26 THE HORSE. 



indicating the existence of the horse on this continent, prior to 

 its discovery by Europeans — though by some unknown causes 

 it had been rendered extinct, before the date of their arrival — 

 it is indisputable, that in no part of America, insular or conti- 

 nental, nor yet in Australia or any of the isles of the Pacific, 

 have any traces of the horse been discovered, by the first navi- 

 gators, who have visited, or the first colonists who have planted, 

 their virgin shores. 



The wild horse of America, therefore, is of undoubted 

 Spanish origin ; and is, to this day, marked by many of the 

 characteristics of that race, which shows, by the fineness of its 

 limbs and the peculiar formation of its head, the large admix- 

 tui-e it possesses of Moorish and Barbary blood. 



It is said, also, that wild herds, descended from casually 

 escaped domestic individual races, have been seen in the woody 

 lowlands of Jamaica and Hayti ; while the Falkland Islands 

 are stocked with considerable troops, released by the French 

 and Spanish colonists ; and one or more small islands, off New- 

 foundland, were peopled by the Government of Canada with 

 the Korman horse, which has become perfectly naturalized and 

 almost indomitably wild. 



In Hungary, until within a short space, the horse was still 

 known to exist in the wide, open plains or savannahs, in a state 

 of nature ; in those fierce and fiery squadrons, described by 

 Byron in Mazeppa, 



" Wide flowing tail, and flying mane, 

 Wide nostril^ — nevtr stretched by pain — 

 Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein. 

 And feet that iron never shod, 

 And flanks unscarred by spur or rod, 

 A thousand horse, the wild, the free, 

 Like waves that follow o'er the 



but it is probable they are extinct for ever in Europe, unless 

 some be found on the confines of European and Asiatic Eussia. 

 Whether the animal is yet to be found in a state of nature 

 in Arabia appears questionable ; although it is stated that they 

 still exist, thinly scattered in the deserts, and are hunted by the 

 Bedouins for their flesh, and also to improve their inferior 

 breeds by a different strain of blood. " They are said to be 



