THE HORSE. 
HISTORY. 
cast upon him with unerring aim, and in a moment hurls him to the ground. Before the animal can recover the shock, the Guacho 
springs upon him, and snatching the cloak from his own shoulders, wraps it round the head of the prostrate animal. He then 
forces into his mouth one of the bridles of the country, straps a saddle on his back, and bestriding him removes the cloak, when 
the animal springs upon his legs, and, by a thousand efforts, endeavours to free himself from his new master. His efforts are 
vain: the Guacho keeps himself firm in his seat, and, by the force of his arm and dreadful spurs, reduces the animal to entire 
obedience. The subjection is complete : the Guacho pursues his journey on the captive horse, who, finding resistance vain, yields 
himself to necessity, and becomes the slave of man. These horses, though not very fleet, have amazing powers of endurance. In 
this their state of sudden bondage, they are sometimes ridden sixty, seventy, nay, a hundred miles, urged on at speed by the spur 
of their barbarous rider. When the dreadful task is done, mangled, terrified, and fainting from fatigue, they are turned loose on 
the plains to perish, or rejoin, as best they may, their lost companions. 
These horses have reassumed, to a certain degree, the character of the wild type, as it is exemplified in the Horses of Tartary. 
The head has become larger, the ears more long, the limbs more muscular, and the general form less symmetrical than in the race 
from which they are descended. Their hair, however, has not become long and shaggy as in the Tartar horses, because they inhabit 
a soft and genial clime; but it has tended to that uniformity of colour which distinguishes the wild from the domestic races of all 
animals. Their colour is always of a chestnut-brown, and never dun, as in the Tartar races; and whenever a bay, a black, or 
other colour appears, it is inferred that the individual is of the domesticated race, and has made its escape and joined the wild herds. 
They are enduring, it has been said, but not very fleet, and are easily run down by the subjugated breeds. 
The domesticated horses of these countries possessed by the Spanish Americans, possess the general characters of the race 
from which they are descended j but being treated with the utmost severity, and bred without attention to the choice of the parents, 
they have lost much of the grace of form and elegance of action which distinguish the true Andalusian. Stallions and mares 
are never ridden, and geldings only are used for the saddle. They are usually kept in extensive pasture-grounds, and driven 
periodically to the corral, when the lasso and the spur of the Guacho are employed to remind them of their dependence. When 
colts are to be broken in, they are driven in a herd to the corral, subjected one by one to the discipline of the lasso, and by mere 
force and terror reduced to obedience. 
From the conquerors of these noble provinces, the Horse has passed into the hands of the Indians of the interior, producing 
a great change in the habits, though but a slight one in the moral feelings, of the red man of the plains. These brave tribes, 
who have escaped the bondage of so many of their fellows, may be said to pass their lives on horseback: their very limbs have 
become feeble from disuse of walking; but they are the most perfect horsemen in the world. Naked as when they were born, 
without a saddle, with a bit of hide, their long light lances in hand, they are ever in motion, migrating from place to place as the 
pasture around them is consumed. They have no tents, not even a covering for the head; they have no bread, no cultivated 
vegetables, no fruits, no salt. Their only food is the flesh of their mares, which they never ride, or the produce of the chase, which 
is not plentiful. Their whole thoughts and the pleasure of their lives are riding and war. “ Their system of warfare,” says 
Head, u is more noble, unencumbered, and perfect in its nature, than that of any nation in the world. When they assemble, 
either to attack their enemies, or to invade the country of the Christians, with whom they are now at war, they collect large 
troops of horses and mares, and then uttering the wild shriek of war, they start at a gallop. As soon as the horses they ride on 
are tired, they vault upon the bare backs of fresh ones, keeping their best until they positively see their enemies. The whole 
country affords pasture to their horses, and whenever they choose to stop, they have only to kill some mares. The ground is the 
bed on which from their infancy they have always slept; the flesh of their mares is the food on which they have ever been ac¬ 
customed to subsist.” These wild people have not yet acquired fire-arms, which might render them the most formidable of 
cavalry; but they have learned the use of intoxicating liquors, which they obtain by barter from the towns. They have some 
rude ideas of a future state, believing that, when they die, they will be transferred to a paradise where they will be always drunk, 
and always on horseback. As they gallop over the plains at night, we are told, they will point with their long spears to con¬ 
stellations in the heavens, which they say are the figures of their ancestors, who, riding in the firmament, are mounted upon 
horses swifter than the wind, and hunting ostriches. When they bury their dead, they kill several of their best horses, believing 
that their departed friends would otherwise have nothing to rideA 
The Horse is domesticated throughout all the settled parts of South America, but is nowhere treated with the care which is 
required to produce the full development of his form and useful properties. If he is inferior in many qualities to the races from 
which he is sprung, we may be assured that this is no result of the absence of the bounties of nature. These are all that can be 
* Head’s Journey. 
(/) 
