15 



probably of admixture with an aboriginal and shorter European breed : 

 Vegetius, indeed, plainly assigns to them such origin. This rare spe- 

 cies spread itself over £(^^/"c«, known in modern times, by the names of 

 Asturia, Gallicia, and Andalusia, where at present the very few Gen- 

 nets which remain, are to be found. They were denominat d by 

 Pliny, thieldones, or tellers and measurers of their steps, and described 

 by him, as they were found in modern times, when in the highest per- 

 fection, the period of Avhich may probably have borne date with the 

 Spanish Armada. The Spanish Horses are celelirated by both an- 

 cients and moderns, foi- the pliancy of their limbs, their free and un- 

 embarrassed action, and their cadenced pace. Justin, the Roman 

 historian, speaking of these, and the Lusitanian, or Portuguese Horses, 

 aifirms, that they were endowed with such extraordinary swiftness, that 

 they might be said to be born of the winds ; whence the ancient fable, 

 that the mares of Lusitania were impregnated by the south wind. 



It has been already stated, that America originally produced no 

 Horses, and that those of Europe were of a comparatively coarse and 

 distinct species. Europe, however, now the centre of civilization, and 

 mistress of the world, was in those early ages, a wilderness covered with 

 immense forests, bogs, and morasses, and her thinly inhabited coun- 

 tries in a state of the grossest barbarism; no accounts can be expected 

 from such a source, of the cultivation of horsemanship, or any of the 

 refinements of life. 



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