FOREIGN HORSES 31 



in clouds, while the straw was carried a short distance 

 away, collecting together in a huge mass, and the heavier 

 grain fell in a large heap close by. It was a primitive way 

 of threshing, but it was cheap and effected its purpose, and 

 no doubt had been carried on in the same way for countless 

 ages. The grain was then collected and the straw put in 

 the barn, and this was the everyday provender throughout 

 the country. 



The Spanish horse has need of first-rate legs and feet, for 

 he is subjected to tests which would make an English job- 

 master quickly protest. There was nothing an ambitious 

 young caballero loved more than when, got up in his very 

 best, and mounted on his favourite steed, he galloped for 

 about fifty or a hundred yards as hard as ever he could go, 

 on the ill-paved street, and then with one jerk of his cruelly 

 powerful bit stopped the animal dead in one stride, before 

 an admiring crowd. Then he would turn round and gallop 

 back in the same way, and repeat the performance several 

 times. With an English horse one would expect to find 

 a curb sprung or very swollen legs and joints the next 

 morning, but I never knew a Spanish horse any the worse 

 for such a performance. When trotting the exceeding 

 suppleness of the limbs is remarkable, especially the knees 

 and fetlocks which are most elastic, but the action is not 

 always true, for dishing, such an eyesore to an Englishman, 

 is rather admired in Spain if the horse Hfts his knees well 

 up. As a rule they are not handsome horses, but have 

 big back-ribs ; and owing to their vicinity to Morocco, 

 and the long period of rule of the Moors in the South 

 of Spain — they held Andalusia eight hundred years — 

 there is a great deal of Barb blood even in the 

 commonest horses. They are wonderful pack animals, 

 carrying enormous loads for hours over very rough moun- 

 tainous paths, and probably very much resemble the old 

 pack-horse of England. There is no cart-horse blood in 

 them, and therefore they respond at once when crossed with 

 Eastern or thoroughbred blood, so that in a couple of 

 generations they look almost like thoroughbreds. It was 

 the palmy dp,ys of Spanish racing when I was there, and 



