cr ihe real IVlld AJs. 6g 



i^ietro della Valle *, I fcarcelv know one traveller in tlio. Eaft 

 who has fpoken of the onager from his own obfcrvation. The 

 latter onlv mentions it in confcqiience of h.ning leen one 

 which was kept at BaiTora as a CLuiofny; and Oleariusf faw 

 fonie wild afles in a park in Perfia, where they had been col-' 

 lecttd for the purpoies of limiting. One of the okl'^ft European 

 travellers, who penetrated to the deferts of (Jreat Tartarv, I'le 

 monk Rubriquis :{:, firft makes mention of the Tartarian 

 n;une kulan, under which the wild afs is at prcfent known 

 by the wandering tribes of thofe countries. In the journal 

 of the two EnijIiTh travellers liogo-and Thoniplon, publiilicd .' 

 by Hanway§ in his Travels, mention is made of whole herds, 

 not only of anteojies and wild horfes, but alfo of wild alVos, 

 vhioh they met with in the neighbourhood of the lake Aral, 

 and in the courfe of their travels through the diftriits Iviu"! to 

 the caft of the CaCpian fea. 



'I'his impcrfec't information is almoft the whole ofwh.it is 

 found in the modern travellers rcfpeding the c'ciftence of the 

 wild ais in Afia, where this animal, in the time of the Ko- 

 m.ins, was generally known, as far as Leiier Afia, Syria, and 

 Arabia j). KeCpefting thofe in Africa our information is 

 e(]ually deficient; and I' can adduce no other tefiimonv of 

 their exiftence in that country, than what is to be found in 

 Leo Africanus and Marmol. For thofe laid to have exillcd 

 formerly in the Canaries in great abundance, were produced 

 troni tame afles fuft'ered to run wild, and are now entirely 

 iellroyed^. The cafe was the fame with thofe which, ac- 



cording; 



9 



* Voyage dc Pic-tro Uella Vallc, AjvJI. 1766, part Hi. p. 137, part vi. 

 105. 



t Olearius ReiTe nnch Perllcn, Srbfifiuig 1C56, p. 526. 



* Allgcrncine Gcl'cii. der Rcifen, vol. vii. b. 11. c. 1. 



§ Haaway's Hiftorical Account of the Britifli Trade on the Cafpiaa 



'C«, vol. i. p. 349. 

 jl Varro and riiny fpeak of the onager as an aninlal very common in 

 elTer Afia. Xenophon, Ssctonius, and Aiumiumis Marcellinus, iMVeiiic 



inic account in regard to M.fopocHmia, Perlia.and the kingdom of'l'.iitHia. 

 acitus in his account of the Ifrachies (ays, that du' ing their journey 



iroui;h the Arabian defert under tiie direction of MdCls. th.y often foU 

 wed :hc wild aflTcs, by which means tliey were enabled to difcover fprings. 

 he Scripture alfo fptaks tit the wild als as an animal very common in the 

 •.{\:n% borderin^^ on Palcftinc. None of the anticnt authors, however, ex- 

 pt Oppian, has left us a precifc dclcription of the onager; but it clearly 

 ipcars from 0,vpian, that under this name the antients underllood the wild 

 proper]/. fo called, which I have here detcrihcdi and, in my opinion, 

 we but PhiloftorgiiiK applies the above appellation to the icbra. 

 ^ See on this fubjefl the tcftimony of Aloyfins Cadamodo in the coi- 

 tion of R^tmufio, pnrt i.p. <)^-\ and what (llafs (ays, in his Dvlciiplioii 

 the Oariary Ifland^, of tiic general hunting match which ;hc inhabitants 



