RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
as many people as they need, and no more. But those who live in the old places, with their ample quarters, still gather the clans and are permitted to enjoy a most expansive and patriarchal sensation.
My horses, when I first saw them, were a source of the greatest pride. A beautifully matched pair of coal-black, stylishly-paced and glossy little stallions, hardly larger than Shetland ponies, they looked as if they had been washed in some sort of shrinking soap and had come out in perfect condition except that they were several sizes smaller than they ought to have been. These Philippine ponies are doubtless descendants of the Arabian horses brought over by the Spaniards and have been reduced to their present size by the change of climate and the difference in food and environment, but they still have the fine lines and the general characteristics of their progenitors.
Mr. Taft secured mine from Batangas, where all the best ponies come from, through the kindness of Mr. Benito Legarda, the staunchest of Americanistas. Batangas was a most unquiet province, the last, in fact, to become pacified, and Mr. Legarda had to pay an insurrecto for bringing the horses through the insurgent lines and delivering them at Calamba, near Manila. Although he did not know their exact origin when he bought them, Mr. Taft said that if the facts became known he would be accused, in certain quarters, of giving indirect aid to the revolutionists; but he wanted the ponies so he did not return them.
When they were hitched to the shining little Victoria which had been built for them, they were as pretty as a picture and, as I did not propose to have such a turn-out ruined by a couple of Filipinos on the box in untidy camisas hanging outside of as untidy white trousers, I had made for my cochero and boy, or coachman and footman, a livery of white and green in which they took such inordinate pride that they seemed to grow in stature and dignity.
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