characteristics of original wildness upon them than
upon their recently escaped American brethren.
Col. H. Smith, on information derived from various persons familiar with the Tartar horses, and in particular from a Cossack, who was "a perfect model of an independent trooper of the desert, and who had spent ten or twelve years on the frontier of China," considers that there is upon the steppes a true wild race, as well as a feral or emancipated one, and that the habits of the one are so distinct from those of the other, that the two kinds are distinguished by name; the feral horse being denominated muzin, the wild tarpan. The latter are said to be irreclaimable; when captured they often break their necks in their violent struggles, and, if not, they pine and die. In fighting they rise up, strike with the fore feet, try to crush their adversaries, and bite with much ferocity.
On the vast plains of South America the horses have increased prodigiously; they scour the sea-like country in troops of thousands. In a certain sense, however, these are not free; for a nominal ownership over them is claimed, according to the proprietorship of the lands on which they feed. Large enclosures, called corrals, are formed, into which they are occasionally driven for the purpose of slaughtering them, the hides being a valuable object of commerce. When required for the saddle, the horses are caught by means of the lazo, in which the Gauchos or native inhabitants are very expert, even from childhood. The lazo is a plaited thong, half an inch in diameter, and forty feet in length, composed of several strips of hide properly cured, intertwisted, and rendered supple
