The horse : with a treatise on draught / by William Youatt.

  • William Youatt
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The horse : with a treatise on draught / by William Youatt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    docile qualities are no longer recognised. They rush violently into every pond and lake, savagely mangling and trampling upon one another ; and the carcases of many thousands of them, destroyed by their fellows, have occasionally been seen in and around a considerable pool. That is one of the means by which the too rapid increase of this quadruped is, by the ordinance of nature, there prevented. Humboldt says that during the periodical swellings of the large rivers, immense numbers of wild horses are drowned, particularly when the river Apure is swollen, and these animals are attempting to reach the rising grounds of the Llanos. The mares may be seen, during the season of high water, swimming about followed by their colts, and feeding on the tall grass, of which the tops alone wave above the waters. In this state they are pursued by croco- diles, and their thighs frequehtly bear the prints of the teeth of these carnivorous reptiles. They lead for a time an amphibious life, surrounded by crocodiles, water-serpents, and marsetees. When the rivers return again into their beds, they roam in the savannah, which is then spread over with a fine odoriferous grass, and seem to enjoy the renewed vegeta- tion of spring. Numerous herds of wild horses abound in the west of Louisiana, and of all colours. They are like those on the Pampas, the remains of the Spanish horses, and are hunted, caught, and sometimes destroyed for food by the savage inhabitants of the back settlements. Mr. Low, in his beautiful delineations of the British quadrupeds, gives the following account of the horses of North America : — “ North America seems as well adapted to the temperament of the horse as any similar countries in the old continent. The Mexican horses are derived from, but somewhat deteriorated by, a less careful management. Mexican horses have likewise escaped into the woods and savannahs, and although they have not multiplied, as in the plains of the Plata, thence they have descended northward to the Rocky Mountains, and the sources of the Columbia. The Indians of the country have learned to pursue and capture them, employing them in hunting and transporting their families from place to place — the first great change that has taken place for ages in the condition of the Red Man of the North American woods. The highest ambition of the young Indian of these northern tribes, is to possess a good horse for the chase of the buffalo. The Osages form large hunting-parties for the chase of horses in the country of the Red Canadian River, using relays of fresh horses, until they have run down the wild herds. To steal the horse of an adverse tribe is considered as an exploit almost as heroic as the killing of an enemy, and the distances that they will travel and the privations they will undergo in these predatory excur- sions are scarcely to be believed.” The Anglo-Americans, the Canadians, and the colonists of the West India Islands, have all acquired the domesticated horse. The Canadian is found principally in Canada and the northern states. He is supposed to be of French descent, and many of the celebrated trotters are of this breed. Mention will be made of some of these when the paces of the horse are described. These horses are much used for winter travelling in Canada and in the northern states. One of them has drawn a light cabriolet over the ice ninety miles in twelve hours. Their shoes are roughened by the insertion of two or three steel screws, instead of the common European method. The curry-comb is never used upon them in the winter, for a thick fur has grown over them to protect them from the inclemency of the season. They are animals never refusing the collar, yet they are accustomed to bad usage. Those of the United States are of every variety, but crossed
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