WILD HORSES AND ASSES.
There are thousands of horses which are wild in the forests, and do not belong to any one. I was enabled to ascertain a fact, known to all who have travelled in this country. The horses live there in societies, generally to the number of five or six hundred, and even one thousand: they occupy immense savannas, where it is dangerous to disturb or try to catch them. In the dry season they are sometimes obliged to go two or three leagues, and even more, to find water. They set out in regular ranks of four abreast, and thus form a procession of an extent of a quarter of a league. There are always five or six scouts, who precede the troop by about fifty paces. If they perceive a man or jaguar (the American tiger,) they neigh, and the troop stops: if avoided, they continue their march; but, if an attempt be made to pass by their squadron, they leap on the imprudent traveller, and crush him under their feet. The best way is always to avoid them, and let them continue their route: they have also a chief, who marches between the scouts and the squadron, and five or six other horses march on each side of the band,—a kind of adjutants, whose duty consists in hindering any individual from quitting the ranks. If any one attempts to straggle either from hunger or fatigue, he is bitten till he resumes his place, and the culprit obeys with his head hanging down. Three or four chiefs march as the rear guard, at five or six paces from the troop. I had often heard, at Trinidad, of this discipline among the wild horses, and confess that I could scarcely believe it, but what I have just stated is a fact which I witnessed twice on the banks of the Guaripiche, where I encamped five days, for the express purpose of seeing those organized troops pass. I have met, on the shores of the Orinoco, herds of fifty to a hundred wild oxen: a chief always marched at the head, and another at the rear.
The people of the country have assured me, that the wild asses, when they travel, observe the same discipline as the horses; but the mules, though they also live in troops, are continually fighting with each other, and it has not been observed that they have any chief. They however unite, at the appearance of a common enemy, and display still more trick and address than the horses, in avoiding the snares which are laid for catching them, and also for escaping when taken.