CHAPTER XX. 



ARAB HORSES IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



Are not Arab horses a specialty of some of the 

 South American states, Count? 



" It is a matter of history that when Pizarro con- 

 quered Peru in the sixteenth century, he carried 

 from Spain less than a score of Andalusian Barbs. 

 The natives had never seen a man riding astride of 

 an animal, and their wonder deepened into terror 

 and dismay, at the near approach of this little band 

 of Centaurs. Seeing the four legs surmounted by a 

 human body and head, and in their crude supersti- 

 tion imagining it to be some new species of aveng- 

 ing animal, the Inca natives fled, conquered by their 

 fears. Amused by this easy conquest of the Lower 

 Country, Pizarro took his army of vagabonds, 

 gathered in Panama and amounting to about one 

 hundred and fifty men, led by the score of mounted 

 Barbs, to the royal city in Peru of the reigning 

 Atahualpa. Him, he took prisoner after getting 

 possession of the city. 



" Discovering shortly Atahualpa'shold on the affec- 

 tions of his people by the enormous ransom they 

 offered for his redemption, he realized that such a 

 prince would be a dangerous rival to his own in- 

 fluence, and ordered his execution. This was os- 



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