riant and romantic beauty. We crossed the stream--not
by the narrow bridge, but by the ford; and, passing through the
straggling stone village of Simon's Bath, arrived in sight of the field
where the Tattersall of the West was to sell the wild and tame horse
stock bred on the moors. It was a field of some ten acres and a half,
forming a very steep slope, with the upper path comparatively flat, the
sloping side broken by a stone quarry, and dotted over with huge blocks
of granite. At its base flowed an arm of the stream we had found
margining our route. A substantial, but, as the event proved, not
sufficiently high stone fence bounded the whole field. On the upper
part, a sort of double pound, united by a narrow neck, with a gate at
each end, had been constructed of rails, upwards of five feet in height.
Into the first of these pounds, by ingenious management, all the ponies,
wild and tame, had been driven. When the sale commenced, it was the duty
of the herdsmen to separate two at a time, and drive them through the
narrow neck into the pound before the auctioneer. Around a crowd of
spectators of every degree were clustered--'squires and clergymen,
horse-dealers and farmers, from Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire, as
well as South Devon, and the immediate neighbourhood.

These ponies are the result of crosses made years ago with Arab,
Dongola, and thorough-bred stallions, on the indigenous race of Exmoors,
since carefully culled from year to year for the purpose of securing the
utmost amount of perfection among the stallions and mares reserved for
breeding purposes. The real Exmoor seldom exceeds twelve hands; has a
well-shaped head, with very small ears; but the thick round shoulder
peculiar to all breeds of wild horses, which seem specially adapted for
inclemencies of the weather; indeed, the whole body is round, compact,
and well ribbed. The Exmoor has very good quarters and powerful hocks;
legs straight, flat, and clean; the muscles well developed by early
racing up and down steep mountain sides while following their dams. In
about forty lots the prevailing colours were bay, brown, and gray;
chestnuts and blacks were less frequent, and not in favour with the
country people, many of whom seemed to consider that the indigenous race
had been deteriorated by the sedulous efforts made and making to improve
it--an opinion which we could not share after examining some of the best
specimens, in which a clean blood-like head a