The aborigines of America were not acquainted with the horse prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in their country. The Inca Garcillasso de la Vega, in his "History of the Civil War in India," tells us that the Peruvians, terrified at the sight of the first horseman, supposed that the man and the horse only formed one and the same individual. At a later date they imagined that the horses were formidable and malignant deities, whom they tried to conciliate by placing gold and silver in their mangers, and offering up prayers to them.
The Spanish Conquistadors, most of whom came from Andalusia, were mounted on steeds in whose veins flowed the blood of the Arabs, which the Moors had succeeded in naturalizing in Spain during an occupation of eight centuries.
When the conquerors obtained quiet possession of the New World, and began those internecine contests which cost so much blood, after every battle the wounded horses were usually left behind, while those whose masters were killed, escaped in obedience to that innate instinct in all living creatures, which urges them to try and regain their liberty.
These animals thus left to themselves, wandering haphazard over the great savannahs, gradually entered the desert, interbred, and at length multiplied so greatly that they formed bands or manadas, whose number has so increased that it has now become incalculable.
From these horses, which were originally abandoned and returned to savage life, has issued the remarkable breed known in the New World by the name of mustangs, or prairie horses. Now that racing is fashionable in France, and horse breeding has made immense progress, we do not think we are going out of our way in describing this valuable breed, which is unknown in the Old World, and to which sufficient justice is not done even in America.
At the time when I was at Guaymas, during the expedition of the unhappy Count de Raousset Boulbon I wanted a horse. Copers are as numerous in Mexico as in Europe, and probably cleverer and more cunning than ours in disguising the vices and defects of the animals they wish to get rid of; but unluckily for these clever dealers, and luckily for me, my long stay among the Indians of the Western Prairies had given me an almost infallible perception, and rendered it extremely difficult to deceive me as to the qualities of a horse.
When my wish to purchase a horse was known, there was an extraordinary rush of dealers to the house where I put up. I peremptorily declined all the animals offered me. My friends began to joke me and say that I should not find a horse to suit me, and be compelled to follow on foot the cavalry corps I commanded, when, on the very eve of departure, I was walking accidentally on the beach, and saw a Hiaquis Indian a few yards ahead of me, mounted on a horse whose appearance, in my friends' sight, had nothing very inviting about it, and so they laughingly invited me to deal. I feigned to humour them, although I had at once recognized the animal as a mustang of the Far West, and I took them at their word by making the Indian a sign to come and speak to me.
The horse was not handsome, I must allow; he was rather tall, had a big head, and a round forehead; his mane, which was thick and ill-kempt, hung down to his chest; his tail, which was not thick enough to wave, almost swept the ground; but his chest was wide and his legs were firm, while his eyes and nostrils announced fire, vigour, and bottom. Although the animal had never been shod, and its master, like all the Indians, had ill-treated it during the long journey it had made to reach Guaymas, still its thick hoofs were not at all worn or even damaged. It was black as night, with a white star about the size of a piastre, perfectly designed, and situated in the exact centre of the forehead.
At my summons the Indian started the horse at a gallop, and came up to me. I asked him bluntly if he wanted to sell his horse.
"Why not, excellency?" he answered with the wink peculiar to the Hiaquis. "Negro is a good beast; I lassoed him myself in the heart of the prairies of the Sierra de San Saba, hardly a month agone, and he has constantly gone fifteen to sixteen leagues a day."