VI PEEFACE. 



half an hour, though rarely,) and afterwards went 

 into a town, the people flocked about to see me, 

 saying to their friends, "This is the man that 

 breaks a horse in half an hour." Now the same 

 has been published of Sullivan: most probably 

 they mentioned the shortest space of time he had 

 done it in, for it is likewise said of him, that some- 

 times he shut himself up with the horse all night. 



Sometimes I have met with an extremely wild 

 horse, which seemed to be gentled, as by enchant- 

 ment, in a few minutes. I have gentled one of 

 this description in ten minutes, so as to lead him, 

 make him follow me everywhere I pleased, and 

 ride him with as great safety as if he had been 

 gentled twenty years before. But this is not a 

 general rule. 



The reader is here presented, in the explanation 

 of this secret, with a specimen of the wonderful 

 powers of the tact upon animals, and at the same 

 time, with a moral lesson of patience and gentle- 

 ness — virtues as necessary to get along through 

 life among men, as they are when used in taming 

 horses ; and the exception to the general rule — I 

 mean those that are to be treated with rigor — is 

 not, perhaps, less rare. I am fully persuaded, that 

 almost every class of people will reap some benefit 

 or pleasure from the perusal of these pages. The. 

 naturalist sees in it a lesson of Nature itself. The 



