A a r. I c u L T u K E . 223 



nest;, and some of their exploits in ths way of travelling are un- 

 surpassed in the annals of the turf. A number of instances are 

 on record where Californian horses have carried a rider one 

 hundred miles in a day, and that with no food save grass. 

 Sixty miles a day is not an uncommon ride, nor is it considered 

 a severe one Fremont, on one occasion, rode four hundred 

 miles in four days, riding different horses, but driving them 

 -before him from the beginning to the end of the journey. 



More than half of the brood-mares of the state are wild 

 Spanish ; that is, they live entirely in the open plain, are un- 

 broken, and manv of them have never been touched save when 

 they were to be branded. They are in bands called manadas^ 

 numbering from thirty to sixty mares, which are under the 

 guidance of one stallion or garaiion. He knows every one of 

 his baud, keeps them together, conducts them to what he 

 considers the best pastures, and drives away geldings, stallions, 

 mules, and whatever animals he may dislike. When a vaquero 

 tries to drive the manada into a corral for the purpose of catch- 

 ing some of the band, the garanon will frequently divide them 

 and scatter them about, and render it impossible for the vaquero 

 to get them together ; for while he drives in one place, the 

 stallion is equally busy at another, and the mares fear his teeth 

 and heels as much as the swineing^ reata of the horseman. The 

 garaiion is usually from five to nine years of age. He guards 

 his manada with the most jealous care. It sometimes hap- 

 pens that one garanon tries to take away a mare from tlie 

 band of another, and then a fight ensues, in which the weaker 

 has to suffer a severe bitins: and kicking^, and then lose the ob- 

 ject of the battle too. The manada keeps together for year 

 after year, but when it gets too large, the vaquero will divide 

 it and give a portion to the charge of another garaiion. All the 

 mares foal before they are three years old, whereas in the 

 Atlantic States they seldom foal until a year later. They also 

 breed more regularly than elsewhere, for when mares are kept 

 in stables, they frequently pass seasons without breeding. 

 The foals are branded at the age of three or four months, and 



