I had seen in the plains, clothing the surface for miles together. This species must be capable of bearing very severe cold, for 20° below zero is a point that is occasionally reached here. [Sidenote: _American Horses._] American horses are, speaking generally, better than ours. Their average character is higher. Though we probably in most classes have some animals that are more showy, and even better adapted to their work, yet certainly they have fewer poor brutes. With us everything that is in the form of a horse fetches money, from the stylish pair which everybody notices in the Park, down to the costermonger’s pony. Manifestly inferior animals do not appear to be bred at all in America. There is a point they do not fall below, and that point admits of bone and blood enough to be noticed. Their horses have another merit also. As a general rule, they do just what is required of them, and nothing more. It is rare to see one that jibs, or shies, or stumbles, or misbehaves himself in any way. I cannot say whether it is that, being sounder in body, they are sounder also in mind; or whether it is to be attributed to some superiority in the American method of breaking in their horses; or whether the moral effects of maize are superior to those of oats; though indeed I see from the returns that in some parts of the country a large quantity of the latter kind of grain is raised. As American drivers have more confidence in themselves and their fortune than any drivers in the world, and are ready at any moment to run any risks, this rationality and docility of their horses is a valuable quality. One frequently does not know which to admire most, the skill and nerve of the driver, or the intelligence and training of the horses. In passing over the plains you find that only some of the streams are bridged. The bridges, however, appear to one who is new to the country to be very inadequate to what is required of them. They generally consist of two long pine trees laid from bank to bank, or, if the stream is wide, from pier to pier, and then covered with a corduroy of cross pieces, sometimes a little dressed; the interstices are filled up with prairie hay, which is strewed over the whole structure. To save material and cartage, these bridges are made just wide enough for the wheels of the coach. I do not think there could have been a foot to spare on either side. There is no side railing of any kind. The driver, with four or six horses as it may happen, generally takes them at his best pace. Any hesitation, or a false step, or any kind of misconduct in any of the horses, would lead to a mishap. But then, mishaps never occur, or only so seldom as just to show that such things are not impossible. This, however, is a momentary affair, and by the time that one has noticed that the cross pieces are not fastened, but are starting and dancing under the feet of the horses and the wheels of the coach, the other side is reached.