AMERICAN HORSES 413 



cause of alarm has passed away. In form they bear a 

 strong resemblance to the horses of Barbary and 

 Turkey. Their colours are chestnut, bay, sorrel, or 

 black ; the latter, however, is not very common, chest- 

 nut being the prevailing colour, from which some 

 authors suppose that this must have been the original 

 colour of the horse ; but we do not find it to be the 

 prevailing colour of the Asiatic wild breeds, bay and 

 dun being the most common amongst these. 



When the Spaniards first entered Mexico, their 

 horses were objects of the greatest astonishment to all 

 the people of New Spain. At first they imagined the 

 horse and his rider, like the centaur of the ancients, to 

 be some monstrous animal of a terrible form ; and 

 supposing that their food was the same as that of man, 

 brought flesh and bread to nourish them. 



In South America mares are never ridden. An 

 Englishman, who once attempted to ride a mare, was 

 so hooted and pelted by the natives, that he had a 

 narrow escape, and thought himself fortunate to get 

 off without serious injury. 



Wild horses are captured in South America by the 

 native inhabitants of the plains, who are called Gauchos. 

 They are taken by these men with much dexterity, 

 with a halter called a lasso ; which is thus described 

 by Miers, in his Travels in Chili : — " The lasso is a 

 missile weapon used by every native of the provinces 

 of Chili. It is a very strong, plaited thong, of equal 

 thickness, half an inch in diameter, and forty feet long, 

 made of strips of green hide plaited like a whip-thong, 

 and rendered supple by grease. It has at one end 

 an iron ring, about one inch and a half in diameter, 

 through which the thong is passed and forms a 

 running noose. 



" The Gaucho, or native Peon, is generally mounted 



