2 
THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
he seeks it, and is animated with the same ardour. He 
feels pleasure also in the chase, in tournaments, in the 
course; he is all fire, but, equally tractable as courageous, 
does not give way to his impetuosity, and knows how to 
check his inclinations; he not only submits to the arm 
which guides him, but even seems to consult the desires 
of his rider; and, always obedient to the impressions which 
he receives from him, presses on, moves gently, or stops, 
and only acts as his rider pleases. The Horse is a crea- 
ture which renounces his being, to exist only by the will 
of another, which he knows how to anticipate, and even 
express, and execute by the promptitude and exactness of 
his movements: he feels as much as we desire, does only 
what we wish, giving himself up without reserve, and 
refuses nothing, makes use of all his strength, exerts him- 
self beyond it, and even dies the better to obey us. 
Such is the Horse, whose natural qualities art has im- 
proved. His education commences with the loss of his 
liberty, and by constraint it is finished. The slavery or 
servitude of these creatures is universal, and so ancient 
that we rarely see them in their natural state: they are 
never wholly free from all their bands, not even at the 
time of rest; and if they are sometimes suffered to range 
at liberty in the fields, they always bear about them tokens 
of servitude, and frequently the cruel marks of servitude 
and of pain: the mouth is deformed by the wrinkles occa- 
sioned by the bit, the flanks scarred with wounds inflicted 
by the spur, the hoofs are pierced by nails, the attitude of 
the body constrained, from the subsisting impression of 
habitual shackles, from which they would be delivered in 
vain, as they would not be the more at liberty for it. 
Even those whose slavery is the most gentle, who are 
only fed and broken for luxury and magnificence, and 
whose golden chains serve less to decorate them, than to 
satisfy the vanity of their master, are still more disho- 
noured by the elegance of their trappings, by the tresses 
of their manes, by the gold and silk with which they are 
covered, than by the iron shoes on their feet. 
Nature is more delightful than art; and, in an animated 
being, the freedom of its movements makes nature beau- 
tiful: observe the Horses in Spanish America, which live 
wild; their gait, their running, or their leaping, seem 
neither constrained nor regular. Proud of their independ- 
ence, they fly the presence of man, and disdain his care; 
they seek and find for themselves proper nourishment; 
they wander about in liberty in immense meads, where 
they feed on the fresh productions of an eternal spring: 
destitute of any fixed habitation, without any other shelter 
than a mild sky, they breathe a purer air than those which 
are confined in vaulted palaces. These wild Horses are 
also much stronger, much swifter, and more nervous than 
the greater part of domestic Horses; they have, what na- 
ture has bestowed upon them, strength and nobleness; the 
others only what art can give, beauty and cunning. 
The Wild Horse. 
Troops of wild Horses are found in the plains of Great 
Tartary, and also in several parts of South America. In 
neither, however, can we recognise an original race. The 
horses of the Ukraine, and those of South America, are 
equally the descendants of those who had escaped from 
the slavery of man. The Tartar Horses are fleet and 
strong, but comparatively of an ordinary breed. Those 
of South America retain, almost unimpaired, the size and 
form of their European ancestors. 
In no part of America, or of the more newly-dis- 
covered islands of the Pacific, was the Horse known, 
until he was introduced by Europeans; and the origin of 
the Horses of Tartary, has been clearly traced to those 
who were employed in the siege of Azoph, in 1657, but 
which were turned loose for want of forage. 
All travellers, who have crossed the plains extending 
from the shores^of La Plata to Patagonia, have spoken of 
numerous droves of wild Horses. Some affirm that they 
have seen ten thousand in one troop. They appear to be 
under the command of a leader, the strongest and boldest 
of the herd, and whom they implicitly obey. A secret 
instinct teaches them that their safety consists in their 
union, and in a principle of subordination. The lion, the 
tiger, and the leopard, * are their principal enemies. At 
some signal, intelligible to them all, they either close into 
a dense mass, and trample their enemy to death; or, placing 
the mares and foals in the centre, they form themselves 
into a circle and welcome him with their heels. In the 
attack, their leader is the first to face the danger, and, 
when prudence demands a retreat, they follow his rapid 
flight. 
In the thinly inhabited parts of South America, it is 
dangerous to fall in with any of these troops. The wild 
Horses approach as near as they dare: they call to the 
loaded Horse with the greatest eagerness, and, if the rider 
be not on the alert, and have not considerable strength of 
arm, and sharpness of spur, his beast will divest himself 
of his burden, take to his heels, and be gone for ever. 
Captain Head gives the following account of a meeting 
with a troop of wild Horses, where the country is more 
thickly inhabited. Some poor captured animals are sup- 
posed to be forced along by their riders at their very 
utmost speed: — “As they are thus galloping along, urged 
* These animals are of a different race from those which go under 
the same names in the Old World, and are very inferior in strength. 
