Page:Hints to Horse-keepers.djvu/85

Rh in their wide nostrils and fine manes and tails. They have considerable spirit and fire, and are sometimes vicious at first, but when resolutely combated lack persevering pluck, and easily give up the contest. It is said, also, that although when first mounted they display much life, vigor and showy action, they lack hardihood and endurance. It is well proved that, in a wild state, they can be ridden down and captured without much difficulty by good trained domestic horses, even carrying the weight of a rider, whenever they can be approached sufficiently close to allow anything approaching to an equality in the start. They are, however, the cavalry horses of the Camanche and Apache Indians; and although they are confessedly unable to stand the shock of a charge of American troop-horses, it does not appear to us, from the facility with which they evade or frustrate the pursuit of our mounted regiments, and the extreme difficulty of bringing them to engagement, that they can be so deficient in endurance or power of sustaining fatigue as they have been represented. It is clear, however, that they are in all respects so far inferior to the American horse that they can never sustain any comparison with him. Nothing is to be gained by crossing them with our horses, and the only utility which they can ever subserve is as the riding animals of children or very young ladies. They do not generally run, so far as we can judge from the specimens which we have seen in the Northern States, to above 13 or 14 hands; and, though some of them are certainly pretty, graceful, elegant creatures, and some of them easy and light-going natural pacers, they have not impressed us favorably, as compared either with any of the imported European ponies, or with that of the northern Indians. It is, however, not only probable, but nearly certain, that we have not seen the best specimens of the breed, as they are not in very high