them had a wild, half-broken Mexican
horse, naturally vicious, and with difficulty mastered. His rider found
a small, dry tree, cut it down with a hatchet, and very imprudently
made it fast to his horse's tail by means of a rope. The animal took it
unkindly from the first, and dragged his strange load with evident
symptoms of fright; but when within a few hundred yards of the camp, he
commenced pitching, and finally set off into a gallop, with the cause
of all his uneasiness and fear still fast to his tail. His course was
directly for the camp; and, as he sped along the prairie, it was
evident that our horses were stricken with a panic at his approach. At
first they would prick up their ears, snort, and trot majestically
about in circles; then they would dash off at the top of their speed,
and no human power could arrest their mad career.

"'A stampede!' shouted some of the old campaigners,--a stampede! Look
out for your horses, or you'll never see them again,' was heard on
every side. Fortunately for us, the more intractable horses had been
not only staked, but hobbled, before the panic became general, and were
secured with little difficulty; else we might have lost half of them.
Frequent instances have occurred where a worthless horse has occasioned
the loss of hundreds of valuable animals.

"Nothing can exceed the grandeur of the scene when a large _cavallada_,
or drove of horses, takes a 'scare.' Old, weather-beaten, time-worn,
and broken-down steeds--horses that have nearly given out from hard
work and old age--will at once be transformed into wild and prancing
colts. With heads erect, tails and manes streaming in the air, eyes lit
up, and darting beams of fright,--old and jaded hacks will be seen
prancing and careering about with all the buoyancy which characterizes
the action of young colts. Then some one of the drove, more frightened
than the rest, will dash off in a straight line, the rest scampering
after him, and apparently gaining fresh fear at every jump. The throng
will then sweep along the plain with a noise which may be likened to
something between a tornado and an earthquake; and as well might feeble
man attempt to arrest the earthquake as the stampede."

THE PONY.

This is a variety of the horse--its small stature being the result of
the climate in which it is bred. The most remarkable kinds are produced
in Wales, the Highlands of Scotland, and the Shetland Isles.

_Miscellaneous Anecdotes._--O