102 THE PACING ELEMENT. 



the man of similar name, who wrote the " Bucolics;" and while I do 

 not remember that this well known writer hinted that those little 

 fellows, not over sixteen hands high, would ever amble to our shores, 

 I remember one couplet in his Vulgate Bucolics that ran about thus; 



Qui legitis flores et humi nascentia fraga, 

 Frigidus, o pueri, fugite huic, latet anguis in herba. 



Which, on a close study and explanation, will reveal quite as much 

 light on this question of the antiquity and identity of the pacing 

 family, and its importance to the problem of breeding trotters as the 

 scraps gathered from the " Horse Latin, " above referred to. 



The learned author above quoted, adverts to the many traditional 

 accounts relating to the origin of these Narragansetts and other pacers, 

 among others, to the highly interesting story of the horse that was 

 seen in mid-ocean swimming — I suppose after the way of the pacei-^ 

 with a lateral motion, one side at a time — also to the celebrated account 

 given by Rip Van Dam, a writer who flourished at a later period than 

 the Vulgate Bucolic, above referred to, and who wrote of a horse that 

 jumped from a sloop, and swam ashore, from a point far distant 

 from anywhere. He also warily refers to the legend lately given 

 in regard to the origin of old Tippoo, the founder of the Royal 

 Georges, whose real paternity was said to have swam ashore from a 

 shipwrecked vessel, and landed on an inhospitable shore, where he 

 subsisted on nothing but seaweed for a long space of time. The 

 learned author reviews and rejects mainly all of these traditions, and 

 advances the conclusion, in substance, that the ancient amblers seen 

 by the Vulgate Bucolic, were the originals of the Narragansetts, and 

 that in them they have scattered from Rhode Island to Virginia, and 

 thence all over the continent, and that Smuggler and all the great 

 Hiatogas and Blue Bulls of our day, are the representatives of the 

 oldest breed of horses known to our civilization. 



In speaking of the disappearance of the pacers in the older States 

 of the East, the learned author says: 



They were first secured by the more wealthy at the centres of population 

 and business, and, aside from their use for sporting purposes, they were 

 considered a necessity for comfort and ease in journeys, whether long or 

 short. The condition of roads and streams admitted of no means of travel, 

 except on foot or on horseback. As roads and bridges, -jvcre constructed, the 

 little pacing horse was qot well adapted to pull the family carriage or two men 

 ■ in a buggy, and he was pushed out a little to where he was a necessity. The 

 area of good roads, occupied by wheels, kept ever widening, and ke^t ever 



