THE MUSTANG, OR WILD HORSE. 461 



now into "strains" of a single characteristic,— his parts and 

 paces determined with mathematical certainty before he is 

 foaled. Though there is a great deal gained in convenience 

 by this, there is more lost in the general excellence and 

 nobility of the animal. We need to recur again occasionally 

 to the primeval horse to throw a dash of freedom into the 

 hard lines of our too strictly ruled strains ; to find this, we 

 shall probably always go back to the Arab on his yellow 

 sands. While I admit this to be the true mine of the 

 "porcelain earth" for the horse manufacture, I am astonished 

 that our American breeders have paid so little attention to 

 a " chip of the same grit" we have nearer home. I refer 

 to the mustang, or wild horse of our great prairies. 



A very common and natural misapprehension exists with 

 regard to the value of the mustang, from the fact that it is 

 only the inferior animals of a drove that are taken, as a 

 general thing ; and again, that the hunters always keep the 

 finest themselves, and send in the trifling ones to trade oflF 

 to the settlements ; and it is only such as these we ever get 

 a sight off, unless we make a trip to the Rocky Mountains 

 or California in person ! But it is a great mistake to suppose 

 that all mustangs are like the long-headed, donkey-tempered, 

 spindle-shanked, , dwarfish creatures we see occasionally in 

 the country. 



It would be just as wise to judge the stock in our racing 

 stables by some pot-bellied, shag-haired, scrub colt we might 

 chance to stumble upon, picking the short grass along with 

 the pigs in a country lane, as to form an opinion of the wild 

 horse as he is, fetterless and proud, upon his boundless 

 plains, from these miserable specimens. You must recollect 

 that the best are not to be taken every day; that their 

 liability to capture is exactly proportionate to their want 

 of speed, under the most usual method of securing them with 

 the lasso ! For this to be done, you are aware he has to 

 be fairly run upon by the hunter, with a start of a mile or 



