THE MUSTANG, OR WILD HORSE. 461 
now into “strains” of a single characteristic,—his parts and 
paces determined with mathematical certainty before he is 
foaled. Though there is a great deal gained in convenience 
by this, there is more lost in the general excellence and 
nobility of the animal. We need to recur again occasionally 
to the primeval horse to throw a dash of freedom into the 
hard lines of our too strictly ruled strains; to find this, we 
shall probably always go back to the Arab on his yellow 
sands. While I admit this to be the true mine of the 
“porcelain earth” for the horse manufacture, I am astonished 
that our American breeders have paid so little attention to 
a “chip of the same grit” we have nearer home. I refer 
to the mustang, or wild horse of our great prairies. 
A very common and natural misapprehension exists with 
regard to the value of the mustang, from the fact that it is 
only the inferior animals of a drove that are taken, as a 
general thing; and again, that the hunters always keep the 
finest themselves, and send in the trifling ones to trade off 
to the settlements; and it is only such as these we ever get 
a sight off, unless we make a trip to the Rocky Mountains 
or California in person! But it is a great mistake to suppose 
that all mustangs are like the long-headed, donkey-tempered, 
spindle-shanked, dwarfish creatures we see occasionally in 
the country. 
It would be just as wise to judge the stock in our racing 
stables by some pot-bellied, shag-haired, scrub colt we might 
chance to stumble upon, picking the short grass along with 
the pigs in a country lane, as to form an opinion of the wild 
horse as he is, fetterless and proud, upon his boundless 
plains, from these miserable specimens. You must recollect 
that the best are not to be taken every day; that their 
liabiity to capture is exactly proportionate to their want 
of speed, under the most usual method of securing them with 
ths lasso! For this to be done, you are aware he has to 
-be fairly run upon by the hunter, with a start of mile or 
