ery unpleasant, being a kind of roll, which at
first, at any rate, gives one the feeling of sea-sickness. The animal
uses the fore and hind feet together alternately, as he literally runs
over the ground. It does not appear to be a natural pace, but is
carefully taught, and, once acquired, it is very difficult to break the
animal of it; his idea of trotting has become quite lost; nor is it a
pretty action, nor one suited to show off good qualities--it has always
something of a shuffle about it. If it has its advantages, except that
stirrups may be dispensed with, they are not very apparent to those
accustomed to the usual paces of an English horse. Personally, I
disliked it particularly.

There have been many efforts to introduce racing, with its contingent
improvement in the breed of horses, perhaps the earliest during the
regency of Espartero; but these ended, as most things did in the old
days when Spain was only beginning her long struggle for freedom, in
failure and loss to the enterprising gentlemen--of whom the then Duque
de Osuna was one--who spent large sums of money in the effort. The old
race-course of that time lay somewhere in the low ground outside Madrid
on the course of the Manzanares; many a good gallop I have had on it,
though it was abandoned and forgotten long ago by the Madrilenos. At the
present time horse-racing may be said to have become naturalised in
Spain under the _Sociedad del Fomento de la Cria Caballar_ (Society for
the Encouragement of Horse-breeding), and all that concerns horsemanship
is naturally improved and improving.

A good idea of Spanish horses may be gained by a visit to the Royal Mews
in Madrid. There are the cream-coloured horses from the royal stud at
Aranjuez, _jacuitas_ from Andalucia, as well as the mountain ponies of
Galicia. Those who have never seen the Spanish mule have no idea what
the animal is--powerful, active, graceful, and almost impossible to
injure. They are used in the royal stables and in those of the nobility,
for night work, since they are so hardy as not to be injured by long
waiting in the cold or wet. They are the correct thing in the carriages
of the Papal Nuncio and all ecclesiastics, and are generally preferred
to horses for long or difficult journeys. They are a great feature in
the army; kept in splendid condition and of great size, they not only
drag the heavy guns, but in the celebrated mountain artillery each mule
carries a small gun on his back