GALLOWAYS AND KAERAGANSETTS. 73 



saddle tlie only rapid and agreeable, and by far the most 

 certain mode of travel, these beautiful and excellent little 

 animals were preserved in their purity, were carefully 

 propagated from the best mares and stallions of their own 

 race, and commanded large prices for the use both of 

 gentlemen and ladies, as road hackneys. Their power of 

 carrying weight, and of travelling at an easy and moderate 

 gait for an almost unlimited number of consecutive hours, 

 was really wonderful. But when the progress of improve- 

 ment covered England and her provinces with a network 

 of excellent roads, it became unnecessary to keep up a 

 particular breed of horses, too small for agricultural use, too 

 light for draft, without sufficient speed or length for hunters, 

 and from which no class of horses for general utility could be 

 raised by any sj^stem of cross-breeding. Consequently the 

 beautiful and enduring little Galloways fell gradually into 

 disrepute,and were either not bred at all, or merely bred for 

 fancy purposes. In Galloway, the breed is now entirely 

 extinct ; although of late years attempts have been made to 

 produce its counterpart by breeding large-sized pony mares 

 of the Scotch and Shetland breeds to small, low-built, close- 

 coupled, bony, thorough-bred stallions, for the purpose of 

 becoming children's riding horses and boys' hunters. 



In Galway, the existence of the animal was not known 

 until a comparatively recent period ; and, as in that wild, 

 remote and semi-civilized district, the same reasons still 

 exist which original^ caused them to be prized so highly 

 in the sister kingdom, — the want of good roads for wheeled 

 carriages, — they are believed still to exist there in their 

 purity ; although the rudeness of the district an the extremed 

 poverty of the farmers have led to their deterioration. 

 It is not, however, to be doubted, that if an intelligent 

 system were adopted, the Galway-Galloways might be 

 bred up to their original high standard. 

 4 



