430 DESERT BEASTS OF BURDEN. 



We shall perhaps be pardoned if we offer a few 

 words of explanation, as to what we conceive to be 

 the precise effect of some of the allusions made use 

 of in this passage. 



Next to the camel, there can be no doubt that the 

 ass is the chief representative of the desert beasts of 

 burden, " and is hardly less than the camel a beast of 

 the desert. " * The Arab donkeys can go about two 

 days without water and many of the wealthy Arabs are 

 in the habit of riding donkeys, some of them being large 

 and beautiful animals of a pure white colour, with very 

 good action and easy motion: a great improvement on the 

 camel where very long marches are not required. The 

 wild ass is also specially a denizen, with certain species 

 of gazelles, of some of the most barren deserts in the 

 world, both in Asia and in Africa, and we believe we 

 are justified in saying that it is found, in its wild state, 

 only in such situations. 



In the Book of Job, for instance, the wild ass is 

 referred to in the following terms 



"Who hath sent out the wild ass free? 



Or who hath loosed the bounds of the wild ass? 

 Whose home I have made the wilderness, 



And the barren land his dwellings. 

 He scorneth the multitude of the city, 



Neither regardeth he the crying of the driver. 

 The range of the mountains is his pasture, 



And he searcheth after every green thing. " 



As regards the passage " He watereth the hills from 

 his chambers " it evidently refers to the ancient 



* See Arabia Deserta, by Charles M. Doughty, 1882, Vol. i., pp. 281 

 and 428. 



Job xxxix., verses 5 to 8 inclusive. 



