THE SOUTH AMERICAN HORSE. 45 



Australia. This, probably, is the heaviest price yet paid at one 

 sale by any colonial breeder, but numerous smaller speculations 

 have been going on for the last twenty years. Hence, whatever 

 position is attained by our friends over the water, they will en- 

 tirely owe to the parent country; and I strongly suspect that 

 before long we shall have to go to them to procure sound horses 

 of high breeding for our own studs. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE HORSES OP THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. 



The South American Horse — The Mustang — The Indian Pony — 

 The Canadian Horse — The Morgan Horse — The American 

 Trotter — The Narraganset Pacer — The American Thorough- 

 bred — The Vermont Cart-Horse — The Conestoga Draught- 

 Horse. 



THE SOUTH AMERICAN HORSE. 



For some time after the discovery of America, at the 

 conclusion of the fifteenth century, the horse was entirely unknown 

 in that hemisphere, but according to Azara a few specimens w r ere 

 introduced there by the Spaniards in the year 1535, and in the 

 year 1537 several were shipped to Paraguay. From these have 

 been bred the countless herds which have since spread over the 

 whole southern part of the western world, and passing the Isthmus 

 of Panama have wandered into North America. In both these 

 divisions the horse runs wild, wherever there are plains suitable to 

 him, and not yet brought under cultivation ; but it is in the south 

 that the wild horse is to be found in the greatest numbers, on the 

 extensive plains which stretch almost unbroken from the shores of 

 La Plata to Patagonia. Here herds numbering some thousands in 

 each are to be met with, each under the guidance of a master stal- 

 lion, who enforces entire submission to his will as long as he has 

 the power to do so. Here the native Gaucho has only to throw 

 his lasso, and he can at any time supply himself with a horse which 

 will carry him for miles at a hand gallop, when he changes him 

 for another, and is thus always mounted at a cheap and easy rate. 

 In this way Captafn Head rode all across the continent from one 

 shore to the other, nearly using up one horse in the course of fifty 

 or sixty miles, and then looking out for another before the first 

 was so spent as to be unable to assist him in making the exchange. 

 These wild horses greatly resemble their Spanish ancestors in make 

 and shape. They are said to be possessed of a fair amount of 



