5f> THE ASS, WILD AXD TAME. 



By the side of the horse, we naturally place his humble congener 

 and compatriot, the Ass. 



Nor need we be ashamed to devote a few lines to this useful 

 animal, though civilization has appointed to it a very different lot 

 from that of the horse. 



While man has devoted his utmost efforts to ennoble, as it were, 

 and aggrandize the latter, to perfect his capabilities, develop his 

 qualities, embellish and vary his form, for the former he has had 

 nothing but contempt and harsh treatment. He has made the horse 

 the companion of his campaigns, the minister to his sumptuous 

 pleasures, the instrument of his grandest labours. He has dismissed 

 the poor ass to the fields to carry the heaviest burdens, to share in 

 the toil and privation of the peasant. In these different conditions, 

 who will wonder that while the horse has become a strong, graceful, 

 and proud-spirited animal, the ass, on the other hand, remains bowed 

 and bent, with a rough coarse hide, lanky limbs, a heavy head, 

 always drooping, as if under the weight of continual lassitude and 

 unconquerable melancholy, and long ungraceful ears, which give his 

 physiognomy an air of ridicule. Everything in him bears the impress 

 of degradation. How has he merited so obscure a destiny ? Alas, 

 he is the victim of an iniquitous caprice of man. For see him in his 

 natural condition ; contrast with the well-worn servant of civilization 

 the Onagra,* the free wild ass of the Steppes, with the Tarpan, and 

 the parallel will be wholly to the advantage of the former. The 

 onagra is at least of the same size ; his ears are short ; he carries 

 aloft a well-proportioned head ; his skin, of a handsome gray or 

 yellowish-brown, is sleek and shining ; his limbs are long, delicate, 

 and nervous. He lives in very numerous troops, and migrates from 

 north to south, and south to north, according to the season. The 

 Tartars employ him as a beast of transport and the saddle rather 

 than as a beast of burden. They eat his flesh, preferring it to that 

 of the wild horse. Even the domestic ass of the East differs notably 



* The Onagra is identical with the Koulan (Equus hemionus) of Ihe Persian. It is 

 described in the Book of Job, ch. xxxix. 5-8. 



