274 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



Indians made abundance of salt (salt springs ?), and they spent 

 six months in the construction of the brigandines : " we took 

 with us some canoes, into which we put twenty-six horses 1 ." 



There is no reason why the half-dozen horses thus abandoned 

 on the bank of the Mississippi should not have become the pro- 

 genitors of all the wild horses of Western America. It is clear 

 that the Indians did not kill them at once, and the horses 

 would thus have had time to escape into the open country, 

 where it would be difficult for the natives to capture or slay 

 them. There was no greater likelihood of their being killed 

 by the Indians than there was in the case of the oft-cited 

 animals abandoned at Buenos Ayres and San Juan Bautista, 

 when these two infant settlements were attacked by Indians. 

 Only one doubt remains. On which bank of the Mississippi 

 were the horses deserted ? The chronicler gives no direct 

 statement, but as the brigandines were built on the western 

 bank, and as the writer does not state that they had crossed to 

 the other side when Luys de Moscoso determined to kill the 

 remnant of the horses, it is probable that the horses were 

 abandoned on the western bank of the great river. As all de 

 Soto's horses like those of Cortes were brought from Cuba, the 

 colours of these animals would have been the same as those of 

 the horses which formed the parent stock of Mexico. Accord- 

 ingly, even if the horses of the Western States are sprung from 

 de Soto's animals, and not from feral horses from Mexico, the 

 occurrence of dun with stripes in such animals is not to be 

 regarded as a reversion to a primitive ancestor. 



The horses of Sardinia and Corsica, as might naturally have 

 been expected, show much North African blood. The Sardinian 

 seldom exceed 13'2 hands (1'35 m.), and are in colour black, 

 chestnut, and bay, but rarely grey 2 , whilst the Corsican range 

 from 11'2 hands to 13'2 and are black, chestnut, sometimes 

 bay, but rarely grey 3 . They are steady, active and courageous, 

 and capable of enduring cold and hunger. 



The horses of Sardinia and Corsica had well-known char- 

 acteristics in medieval times, for Stradanus gives a picture of 



1 Hakluyt, op. cit. p. 199. 2 Cuyer and Alix, Le Cheval, p. 632. 



3 Ibid. p. 613. 



