136 ANIMALS USED IN WAR. 



run dry. During the South African War, the British Govern- 

 ment purchased 80,624, and though I have no actual figures to 

 guide me, I should say purchases during the late War amounted 

 to considerably over a quarter of a million. The strength 

 of mules in the British Expeditionary Force, France, alone 

 mounted to roughly 90,000. 



All sorts and sizes of mules are bred in the United States, 

 from the small miner 12-3 or 13-0 to the magnificent sugar mule 

 16-2 and over. It pays better to breed a mule than a horse, and 

 the market is for mining, lumber trade, and the cotton and 

 sugar industries of the South. The real home of the American 

 mule, and especially the large mule, is Missouri, though lighter 

 mules are raised in Texas. If the magic names of Lathrop, 

 Missouri and Kansas City are vi^hispered into the long ear of an 

 American mule he will immediately start a conversation about 

 his old home, blue grass, Indian corfi shucks and stover, his fine 

 big naother, his French and Spanish ancestry on his father's 

 side, and he will air his views on stock-yards and " niggers " 

 generally. The American mule is wonderfully docile, and to 

 my mind quite the most handsome creature of the genus 

 Bquidae, and loveable withal. His power is best appreciated 

 by standing close up to him : at a distance he may look mean. 



As a rider, a mule is of little value, a supreme will and an 

 iron mouth, as a rule, prove the drawback. 



Mr. Malcolm Moncrieffe of Wyoming, through whom we 

 purchased a large number of horses during the Boer War, used 

 to hunt a St. Louis mule in England. He was not equal to 

 taking a line of his own but he followed a lead all right. Mr. 

 Moncrieffe's only objection was that he never could talk to his 

 friends, as the aristocratic hunter was wont to turn up his nose 

 and snort at the plebeian and curious hybrid. The foreman of 

 a depot in the United States speaking, of a 14 hands mule, 

 '' Jack," which I sometimes rode, said to me on one occasion : 

 " That mule will give you a fall some day. I have never known 

 a mule that did not give a man a fall sometirne." " Jack " put 

 me into a barbed wire fence most perfectly. He could round 

 up stock, and gallop like smoke in the company of horses, 

 but by himself he lapsed into mulish ways. Vain as a peacock 

 with his tail trimmed in the American fashion, a white polo 



