THE MUSTANG, OB WILD HORSE. 463 



thunder. They considered horse and rider as one animal, 

 like the Centaur of the Greek, a supernatural one, and 

 sent them human victims for food, to propitiate their wrath. 

 These facts all prove that there was not even a tradition of 

 the existence of such an animal on our hemisphere at that 

 time. 



It will be recollected, finally, that led on by a remorseless 

 avarice, which even the palace halls of the Montezuma, heaped 

 to the ceiling with ingots of gold, could not touch, they 

 penetrated far into the interior, in the fantastic search of 

 mountains, whose rocks were of the precious metal without 

 alloy ; and rivers, whose beds were amethyst, and pearl, and 

 glittering dust ; and that instead of the realization of these 

 gorgeous fancies, they met with fierce tribes amidst the 

 crags and valleys, who cut them to pieces. But as these 

 warlike men exhibited the same terror and astonishment at 

 the sight of the horse, the gallant beasts, as their riders 

 fell, were permitted by the superstitious conquerors to gallop 

 away for a new life of freedom upon the wide savannahs below. 



There were several entire parties of the cavaliers killed 

 to a man, by these mountain hordes, all of whose horses 

 escaped. These bounded away joyfully, with neighings, 

 until they reached the luxuriant pasture of the plains, and 

 then fell to work to multiply and replenish. 



From this royal lineage the wild horse of both continents 

 has undoubtedly descended. They spread gradually from 

 the pampas of California to the bleak and sterile ridges of 

 Canada, where starvation and the cold dwindled them down 

 to the shaggy pine-knot of a pony, retaining still the bright, 

 prominent eye, and devilish, indomitable spirit of their 

 ancestry. So that you see the pedigree of the mustang is 

 more immaculate than that of the proudest winner of a 

 hundred fields. But, independent of these historical facts, 

 no man who is familiar with the Arab can cast his eye over 



