Horse and Man. 355 



developed a marvellous sensitiveness, is sufficient 

 to guide him. The gaucho labours to give his 

 horse " a silken mouth," as he aptly calls it ; the 

 Indian's horse has it from birth. Occasionally the 

 gaucho sleeps in the saddle ; the Indian can die 

 on his horse. During frontier warfare one hears 

 at times of a dead warrior being found and removed 

 with difficulty from the horse that carried him out 

 of the fight, and about whose neck his rigid fingers 

 were clasped in death. Even in the gaucho 

 country, however, where, I grieve to confess, the 

 horse is not deservedly esteemed, there are very 

 remarkable instances of equine attachment and 

 fidelity to man, and of a fellowship between horse 

 and rider of the closest kind. One only I will 

 relate. 



When Rosas, that man of " blood and iron," was 

 Dictator of the Argentine country — a position which 

 he held for a quarter of a century — deserters from 

 the army were inexorably shot when caught, as they 

 generally were. But where my boyhood was spenb 

 there was a deserter, a man named Santa Anna, 

 who for seven years, without ever leaving the neigh- 

 bourhood of his home, succeeded in eluding his pur- 

 suers by means of the marvellous sagacity and 

 watchful care exercised by his horse. When taking 

 his rest on the plain — for he seldom slept under a 

 roof — his faithful horse kept guard. At the first 

 sight of mounted men on the horizon he would fly 

 to his master, and, seizing his cloak between his 

 teeth, rouse him with a vigorous shake. The hunted 

 man would start up, and in a moment man and 

 horse would vanish into one of the dense reed-beds 



