AMERICAN HORSES. 
437 
they are to be seen in troops of many thousands. Azara 
affirms, that they sometimes congregate in squadrons of not 
less than ten thousand individuals. They are invariably 
preceded by a leader, by whose movements they are 
governed; and all they do seems to be conducted in a sys¬ 
tematic style. 
These immense troops do not always feed together, but 
are dispersed into smaller herds; though when disturbed they 
congregate, and continue so until the cause of alarm has 
passed away. In form they bear a strong resemblance to the 
horses of Barbary and Turkey. Their colours are chestnut, 
bay, sorrel, or black; the latter, however, is not very com¬ 
mon, chestnut being the prevailing colour, from which some 
authors suppose that this must have been the original colour 
of the horse; but we do not find it to be the prevailing 
colour of the Asiatic wild breeds, bay and dun being the 
most common amongst these. 
When the Spaniards first entered Mexico, their Horses 
were objects of the greatest astonishment to all the people 
of New Spain. At first they imagined the horse and his 
rider, like the centaur of the ancients, to be some mon¬ 
strous animal of a terrible form ; and supposing that their 
food was the same as that of man, brought flesh and bread 
to nourish them. 
In South America mares are never ridden. An English¬ 
man, who once attempted to ride a mare, was so hooted and 
pelted by the natives, that he had a narrow escape, and 
thought himself fortunate to get off without serious injury. 
Wild horses are captured in South America by the native 
inhabitants of the plains, who are called Gauchos. They 
are taken by these men with much dexterity, with a halter 
called a lasso ; which is thus described by Miers, in his 
Travels in Chili :—“ The lasso is a missile weapon used by 
