THE DONKEY. 121 



graded to the lowest kinds of drudgery. Non- 

 conformist as he is, he is more of a Tory than 

 the horse. He cannot fit himself to changed 

 circumstances. He is like the free Caribs, whom 

 the Spaniards tried to reduce to slavery ; the 

 condition is so foreign to his nature that he can- 

 not fall in with it without losing all the nobler 

 traits of his old self. It crushes him. He is 

 proverbially patient, but his patience has that in 

 it which suggests the despondency of a slave. 

 Yet obstinate and inert as he occasionally is, he 

 cannot, even in his environment of bondage, be 

 considered a fool. If he seems of dull intellect, 

 it is chiefly because we have removed him so far 

 out of his natural sphere. The duck and goose 

 show a like change of character when they come 

 under the influence of man. In the wild state, as 

 every sportsman knows, they are among the most 

 vigilant and cunnincr creatures in the w^orld. A 

 wild goose is proverbially wild, while a tame 

 goose is proverbially "a goose." The fact is that 

 their natural talents have no scope at all when 

 they are removed from the environment in which 

 these talents were first developed. Because such 

 mental qualities as they possess are hidden, the 

 casual observer jumps to the conclusion that they 



