130 HORSES AND ROADS. 



under their protection, yet in England he continues 

 to labour under the curse of the iron shoes from 

 which his Irish brethren are exempt. Here is a 

 fitting opportunity for his patrons to widen out the 

 sphere of their humane intervention in his favour. 

 They must not say that the climate of England is so 

 different from that of Ireland that they could not 

 do what Irish donkeys can, for the climate of 

 England is no moister than that of Ireland, and we 

 have testimony that its roads are no worse. In 

 Porto Eico, a Spanish island, horses go barefooted ; 

 whilst in Jamaica, in the same latitude and with 

 the same climate, English civilisation (?) demands 

 that they should be shod. Evidently these last 

 could as well go without shoes as the former, and, 

 evidently also, the English donkeys no more need 

 shoeing than do the Irish ones. Climate has nothing 

 to do with the question. 



In the invasion of America, Hernan Cortes could 

 not carry about (in a country destitute of roads) 

 anvils, forges, and iron. Without the few dozen 

 horses, which overawed the Aztecs so much that they 

 took them for gods, and carved idols in their re- 

 semblance, which they worshipped, he would have 

 been unable to penetrate many miles from the 

 coast. On the performance of those few horses 

 depended the subjugation of Mexico. They did their 

 work and survived it, and from them descends the 

 mustang, which still goes unshod. Horses are not 

 indigenous to America — this was their first intro- 

 duction; and here is a further proof that climate 



