OF THE GKNUS liQULS. 85 



these forms, and by them I first recognised that the object of 

 my chace was of the ass tribe. The mane was short and 

 blacky as was also a tnft which terminated his tail. No line 

 whatever ran along his hack^ or crossed his shoulders, as are 

 seen in the tame species with us. When my followers of the 

 country came up, they regretted that 1 had not shot the crea- 

 ture when he was within my aim ; telling me that his flesh is 

 one of the greatest delicacies in Persia. The prodigious 

 swiftness and peculiar manner with which he fled across the 

 plain, coincided exactly with the description that Xenophon 

 gives of the same animal in Arabia, (vide Anabasis, book i.). 

 But above all, it reminded me of the striking portrait drawn 

 by the author of the book of Job. 



" I was informed by the mehmendar, who had been in the 

 desert, when making a pilgrimage to the shrine of Ali, that 

 the wild ass of Irak Arabi differs in nothing from the one I 

 had just seen. He had observed them often, for a short 

 time, in the possession of the Arabs, who told him the crea- 

 ture was perfectly untameable. A few days after this dis- 

 cussion, we saw another of these animals ; and pursuing it 

 determinedly, had the good fortune, after a hard chace, to kill 

 it and bring it to my quarters. From it I completed my sketch." 



Allied to the khur, would seem to be the " Isabelline Ze- 

 bra" of Le Vaillant, observed by that author in large herds in 

 southern Africa, but met with by no subsequent traveller. — 

 " It was only under the twenty-fifth parallel," he states, "that 

 I found a kind of w^ild ass, of an isabelline or pale yellow co- 

 lour. This animal is, by the Greater Namaquas, styled the 

 White Zebra; but it is certainly a wild ass, for, instead of 

 having a striped skin like the zebra, it is of one colour, which 

 has a yellow tinge. No animal in all Africa, perhaps, is so 

 suspicious and so shy as this kind of ass. It appears every- 

 where in large herds ; but I could never get near enough to 

 fire at any of them. I have, however, in my possession, a 

 skin, which was employed to cover the hut of a savage."' 

 It is remarkable that there is here, also, no mention of a me- 

 dian dorsal stripe. 



Col. Hamilton Smith, in his notice of the isabelline ante- 

 lope (Redunca isabellina), suggests that — " It may be asked 

 here if the female of this animal can have been mistaken by 

 M. Vaillant for a kind of wild Equus, which he designates as 

 an isabella-coloured zebra. As the gallop of the preceding 

 species (Red.fulvo-riffula, H. Smith), is said to resemble the 

 action of a horse, the mistake may have occurred w^hen the 



' ' New .Journey,' English Translation, iii. page 34. 



