THE WILD HOUSES OF AMERICAc 203 



-crowd of emigrants from Spain and from all her dominions. The 

 Spaniards, like other nations of Southern Europe, kept their horses 

 entire and whenever representatives of both sexes strayed away, 

 reproduction would follow. As the country became more tranquil, 

 and as the tide of European settlers kept pouring in, we can easily 

 understand how the little bands of estrays should grow into larger 

 bands and soon become as wild as though they had never seen a 

 human being except to flee from him. 



The explorer De Soto sailed for Florida in 1539, in search of 

 gold. He had in his command five hundred and thirteen men, 

 exclusive of sailors, and two hundred and thirty-seven horses, 

 besides some for the purpose of bearing burdens, the number 

 not given. In all his weary journey of three years he found the 

 Indians active, hostile, and courageous fighters. In one of his 

 first battles he lost twelve horses, and had seventy wounded. He 

 pursued many phantoms in search of gold, in different directions, 

 but his general course was westward and northwestward. He 

 wras the first European to discover the Mississippi Eiver, not far 

 from the mouth of the Arkansas, and there he was buried in the 

 middle of the river, to prevent the Indians from discovering he 

 was dead and from desecrating his remains. His followers then 

 determined to push on westward to Mexico, and reached as far as 

 the borders of Texas, probably, when they became discouraged 

 with the magnitude of the difficulties that surrounded them, and 

 determined to return and seek an outlet from the wilderness by 

 water. On this last journey, west of the Mississippi, they suf- 

 fered their greatest loss of horses. They had not been shod for 

 more than a year, and a great many were lame and unable to 

 travel. When the Spaniards had completed their boats and were 

 ready to leave the scenes of their sufferings and disasters, they 

 turned loose upon the bank of the river their four or five remain- 

 ing horses, which manifested great excitement, running up and 

 down the bank neighing for their masters, as they sailed away. 

 This alarmed the Indians and they ran into the water for safety. 



The Indians were afraid of the horses and the horses were 

 afraid of the Indians. It seems to be a fact, observed in all the 

 early intercourse of the Spaniards with the Indians, that uni- 

 versally they had a kind of superstitious awe of the horse as a 

 superior being, and it is probably due to this awe that the Indians 

 did not utterly destroy every horse that fell out of the ranks or 

 that escaped in the wilderness. As I understand the history of 



