74 ILLUSTRATED STOCK DOCTOR. 



his being greatly prized ajs a war horse. Unlike the Egjqitian, howevei, 

 he has not only speed but powers of endurance ; and some have described 

 him as both beautiful and tractal)lc. Yet, even those who have had 

 opportunities for personal observation do not agree in their descriptions 

 and their estimates. One speaks of him as being deficient in substance 

 and wanting in stout nesss ; while another thinks him to possess the 

 highest type of symmetry, size, and strength. From another we get 

 this more particular description : In height, he is full sixteen hands 5 

 his body is short ; his neck is long and slim ; he has a fine crest ; and his 

 withers are high and sharp ; but his breast is narrow, his qiiaiters and 

 flanks are flat, and he has a rather ugly back. 



He is found in the kingdom of Dongola and in adjacent regions. 



XI. Wild Horse of America. 



That the horse existed in America at some far distant epoch is undeni- 

 able since the fossil remains found prove this conclusively, and progress- 

 ing naturally from age to age into more and more perfectly developed 

 types. Yet at the discovery of America at the several points by the 

 early navigators, no mention is made of native horses, as would surely 

 have been done if such had been known to the Indians. 



America is undoubtedly indebted for her wild or feral horses which 

 have roamed the great valleys of the Pacific slope, the immense plains of 

 the West and South-west, and the grassy portions of Mexico, to the early 

 Spanish adventurers on the Pacific slope, as were the wild horses of the 

 great plains and of Texas to the horses abandoned by De Soto when he 

 turned his face eastward towards the Mississippi, after having abandoned 

 his search for the fountain of youth and the new Eldorado. So Mexico 

 and the Isthmus were stocked with horses in like manner, for it is futile 

 to suppose that the increase of horses escaping from the Spanish conquer- 

 ors ef South America would have made their way northward through 

 interminable and tangled forests, and mountain fastnesses, but that rather 

 they would have betaken them to the pampas, which in reality they did. 

 Thus in a comparatively short time they covered most areas of country 

 w^ith immense droves, in reality as wild and as free as though they had 

 always existed there. 



That the facts arc as we have stated, is patent from the fact that the 

 produce resembles in many close characteristics the Spanish and Andalu- 

 sian horses of the early Spanish adventurers, as did those found wild in 

 I\GW Foundland resemble the French horse of that period ; as does the 

 Canadian pony of the present day, although diminished in size from insuf- 

 ficient food and the inclemencies of the climate through the long 

 generations which have passed since their introduction into Acadia in 

 X604, and into Canada four years later. 



