THE NARRAGANSETl' PACER. 67 



I pass, therefore, briefly to the consideration of what was, 

 while it existed in its purity — ^I fear one may now say, while it 

 existed^ in broad terms — a truly distinct, and for its own pecu- 

 liar use and purpose, a most valuable, as it was a most interest- 

 ing, curious and beautiful variety, or species— for it seems to 

 me that it almost amounts to that — of the Equine Family. 



THE NAKRAGANSETT PACER. 



This beautiful animal, which, so far as I can ascertain, has 

 now entirely ceased to exist, and concerning which the strang- 

 est legends and traditions are afloat, was, I think it may be 

 positively asserted, of Andalusian blood. The legends, to 

 which I allude, tell in two wise ; or rather, I should say, there 

 there are two versions of the same legend. One saying that the 

 original stallion, whence came the breed, was picked up at sea, 

 swimming for his life, no one knew whence or whither ; and 

 was so carried in by his salvors to the Providence Plantations ; 

 the other, evidently another form of the same story, stating that 

 the same original progenitor was discovered running Avild in the 

 woods of Ehode Island. 



The question, however, thus far seems to be put at rest by 

 the account of these animals given in a note to the very curious 

 work "America Dissected," by the K'v'd James McSparran, 

 D.D., which is published as an appendix to the History of the 

 Church of Xarragansett, by "Wilkins Updike. 



Dr. McSparran was sent out in April, 1721, as their mission- 

 ary, by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 

 Parts, to that venerable church of which he was the third incum- 

 bent, and over which he presided thirty-seven years, generally 

 respected and beloved, until he departed this life, on the first 

 day of December, 1759, and was interred under the communion 

 table of the church, which he had so long served. 



In his '"America Dissected " the doctor twice mentions the 

 pacing horse, which was evidently at that remote date an estab- 

 lished breed in that province. 



" To remedy this," he says — this being the great extent of 

 the parishes in Virginia, of which he is at fivst speaking, and the 

 distances which had to be travelled to church — " to remedy this, 

 as the wliole province, between the mountains, two hundred 



