JACKS, JENNETS AND MULES 93 



they were being imported before the war it was at- 

 tended by great difficulty and danger, public con- 

 veyances and modes of travel difficult, railroads un- 

 known, and society in a rather unsettled condition. 

 Spain was the last of the countries to become safe 

 and pleasant to travel in, and her mountains, extend- 

 ing all over the country, north and south, east and 

 west, afforded admirable places for sheltering brig- 

 ands and robbers. It is a large country, but one can 

 hardly find any part of it that is not in full view of 

 a tall mountain peak, covered by eternal snow. 



The jack had to be brought home in sailing vessels, 

 steamers not then being in use. These were slow and 

 unfitted for the transportation of live stock, unlike 

 our splendid modern steamers, brought about by the 

 immense importations and exports of horses, cattle, 

 etc. When old Mammoth was imported he had to be 

 swung most of the way, which cut into his flesh, I 

 am told, until it was feared his wounds would prove 

 fatal. 



Smce the war, with improved facilities, a great 

 many have been imported to this country, and espe- 

 cially to Tennessee, from which point they have been 

 scattered all over the jack territory of the Union. 

 Those imported are usually from fourteen and one- 

 half to fifteen hands high, though smaller ones have 

 been imported, and some that were considerably 

 larger, in a few rare instances going above sixteen 

 hands. 



The large bone of the Kentucky jack is well known, 

 and is perhaps given by their unsurpassed limestone, 

 blue grass soil. But the Catalonian jack in his bone, 

 we think, is more devoid of flesh, and it is perhaps of 



