CHAPTER XX 



ARAB HORSES IN SOUTH AMERICA 



Are not Arab horses a specialty of some of the South 

 American states, Count ? 



' It is a matler of history that when Pizarro conquered 

 Peru in the sixteenth century, he carried from Spain less 

 than a score of Andalusian Barbs. The natives had never 

 seen a man riding astride of an animal, and their wonder 

 deepened into terror and dismay at the near approach of 

 this httle band of Centaurs. Seeing the four legs sur- 

 mounted by a human body and head, and in their crude 

 superstition imagining it to be some new species of aveng- 

 ing animal, the Inca natives fled, conquered by their fears. 

 Amused by this easy conquest of the Lower Country, 

 Pizarro took his army of vagabonds, gathered in Panama 

 and amounting to about one hundred and fifty men, led 

 by the score of mounted Barbs, to the royal city in Peru 

 of the reigning Atahualpa. Him he took prisoner after 

 getting possession of the city. 



' Discovering shortly Atahualpa's hold on the affections 

 of his people by the enormous ransom they offered for 

 his redemption, he realised that such a prince would be 

 a dangerous rival to his own influence, and ordered his 



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