174 FERAL HORSES. 



over, they bore, and still bear, evident tokens of 

 Spanish origin ; and in their manners, proofs that 

 they were not wild, but only restored to freedom, 

 or what we have called feral. In genial climates, 

 with abundant herbage and few dangerous enemies 

 to encounter, it was natural that animals of such 

 power and intelligence should increase most rapidly ; 

 and hence no surprise was expressed at finding them 

 in abundance in St. Domingo and Cuba, within a 

 century after they had been first imported. Cortez 

 carried them to Mexico,* and Pizzaro to Peru; the 

 Portuguese to Brazil, and soon after the plains of 

 the Pampas began to swarm with their numbers, t 

 If it be true that at first only six were turned loose, 

 there can be no doubt that many others from both 

 sides of the southern part of the continent became 

 free, and collectively that they acquired habits of 

 self-preservation only in part like the real wild races 

 of Asia; the time is not perhaps far distant, when 

 they will be gradually again absorbed by domesti- 

 cation, excepting those which will retreat towards 

 the two poles ; and as the species is not restricted 



* Bernal diaz del Castillo. 



*h Dr. Rengger notes the first horses in Paraguay to have 

 been imported from Spain and the Canaries in 1537, and shows 

 the error of Funes (En Saya de la Historia civil del Paraguay), 

 who pretends that in the exploratory voyage of Irala, in 1550, 

 six hundred were conveyed to the country, since Azara found 

 in the archives of Asuntion a document proving that Irala, in 

 the year 1551, actually bought a Spanish horse for 15,000 

 florins. " Naturgeschichte der Sauegethiere von Paraguay ' 

 1 voL 8vo. 



