Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 271 



not prepared for the division of what seemed a single being 

 into two^ 



We thus obtain an easy explanation of the reason why the 

 horses of the northern parts of South America resemble so 

 closely in their colours those of Mexico. 



There is another source other than the horses brought into 

 Mexico from which may have sprung wholly or in part the 

 wild horses which formerly roamed Texas and the other regions 

 west of the Mississippi. Ferdinando de Soto had gone to the 

 Spanish Indies when Pedrarias was governor " and there he was 

 without anything of his own save his sword and target." 

 Pedrarias made him captain of a troop of horsemen (which 

 clearly shows that there were already horses at Darien), and by 

 his commandment he went with Pizarro to the conquest of 

 Peru. He was at the capture of the Inca Atahualpa and at 

 the taking of Cuzco and got a goodly share of the booty. He 

 then married the daughter of Pedrarias, and the emperor 

 Charles V made him governor of the island of Cuba and 

 Adelantado or President of Florida^. 



In April, 1538, he sailed from San Lucar in Spain to Cuba 

 and Florida with an armament of 600 men. He arrived at 

 Santiago in Cuba on Whitsunday, and " as soon as they came 

 thither a gentleman of the city sent to the seaside a very fair 

 roan horse, and well furnished for the governor, and a mule for 

 Donna Isabella, and all the horsemen and footmen that were in 

 the town came to receive him at the seaside I" The chronicler 

 then states that " in this country (Cuba) there are many good 

 horses, and there is green grass all the year. There be many 

 wild oxen and hogs whereby the people of the island are well 

 furnished with flesh^." Having sent his ships to Havannah 

 " the governor and those who stayed with him bought horses 

 and proceeded on their journey. The governor's company 



1 Preseott, o}}. cit. Vol. i. p. 2-52. 



- The Discovery and Conquest of Terra Florida by Don Ferdinando de Soto 

 and six hundred Spaniards, his foUoivers, icritten by a Gentleman of Elvas, 

 employed in all the action, and translated out of Portuguese by Richard Hakluyt 

 (reprinted from the ed. of 1611 by W. B. Eye : Hakluyt Society), p. 4. 



3 Ibid. p. 17. •* Ibid. p. 19. 



