another, that always did puzzle me a leetle; howsumever, I'll take my affadavy it's a fact, and what is more, there's the hill right in front on yer, gentlemen, and yer can see it fur yerselves! There ain't no gettin' over that, gentlemen!" This logic silenced the doubters, and S. remained master of the situation. The similarity of the experience of S. and Wheeler in some particulars may strike the hypercritical reader: only another proof that history has a tendency toward repeating itself in all ages and countries; nothing more, upon my honor.
These and many similar anecdotes we exchanged, my hunter friend and I, while Chirimoya amused himself munching the dry grass which grew in scattered tufts among the bushes, and from time to time varied the entertainment a trifle by essaying the feat of kicking a fly off the top of his rump with his hind feet,—a thing which cannot be done successfully. I have studied equine anatomy thoroughly, and have done my best, laboring long and earnestly with a club, to convince that noble brute that the thing is a physical impossibility; but it is all of no use; he will persist in trying it, I suppose, and setting all my counsel and instruction at naught, until he disjoints his back, turns himself inside outwards, or is promoted to a position in the shafts of a sand-cart, where he cannot lift his heels. The perversity of men and Spanish horses is something beyond my comprehension.
Speaking of hitting flies reminds me of a trifling incident, occurring about the commencement of our late civil war, on the Rio Grande. I saw an old,
