It is probable, however, that even Pizarro was not prepared for the extraordinary part that was presently to be played by those very animals that he had with him.
For before he had advanced very far it became apparent to him that the native Indians had never in their lives before set eyes upon a horse, and thus it happened that when presently they beheld Pizarro's advancing cavaliers, their attitude, which until then had been both threatening and defensive, became almost immediately changed to one of terror.
Pizarro was at first amazed at this. Then as the Indians suddenly and of one accord turned and fled, uttering, as we are told, “strange and shrill cries,” the truth flashed in upon him—his mounted men had been mistaken by them for some kind of weird creature, possibly something in the nature of a centaur!
As one writer says, “consternation seized the Indians when they saw a cavalier fall from his horse, for they were not prepared for the division into two parts of a creature that had seemed to them to be but a single being.”
In a letter addressed to Henry Bullinger by Bishop Hooper there is a statement to the effect that “two most beautiful Spanish horses” were received by Edward VI. from the emperor, Charles V., on 26th March, 1550, and that the king expressed his delight at the gift by giving way to “extravagant conduct.”
The incident is of interest because poor young Edward VI. was not supposed to be fond of horses. Yet Camden, the famous antiquary, who lived between 1551 and 1623 and was in a position that should have enabled him to speak with authority, gives it as his opinion that the lad took interest in horses of all kinds.
Hargrove, in his “History and Description of the ancient City of York,” maintains that the origin of horse racing can be traced back “even to the time of the Romans,” a statement apt to prove misleading if we take it quite literally.
That horse racing of a sort can be traced back to a very remote period has already been indicated, but, as we have also seen, almost the only kind of racing in which the Romans took keen interest was chariot racing, so there is reason to believe that some of the early allusions to chariot races may unwittingly have been confused with horse races by some of our later historians.
In a letter that appeared recently in a newspaper published in Ireland, and that dealt at length with the supposed origin of horse racing, the writer remarked with unconscious humour that “undoubtedly the first races in England were held in Scotland.”
In this belief he was, of course, mistaken, though it is known that the Scottish people have from very early times been fond of horse racing, and that the great race meeting held in Haddington in 1552 attracted an enormous concourse of spectators from the Highlands and Lowlands alike.