Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1893 — Horses of the South. [ARTICLE]

Horses of the South.

The horses which we used on the sea prairie were the regular Texan ponies. They were patient, plucky brutes, which took the knee deep plodding over the wet gsound philosophically, and always took us home safely, no matter how dark the night or how great the distance. After dark the marsh country was baddish looking, and the trail was winding enough, but the ponies always knew the way home. In Louisiana we experimented with the ’Cajun ponies, which I believe to be the smallest, most ill-conditioned, most despondent horses of the earth. Tete Rouge and Pinto were the names the Chifcf bestowed upon our mounts. Tele Rouge was a brilliant sorrel red, mane and all, whence his name. He was the tinniest, scrubbiest, dirtiest, sorriest horse that ever was, and no man could look at the reproach in his eye without a blush of shame at the thought of asking him to carry anything more than hi 9 own load of grief. Yet Tete Rouge was a good hunting pony, because his disposition was always the same, and he would stay where you put him. He was tired, very tired. He didn’t care whether school kept or not. It made him groan to step over a cotton row, and at a ditch he made only the feeblest bluff at a jump, waiting calmly with his feet in the middle of the ditch until I got off and lifted him over. It was no use swearing at Tete Rouge. He didn’t care a cent what you said about him. He was totally, absolutely, depravedly tired. I wanted to make a picture of Tete Rouge, but he was lying down at the time, and I couldn’t get him to stand up. Nearly all the quail hunting in Louisiana is done on horseback. When the dogs find a bevy the shooters dismount and tie up. in Mississippi also they hunt in this way, and in the fearfully rough country about New Albany I found a horse the greatest luxury to have. Indeed, he is a poor man who hunts much afoot in the South. The horses of Northern Mississippi we found to be the best we had met. They showed the blood of near-by Kentucky and Tennessee. Shooting, even with so good a mount between times, is hard work in so hilly a country ns Upper Mississippi, but the birds were abundant and flew as strong as grouse. It may be remembered that in the Southern field trials at New Albany the party put up twenty-nine bevies the first day out—[Forest a«d Stream.