THE POITOU MULE. 91 



The Americans also attend tlie fairs, and buy many mules, 

 which they export from Nantes and St. Nazaire. It may 

 be asked_, why don't the Americans buy the asses too ? 

 For the reason that the male asses are not brought to the 

 fairs. They are a great deal too valuable to be exposed 

 for public sale, and are disposed of privately, and then only 

 with the greatest possible form and ceremony. 



The principal mule fairs are held in the winter (in 

 January and February), the mules having been for some 

 two or three months previously released from work and got 

 as fat as possible for sale. In very many cases, however, 

 the country has been previously scoured by the Spaniards 

 and marchands du Midi, who readily buy all the good 

 animals they can lay their hands on. The best mules are 

 generally to be procured at these winter fairs. In the 

 summer fairs, which are held only very occasionally, it is 

 as hard to find one really good mule as it is to find a 

 hundred in the winter ; but the transport is of course 

 much easier in summer than in winter. 



As a general rule, the mules in Poitou are by no means 

 well " done ; '^ on the contrar}^, they are poorly fed, and 

 hardh' worked. They are broken at two years old and 

 worked till they are three or four, Avhen they are fed 

 up and sold. If they were fed in proportion to the work 

 got out of them, or if they were not quite so hardly worked, 

 they would grow into much finer animals than they do. 

 It is amusing to see the manner in which these mules 

 are broken. At two years old their education com- 

 mences, and it is no uncommon sight to see eight young- 

 mules harnessed to a cart, one in front of the other (with 

 an old horse in the shafts, termed the litiiomer)^ belonging 

 to eight different proprietors, each one carefully leading 

 his oAvn animal, alternately caressing and swearing at 



