That part of Quebec nearest them has never been rich in horses nor in anything else which the Provincials want, or in which they trade. The people of eastern New England are their natural trading neighbors, and the city of St. John, New Brunswick, especially in the past, the common market place; and almost all the earlier Maritime trotting sires trace through St. John to Maine, or some of the other New England States. It is a fact, too, that for generations enterprising horsemen, in the lower provinces, have been importing American trotting stallions for service, and to-day the trotting stock of these provinces is very thoroughly Americanized. While the exportation of horses, principally to Boston and Bangor, is one of the industries of Nova Scotia and of Prince Edward Island especially, almost without exception trotting and pacing stallions in use there are imported American horses, or the descendants of American trotting sires; while, as we have noted, the foundation stock came chiefly from Maine, and in very small degree from Ontario or Quebec. In either of the Maritime provinces it is a rarity to find a trotting horse that has not more or less of American blood. CHAPTER XIII. ANTIQUITY AND HISTORY OF THE PACING HORSE. The mechanism of the different gaits—The Elgin Marbles—Britain becomes a Roman province—Pacers in the time of the Romans—Bronze horses of Venice—Fitz Stephen, the Monk of Canterbury—Evidence of the Great Seals—What Blundeville says—What Gervaise Markham says—What the Duke of Newcastle says—The amble and the pace one and the same—At the close of Elizabeth’s reign—The Galloways and Hobbies—Extinction of the pacer—The original pacer probably from the North—Polydore Virgil’s evidence—Samuel Purchas’ evidence—The process of wiping out the pacer—King James set the fashion—All foreign horses called “Arabians”—The foreigners larger and handsomer—Good roads and wheeled vehicles dispensed with the pacer—Result of prompting Mr. Euren—Mr. Youatt’s blunder—Other English gentlemen not convinced there ever were any pacers.