Note 43 — Chapter I · Why I went to Great Salt Lake City.—The various Routes.—The Line of Country traversed.—Diaries and Disquisitions. (continued 2)

The mustang is the Spanish mesteño. The animal was introduced by the first colonists, and allowed to run at large. Its great variety of coat proves the mustang’s degeneracy from the tame horse; according to travelers, cream-color, skewbald, and piebald being not uncommon. “Sparing in diet, a stranger to grain, easily satisfied whether on growing or dead grass, inured to all weathers, and capable of great labor,” the mustang-pony is a treasure to the prairie-man.

[44] According to Mr. Bartlett, the lasso (Span., “lazo”) is synonymous with “lariat” (Span. “lariata”). In common use, however, the first word is confined to the rope with which buffaloes, mustangs, or mules are caught; the second, which in the West is popularly pronounced “lariet,” or “lariette,” more generally means the article with which animals are picketed. Many authors, however, have made “lariat” the equivalent of “lasso.” The Texans use, instead of the hide lasso, a hair rope called “caberes,” from the Spanish “cabestro,” a halter.