kaiila. It is a silken,
carnivorous, lofty creature, graceful, long-necked,
smooth-gaited. It is viviparous and undoubtedly mammalian,
though there is no suckling of the young. The young are born
vicious and by instinct, as soon as they can struggle to
their feet, they hunt. It is an instinct of the other,
sensing the birth, to deliver the young animal in the
vicinity of game. I supposed, with the domesticated kaiila,
a bound verr or a prisoner might be cast to the newborn
animal. The kaiila, once it eats its fill, does not touch
food for several days. The kaiila is extremely agile, and can easily outmaneuver he slower, more ponderous high tharlarion. It requires less food, of course, than the tarn. A kaiila, which normally stands about twenty to twenty-two hands at the shoulder, can over as much as six hundred pasangs in a single day's riding. The head of the kaiila bears two large eyes, one on each side, but these eyes are triply lidded, probably an adaptation to the environment which occasionally is wracked by severe storms of wind and dust; the adaptation, actually a transparent third lid, permits the animal to move as it wishes under conditions that force other prairie animals to back into the wind or, like the sleen, to burrow into the ground. The kaiila is most dangerous under such conditions, and, as if it knew this, often uses such times for its hunt. -Nomads of Gor, pg. 13-14 |
| The kaiila
rein is a single rein, very light, plaited of various
leathers. There are often ten to a dozen strips of tanned,
dyed leather in a single rein. Each individual strip,
interestingly, given the strength of the rein, is little
thicker than a stout thread. The strips are cut with knives,
and it requires great skill to cut them. The rein, carefully
plaited, is tied through a hole drilled in the right nostril
of the kaiila. It passes under the animal's jaw to the left.
When one wishes to guide the animal to the left one draws
the rein left; when one wishes to guide it right one pulls
right, drawing the rein over the animal's neck, with
pressure against the left cheek. To stop the animal one
draws back. To start or hasten the animal, one kicks it in
the flanks, or uses the long kaiila quirt. -Tribesmen of Gor, pg. 56 |