10 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



gentlemen's sons" among them,, who had been sent out with the 

 hope that the change might improve their habits and their 

 morals. They were too proud to work, and when they were driven 

 to it by necessity they didn't know how. After suffering untold 

 hardships for a succession of years, those that survived learned 

 to adapt themselves to their environment and to make their own 

 way in the world. Their first supply of domestic animals were 

 all consumed as food, embracing horses, cattle, swine, and goats, 

 and everything had thus been consumed except one venerable 

 female swine, as reported by a board of examiners. Their second 

 supply of horses, cattle, swine, and goats was more carefully 

 guarded, and from them in greater part came the countless deni- 

 zens of the barnyard. 



There were several shipments of horses at different times, by 

 the proprietors in London, down till about 1620 and possibly 

 later, but they do not seem to have increased very rapidly, for in 

 1646 all the horses in the colony were estimated at about two 

 hundred of both sexes. This estimate was probably too low, for 

 ten years after this the exportation of mares was forbidden by 

 legislative enactment, and eleven years later this restriction was 

 removed, and both sexes could then be exported. From this 

 legislation and from writers who visited the colony we learn that 

 horses were very plenty, and they are described as of excellent 

 quality, hardy and strong, but under size. It was the custom in 

 Virginia, and indeed in all the other colonies at that period and 

 for long afterward, to brand their young horses and turn them 

 out to hustle for their own living. They increased with wonder- 

 ful rapidity and great numbers became as wild and as wary of 

 the habitation and sight of man as the deer of the forest. About 

 the close of the seventeenth century the chasing and capture of 

 wild horses in Virginia became a legitimate and not always an 

 unprofitable sport, for an animal caught without a brand became 

 the unquestioned property of his captor. It is a noteworthy fact 

 that off the coast of Virginia the island of Chincoteague has 

 been occupied for probably two hundred years by large bands of 

 wild horses. They are still there, and not till within the last few 

 decades have there been any efforts made to domesticate some 

 selections from them. They are of all colors, but quite uniform 

 in size, not averaging much over thirteen hands, with clean limbs, 

 and many of them are pacers. There is only one way to account 

 for them in that location, and that is, that they were originally a 



