500 THE HORSE. 



ducing a great change in the habits, though but a slight one 

 in the moral feelings, of the Red Man of the plains. These 

 brave tribes, who have escaped the bondage of so many of their 

 fellows, may be said to pass their lives on horseback : their very 

 limbs have become feeble from disuse of walking; but they are 

 amongst the most perfect horsemen in the world. Naked as 

 when they were born, without a saddle, with a bit made of 

 hide, their long light lances in hand, they are ever in motion, 

 migrating from place to place as the pasture arfrund them is 

 consumed. They have no tents, not even a covering for the 

 head ; they have no bread, no cultivated vegetables, no fruits, 

 no salt. Their only food is the flesh of their mares, which 

 they never ride, or the produce of the chase, which is not 

 plentiful. Their whole thoughts and the pleasure of their 

 lives are riding and war. " Their system of warfare/' says 

 Head, " is more noble, unencumbered, and perfect in its na- 

 ture, than that of any nation in the world. When they 

 assemble, either to attack their enemies, or to invade the 

 country of the Christians, with whom they are now at war, 

 they collect large troops of horses and mares, and then utter- 

 ing the wild shriek of war, they start at a gallop. As soon 

 as the horses they ride on are tired, they vault upon the 

 bare backs of fresh ones, keeping their best until they posi- 

 tively see their enemies. The whole country affords pasture 

 to their horses, and whenever they choose to stop, they have 

 only to kill some mares. The ground is the bed on which, 

 from their infancy, they have always slept; the flesh of their 

 mares is the food on which they have ever been accustomed 

 to subsist." These wild people have not yet acquired fire- 

 arms, which might render them the most formidable of caval- 

 ry ; but they have learned the use of intoxicating liquors, 

 which they obtain by barter from the towns. They have 

 some rude ideas of a future state, believing that, when they 

 die, they will be transferred to a paradise, where they will be 

 always drunk, and always on horseback. As they gallop over 

 the plains at night, we are told, they will point, with their 



