QUALITIEa OF THE NORMAN. 3 J 



" Tlie writei , in giving an account of the origin of the liorse, which 

 agi^^es in tracing it to the Spanisli horse (of Arabian ancestry), wirh the 

 account which I have given above, wliich I procured from French sources, 

 says, 'The horses of Normandy are a capital race for Iiard work and scaut\j 

 fare. I have never seen such horses at the collar, under tjie tliligence, the 

 post-carriage, the cumbrous and heavy voiture or cabriolet for one or two 

 horses, or the farm-cart. They are enduring and enerc/etic hei/ond descrip- 

 tion ; with their necks cut to the bone, they flincli not; they put forth all 

 their etTi)rts at the voice of the brutal driver, or at the dreatied sound of his 

 never-ceasing whip; theij keep their condition wlien other horses would die 

 of neglect and hard treatment. A better cross for some of our horses can 

 not be imagined than those of Normandy, provided they have not the ordi 

 nary failing, of too much length from the hock downwards, and a heavy 

 head.' I think that all who have paid attention to this particular breed of 

 Norman horses (the Percheron, which stands A No. 1), will bear me out in 

 the assertion that the latter part of this quotation will not apply to them, 

 and that, on the contrary, they are short from the hock downwards ; that 

 their heads are short, with the true Arabian face, and not thicker than 

 they should be to correspond with the stoutness of their bodies. At all 

 events you can witness that Diligence has not these failings, which, when 

 absent, an Englishman (evidently, from hi-; article a good horseman) thinks, 

 constitutes the Norman horse the best imaginable horse for a cross upon 

 the English horse of a certain description. Again he says, ' They are very 

 gentle and docile ; a kicking or vicious horse is almost unknown there ; any 

 person may pass in security at a faii- at the heels of hundreds.' " 



My own impressions being fortified by such authority from such a source 

 (where we look for little praise of anything French), and numerous others, 

 verbal and written, I made up my mind to feturn to France at an early 

 day and select a stallion at least, as an ex-.eriment in crossing upon the 

 hght mares of New Jersey. My intention was unavoidably dela^'ed until 

 the year 1839, when I went seriously to work to p\u-chase two stallions and 

 two mares with the aid of a veterinary surgeon of Havre, Monsieur St. Marc, 

 to whose knowledge of the various distinct breeds which exist in France, 

 and his untiring zeal in aiding my enterprise, I take great pleasure in 

 making acknowledgments. The animals in due time were procured, but 

 the last which was brought for my decision, although a fine stallion, showed 

 such evident signs of a cross of the English blood (afterwards acknowledged 

 oy the owner), that I rejected him, and the packet being about to sail, and 



f)reparations being made for the shipment, I was obliged to put the stal- 

 ion and two mares on board, no time beings left to look up another stal 

 lion. Here another difficulty arose — I could find no competent groom in 

 Havre to take charge of them on the voyage,. and deliver them in New 

 York. I was obliged to make an ari-angement with one of the steerage 

 passengers, a German, who had never been to sea before, to attend to them 

 to the best of his ability. As you may suppose, I did not feel very well 

 satisfied with this arrangement. I therefore wrote to M. Meuricc of Paris, 

 to take charge of my baggage which I had left at his hotel, and the next 

 morning I was on my way to New York on the packet ship Iowa, Captain 

 Peck, where I lived in the round-hf>use on deck, with himself and officeru 

 It was the Iowa's first voyage, and her cabin had not been finished, so great 

 was the fear of the owners, at that time, that their " occupation was gone" 

 of carrying cabin passengers, in consequence of the recent success of the 

 English sea-steamers. We had three hundred steerage, and I was the only 

 cabin passenger. The horses were also on deck. The first night, so great 

 was the change in the temperature, on the occurrence of a slight storm, 

 that aU the horses took violent colds, and. unfortunately, with the best U3<^ 



