THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 229 



sprung from one of the five on which Mahomet and 

 his successors fled from Mecca to Medina, on the me- 

 morable occasion of the Hegira, thus states the differ- 

 ence in the customs of the Africans and Arabs : — 



" No Arab ever mounts a stalhon : on the contrary, 

 in Africa they never ride mares. The reason is plain : 

 the Arabs are constantly at war with their neighbours, 

 and always endeavour to take their enemies by sur- 

 prise in the grey of the evening, or the dawn of the 

 day. A stallion no sooner smells the stale of the mare 

 in the enemy's quarters, than he begins to neigh, and 

 that would give the alarm to the party intended to be 

 surprised. No such thing can ever happen when they 

 ride mares only. On the contrary, the Funge trusts 

 only to superior force. They are in an open, plain 

 country — must be discovered at many miles distant — 

 and all such surprises and stratagems are useless to 

 them." 



THE AMERICAN HORSES 



Appear to have been of European extraction : in the 

 States, the breed is generally a mixture of the French 

 and English ; however, many of the best English blood- 

 horses are found in some of the provinces, and the 

 breed in Virginia, and the Jerseys, is preserved un- 

 mixed: The American trotters are often of Canadian 

 origin, and these again sprung from the French breed. 

 The wild horses of South America are very numerous, 

 herding together frequently to the number of ten 

 thousand, and oftentimes they prove very dangerous. 

 They seem to be of the Andalusian and Spanish breed. 



