33 FOREIGN BREEDS OF HORSES. 



A thousand horse, the wild, the free, 

 Like waves that follow o'er the sea. 

 On came the troop .... 

 They stop they start they snuff the air, 

 Gallop a moment here and there, 

 Approach, retire, wheel round and round, 

 Then plunging back with sudden bound ; 

 They snort, they foam, neigh, swerve aside, 

 And backward to the forest fly." 



Captain Head gives the following account of a meeting with a troop of wild 

 horses, where the country is more thickly inhabited. Some poor captured animals 

 are supposed to be forced along by their riders at their very utmost speed: "As 

 they are thus galloping along, urged by the spur, it is interesting to see the 

 groups of wild horses one passes. The mares, which are never ridden in South 

 America, seem not to understand what makes the poor horse carry his head so 

 low and look so weary *. The little innocent colts come running to meet him, 

 and then start away frightened ; while the old horses, whose white marks on 

 the flanks and backs betray their acquaintance with the spur and saddle, walk 

 slowly away for some distance, then breaking into a trot as they seek their 

 safety, snort and look behind them, first with one eye and then with the other, 

 turning their noses from right to left, and carrying their long tails high in the 

 air t." 



The same pleasing writer describes the system of horse- management among 

 the rude inhabitants of the plains of South America. They have no stables, 

 no fenced pastures. One horse is usually kept tied at the door of the hut, fed 

 scantily at night on maize ; or at other times several may be inclosed in the 

 corral, which is a circular space surrounded by rough posts, driven firmly into 

 the ground. The mares are never ridden, or attempted to be tamed, but 

 wander with their foals wherever they please. 



When the Gaucho, the native inhabitant of the plains, wants horses for him- 

 self or for the supply of the traveller, he either goes with his lasso to the corral, 

 and selects those possibly who on the preceding day had for the first time been 

 backed, or he scampers across the plain, and presently returns with an unwilling, 

 struggling, or subdued captive. When the services of the animals have been 

 exacted, he either takes them to the corral and feeds them with a small quantity 

 of maize, if he thinks he shall presently need them again, or he once more turns 

 them loose on the plains. 



Travellers give some amusing accounts of the manner in which all this is 

 effected. Miers^ thus describes the lasso, simple in its construction, but all- 

 powerful in the hands of the Gaucho : 



" The lasso is a missile weapon used by every native of the United Provinces 

 and Chili. It is a very strong plaited thong of equal thickness, half an inch in 

 diameter and forty feet long, made of many strips of green hide plaited like a 

 whipthong, and rendered supple by grease. It has at one end an iron ring, 

 above an inch and a half in diameter, through which the thong is passed, and 

 this forms a running-noose. The Gaucho, or native Peon, is generally mounted 

 on horseback when he uses the lasso. One end of the thong is affixed to his 

 saddle-girth : the remainder he coils carefully in his left hand, leaving about 

 twelve feet belonging to the noose-end in a coil, and a half of which he holds in 

 his right hand. He then swings this long noose horizontally round his head, 



* An Englishman once attempted to ride is only a short time since mares began to bo 



a mare, but he was hooted and pelted by the ridden in Russia. 



natives, and thought himself fortunate to f Head's Journey across the Pampas, p., 



escape without serious injury. Sir John Carr, 258. 

 in his Northern Summer, p. 44, states that it J Miers' Travels in Chile, vol. i. p. 88. 



