24 SPORT IN NORTH AMERICA. 



The Pawnees brought back four colts and a mare. 

 Two of the former were baj-s, and the two others 

 white ; the mare was as black as jet. Next morning, 

 the six animals seemed to understand perfectly the 

 necessity of submission, and had become as docile 

 as others w^ho had lived for years in the camp of the 

 Pawnees, 



The capture of a wild horse is a feat which is 

 esteemed above all others among the Red Skins of 

 every tribe. The animals who live in freedom on 

 those vast plains are of different shaj^es and colours, 

 and it is not difficult to distinguish their origin. 

 Some of them resemble the English breeds, and 

 these are probably the descendants of horses which 

 escaped from the English colonies before the declara- 

 tion of Independence in 177 6. The smaller and 

 more sinewy horses are doubtless descended from 

 the Andalusian breed, which were brought thither 

 by Cortez and the Spanish colonists after the Mis- 

 sissippi and the neighbouring territories were taken 

 possession of by Hernandes de Soto. 



On the evening after this grand hunt we Avere 

 sitting around our fires, with which we had cooked 

 our supper. Tv,o blankets were spread upon the 

 ground, and an enormous bowl of maple wood was 

 before us filled with a stew composed of wild tur- 

 keys and slices of peccary hams. Several .haunches 

 of wild venison, roasted upon wooden spits, w^ere 

 browning before the fire, which sputtered and 



