THE ASS. 33 



Mr. Weeks, a merchant, which he had formerly occupied, 

 to the no small surprise of that gentleman, who ima- 

 gined that from some accident the animal had never 

 been shipped on board the Ister. On the return of 

 this vessel for repair, however, the mystery was ex- 

 plained ; and it turned out that Valiante (so the ass 

 was called) had not only swam safely to shore, but, 

 without guide, compass, or travelling map, had found 

 his way from Point de Gat to Gibraltar, a distance of 

 more than two hundred miles, which he had never 

 traversed before, through a mountainous and intricate 

 country, intersected by streams, and in so short a period 

 that he could not have made one false turn. His not 

 having been stopped on the road was attributed to the 

 circumstance of his having been formerly used to whip 

 criminals upon, which was indicated to the peasants, 

 who have a superstitious horror of such asses, by the 

 holes in his ears, to which the persons flogged were tied ; 

 they would, therefore, as it were instinctively, shrink 

 from taking hold of the animal. 



The dulness and stubbornness of the ass, in Europe, 

 and in England, is the consequence of ill-treatment. 

 "We all talk of it," says a modern writer, "as the 

 stupidest of the browsers of the field ; yet if any one 

 shuts up a donkey in the same enclosure with half a 



D 



