NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



The equipments of the horses, belonging to these men, were little 

 different from those in common use on this part of the American Continent. 

 Their bridle-bits are crooked iron curbs, with cheek-plates ; the mouth-piece 

 also is crooked, and through the upper part of the curve an iron ring is 

 passed, about five inches in diameter, into which, when the bridle is 

 put on, the horse's chin, or lower jaw, is thrust ; so that the whole forms 

 a most powerful curb. There is only a single rein to the bridle, the two 

 ends of which proceed from the points of the curb, and meet upon the 

 horse's withers, in a ring about an inch in diameter, from which proceeds 

 a lash four feet long ; the whip being thus attached to the bridle, the 

 horseman's right hand is left at liberty. The leather is formed from a 

 hide neatly cut into long shreds, which are soaked in oil or melted tallow, 

 until they are completely pliable ; they are then plaited with equal 

 neatness, and form a round thong as thick as the little finger. The 

 headstall is formed of the same materials ; and the bridle, altogether, is 

 not only recommended by its appearance, but by its power to restrain 

 the most headstrong animal. There is still more singularity in the 

 stirrups ; which are, in common, made from the transverse section of an 

 ox's horn, brought nearly to a triangular shape ; or of brass, bearing 

 some resemblance to the vertical section of a bell. In both cases they are 

 so small as to admit only the tip of the boot, if the rider have any, or a 

 few of the naked toes. They are attached to the saddle by straps, which 

 cannot be lengthened or shortened. 



Though a Saddle has been repeatedly mentioned as part of the 

 horse-furniture of the strangers, iU would have been more correct to 

 speak of the Lumbillio, which is universally used among them, and, 

 indeed, all ranks of horsemen in Rio Grande. Perhaps a more fit place 

 than this will not be found for some description of it. The Lumbillio, 

 borrowed from the Spanish colonists, and by them from their mother- 

 country, is a sort of thin pannel, about two feet long, of exactly the 

 same form in its fi*ont and back, and covered with embossed leather. 

 It is fastened to the horse by a bandage made of ten or a dozen thongs, 

 all the ends of which terminate in two iron rings. When this is thrown 



