12 
THE ASS, 
not step into any kind of mud if it can help it. It 
can bear cold very well, but its own land is a hot 
one, and it will not grow so fine here. 
The Wild Ass runs so fast that no one can get 
near it. Now and then, men go out to hunt it, but 
it is very rare for them to take it, and then it is in 
a trap : nor is it easy to tame the Wild Ass when 
they have got it, for it will rear, and bite, and kick 
any one who goes near it, so that the only use that 
they make of it is to eat it, and I am told it is very 
good for food, and like beef. 
In the East the Ass is used to ride upon by rich 
men, but it is not kept as we keep it ; it is well fed 
on corn, and not left to pick up any food it can get. 
It was much used in the Holy Land, as I am sure 
you must have been told. 
The Ass has very sure feet, so that it is not apt 
to fall down, and the mule, who is a kind of Ass, 
will go up and down a very high path and not fall 
or slip : but the mule is not nice to ride upon, when 
the path goes by the side of a rock, for it will have 
its own way, and that way is to go as near as it can 
to the edge of the rock, so that any one on its back 
must feel as if he were up in the air, for he will be 
just over the side of the rock, and must fear a fall 
very much, I am sure. 
