ZEBRAS. 349 



their brindled tails aloft, helter skelter, away they thunder down 

 craggy precipices, and over yawning ravines, where no less agile 

 foot could dare to follow them." 



Attention has already been drawn to the fact that camels have 

 lately been seen roaming free in certain parts of Spain, and 

 strong probabilities exist that at one time zebras were also to be 

 seen in a wild state scampering over the hills in that country, for 

 Mr. W. D. Mitchell, in an article he wrote on wild asses about 

 thirty years ago,^ states that " M. Ramon de la Sagra has dis- 

 . covered a tradition of the former existence of an animal called 

 zebro and zebre in the mountains which separate Galicia from 

 Castille and Leon, and in • the Cordilleras to the south of them. 

 It seems that the notices which fell into his hands relate to the 

 tenth and thirteenth centuries ; they occur in the same manuscript 

 letters of the monk Iray Martin Sarmiento, who lived in the con- 

 vent of St. James of Oompostello, about a hundred years ago. 

 Zampiro, who wrote in the tenth centary, speaks of the mons 

 zebrar'wm, and the Archbishop of Rodrigo, who wrote in the 

 thirteenth century, quoting the same passage of Zampiro, changes 

 mons zebrarwrrij into mows onagrorum, supposing the animal called 

 zebra to be the onager of the ancients. There are several moun- 

 tains in Spain which have borne this name ; so that, according to 

 Sarmiento, the animal, whatever it was, seems to have been well 

 known, and widely dispersed from Galicia to Bstremadura and 

 Andalusia. This is a curious bit of lost acclimatation, but is 

 easily credible, as the Arabs might have brought zebras from 

 "Western Africa ; and if left quiet in the hill country, they would 

 have bred as freely as the horse has bred on the Pampas of South 

 America." 



In disposition the zebra is said to be so fierce and obstinate 

 that it is hard work to tame it, and at all times it is very un- 

 certain tempered. Individuals have, however, been domesticated 

 and employed as beasts of burden, but the experiment of 

 rearing a race of them for use does not appear to ever have 

 been tried, although the Dutch farmers used occasionally to 

 catch the young foals and export them, chiefly to the Mauritius, 



" Once a Week, vol. i. 



