Flanders horses were brought to New York in 1625 and English horses to Massachusetts in 1629. Previous to these importations, however, English horses had been landed in Virginia, and in 1647 the first French horses reached Canada, being landed at the still very quaint village of Tadousac. Indeed, during all the colonial times there were many importations as well as much breeding, for on horseback was the only way a journey could be taken, except by foot or in a canoe. They needed good serviceable horses, and they obtained them both by importation and breeding. I suspect that the general run of horses in the Colonial era in New England and along the Atlantic seaboard was very similar to the horse that is now to be found in the province of Quebec, Canada. Every one who has visited this province knows that these habitant horses are very serviceable and handy, besides being quite fast enough for a country where the roads have not been made first class. Harnessed to a calash, an ancient, two-wheeled, French carriage, they take great journeys with much satisfaction to their drivers and small discomfort to themselves. Then the Colonists had the Narragansett pacer, a horse highly esteemed not only for speed but for the amble which made his slow gait most excellent for long journeys. When Silas Deane was the colleague of Benjamin Franklin at the French Court during the Revolutionary War, he proposed getting over from Rhode Island one of these pacers as a present for the queen. Indeed, there are those who maintain stoutly that the virtues of the American trotter as well as the American saddle-horse came from these pacers. That may be the case so far as the trotters are concerned, for of the horses bred to trot fast, as we shall presently see, more are pacers than trotters. As a matter of fact, however, Barbs are apt to pace, and these Narragansetts may have had such an origin. In the blood of all our horse types there is some proportion of Barb blood, and we find pacers among all except Thoroughbreds. I am sure I never saw a Thoroughbred that paced, or heard of one. The history of the American horses with which we are concerned to-day may be said to have begun after the War of the Revolution. But the basic stock upon which the blood of the post-revolutionary importations was grafted was most important and also interesting. It was gathered from every country having colonies in North America and blended after its arrival. The Spanish and French blood was strongly Oriental and mixed kindly with that from Holland and England. At any rate, when Messenger came in 1788 and Diomed in 1799 there was good material in the way of horse-flesh ready and waiting to be improved. CHAPTER TWO ARAB AND BARB HORSES