THE SOUTH AMERICAN HORSE. 27 
one sale by any colonial breeder, but numerous smaller speculations 
have been going on for the last twenty years. Hence, whatever posi- 
tion is attained by our friends over the water, they will entirely owe 
to the parent country ; and I strongly suspect that before long we shall 
have to go to them to procure sound horses of high breeding for our 
own studs. 
CHAPTER IY. 
THE HORSES OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN HORSE—THE MUSTANG—THE INDIAN PONY—THE CANADIAN 
HORSE—THE MORGAN HORSE—THE AMERICAN TROTTER—THE NARRAGANSETT PACER 
—THE AMERICAN THOROUGHBRED—THE VERMONT CART-HORSE—THE CONESTOGA 
DRAUGHT-HORSE. 
THE SOUTH AMERICAN HORSE. 
For SOME TIME AFTER THE DISCOVERY OF America, at the conclusion of 
the fifteenth century, the horse was entirely unknown in that hemisphere, 
but according to Azara a few specimens were introduced there by the 
Spaniards in the year 1535, and in the year 1537 several were shipped to 
Paraguay. From these have been bred the countless herds which have 
since spread over the whole southern part of the western world, and 
passing the Isthmus of Panama have wandered into North America. In 
both these divisions the horse runs wild, wherever there are plains suitable 
to him, and not yet brought under cultivation; but it is in the south that 
the wild horse is to be found in the greatest numbers, on the extensive 
plains which stretch almost unbroken from the shores of La Plata to 
Patagonia. Here herds numbering some thousands in each are to be met 
with, each under the guidance of a master stallion, who enforces entire 
submission to his will as long as he has the power to do so. Here the 
native Gaucho has only to throw his asso, and he can at any time supply 
himself with a horse which will carry him for miles at a hand gallop, 
when he changes him for another, and is thus always mounted at a cheap 
and easy rate. In this way Captain Head rode all across the continent from 
one shore to the other, nearly using up one horse in the course of fifty or 
sixty miles, and then looking out for another before the first was so spent 
as to be unable to assist him in making the exchange. These wild horses 
greatly resemble their Spanish ancestors in make and shape. They are 
said to be possessed of a fair amount of speed, but not above the average 
of foreign breeds. They are, however, from their roving habits, in excellent 
wind, and it is said that a Gaucho has been known to ride one fresn 
caught nearly a hundred miles-without drawing bit. 
THE MUSTANG, OR WILD HORSE OF NORTH AMERICA. 
LIKE THE WILD HORSES OF SouTH America, those of Mexico and Cali- 
fornia are in all probability descended from Spanish blood, and indeed it 
is impossible now to discover, with anything like certainty, the source of 
the Indian Ponies, large herds of which run wild in the northern and 
north-western parts of this extensive continent. So little do the Americans 
now know or care about these wild horses, that the late Mr. Herbert, who 
las treated of the American Horse in two vols. quarto, omits all mention 
