THE AMERICAN HORSEWOMAN. 



CHAPTER L 



THE HORSE. 



"Look, when a painter would surpass the life, 

 In limning out a well-proportioned steed, 

 His art with Nature's workmanship at strife, 

 As if the dead the living should exceed ; 

 So did this horse excel a common one, 

 In shape, in courage, color, pace, and bone." 



— " what a horse should have he did not lack, 

 Save a proud rider on so proud a back." 



Venus and Adonis. 



It is supposed that the original home of the 

 horse was central Asia, and that all the wild 

 horses that range over the steppes of Tartary, 

 the pampas of South America, and the prairies 

 of North America, are descendants of this Asi- 

 atic stock .^ There is, in the history of the 



^ A very interesting work, by C. A. Pietrement, has recently 

 been issued in France, entitled Les chevaux dans les temps pre- 

 historique et historique. The author shows that wild horses were 

 hunted and eaten by man in the rough stone age. He also deter- 

 mines in what European and Asiatic regions the eight extant 

 horse families were domesticated, and traces their various wan- 



