We passed great numbers of swine, feeding on these burs, and now and then a horned animal browsing on the cypress-moss where it hung low on the trees.  I observed that nearly all the swine were marked, though they seemed too wild to have ever seen an owner, or a human habitation.  They were a long, lean, slab-sided race, with legs and shoulders like a deer, and bearing no sort of resemblance to the ordinary hog except in the snout, and that feature was so much longer and sharper than the nose of the Northern swine, that I doubt if Agassiz would class the two as one species.  However, they have their uses—­they make excellent bacon, and are ‘death on snakes;’ Ireland itself is not more free from the serpentine race than are the districts frequented by these long-nosed quadrupeds.

‘We call them Carolina race-horses,’ said the Colonel, as he finished an account of their peculiarities.

‘Race-horses!  Why, are they fleet of foot?’

‘Fleet as deer.  I’d match one against an ordinary horse at any time.’

‘Come, my friend, you’re practicing on my ignorance of natural history.’

’Not a bit of it.  See! there’s a good specimen yonder.  If we can get him into the road, and fairly started, I’ll bet you a dollar he’ll beat Sandy’s mare on a half-mile stretch—­Sandy to hold the stakes and have the winnings.’

‘Well, agreed,’ I said, laughing, ’and I’ll give the pig ten rods the start.’

‘No,’ replied the Colonel, ’you can’t afford it.  He’ll have to start ahead, but you’ll need that in the count.  Come, Sandy, will you go in for the pile?’

I’m not sure that the native would not have run a race with Old Nicholas himself, for the sake of so much money.  To him it was a vast sum; and as he thought of it, his eyes struck small sparks, and his enormous beard and mustachio vibrated with something that faintly resembled a laugh.  Replying to the question, he said: 

‘Kinder reckon I wull, Cunnel; howsomdever, I keeps the stakes, anyhow?’

‘Of course,’ said the planter, ‘but be honest—­win if you can.’

Sandy halted his horse in the road, while the planter and I took to the woods on either side of the way.  The Colonel soon maneuvered to separate the selected animal from the rest of the herd, and, without much difficulty, got him into the road, where, by closing down on each flank, we kept him till he and Sandy were fairly under way.

‘He’ll keep to the road when once started,’ said the Colonel, laughing, ’and he’ll show you some of the tallest running you ever saw in your life.’

Away they went.  At first the pig seemed not exactly to comprehend the programme, for he cantered off at a leisurely pace, though he held his own.  Soon, however, he cast an eye behind him—­halted a moment to collect his thoughts and reconnoiter—­and then, lowering his head and elevating his tail, put forth all his speed.  And such speed!  Talk of a deer, the wind, or a steam-engine—­their gait is not to be compared with it.  Nothing in nature I have ever seen run—­except, it may be, a Southern tornado, or a Sixth Ward politician—­could hope to distance that pig.  He gained on the horse at every pace, and I soon saw that my dollar was gone!