THE HORSE. 
Ill 
HISTORY. 
agile kind of Ass is found. In Cairo, numbers of them are to be seen standing ready saddled for hire, serving the same purpose 
as hackney-coaches with us. They are treated by their owners in the same manner as horses, rubbed carefully, and fed on 
chopped straw, beans, and barley. They are healthy, cheerful, and gentle, and the safest animals that can be ridden. Their 
usual pace is a pleasant amble, and they carry their riders rapidly and without fatigue from place to place in the straggling city. 
The Asses of the caravans of the interior frequently arrive in Egypt, after having carried their riders sixty days and more through 
the deseits, as fresh as if they had started the day before. It is in situations like these that the services which this creature 
rendeis save him from the unmerited contempt which elsewhere accompanies him. 
Of the Asses of European countries, those of Greece, Italy, and Spain, have long possessed the greatest reputation for their 
superior qualities. Greece had the means of obtaining the Asiatic races from the countries on the Black Sea and the Caspian. 
Those of Arcadia are celebrated by early writers, and Cappadocia is mentioned as supplying Greece with a valuable race. The breeds 
of modern Greece and the islands of the Archipelago, though treated with the neglect with which every thing useful is treated in 
those countries, are still greatly superior to those of the northern parts of Europe. The Romans paid extreme attention to the 
1 earing of this animal; and in the days of the Empire paid enormous sums for procuring those that were the most beautiful and 
of the finest races. Italy still produces Asses of a valuable kind. But of all the countries of Europe, Spain is the most dis¬ 
tinguished for these animals. Many of them are fifteen hands high, and of corresponding strength and fine figure. The com¬ 
munication of this country with the East and with Africa, doubtless produced an early attention to the race; and the extensive 
employment of the Mule has since caused an extreme care to be devoted to the rearing of the parent stock. The Asses of Spain 
are more numerous than the horses. 
In the IS ew World, the Ass, like all the domesticated animals of the Old, has found a habitation suited to his condition. He 
is sometimes employed in the bearing of travellers and burdens through the terrible passes of the Andes, and then he - manifests 
his courage, his fidelity, and his sagacity. He bears his rider along the ledge of the precipice, where the foot can scarcely find a 
resting-place, and where a false step would entail destruction upon both. Sometimes he descends declivities so steep and dangerous 
that they seem impassable. The faithful creature stops when he arrives at the edge of the descent, pauses, and will not move 
until he has piepared himself for the danger. He views the path before him, and at length, bringing his hinder legs beneath him, 
he glides down the precipice with frightful rapidity. He follows the winding of the path as if he had fixed in his mind the very 
track he was to follow. The rider trusts all to his guidance : the slightest check of the rein might disturb the equilibrium, and 
cause both to be hurled down the abyss. 
In the British Islands, asses are in great numbers, chiefly used by the poorer classes. The animal seems to have been known 
in England even during the reign of the Anglo-Saxon Kings, but their numbers were very small; for even in the reign of 
Elizabeth they were regarded as foreign to the land. During the reign of James I., however, they had become common. 
They are now an object of economical importance. They are chiefly, indeed, the property of the poor; but whoever owns them, 
they are beasts of useful labour, largely used by a numerous class, and meriting more attention than they have yet received. 
Great numbers of she-asses are kept about London and the larger towns, for the purpose of supplying a mild, salutary, and nutri¬ 
tive liquid to the infirm. 
Although the Ass does not well support the temperature of the higher latitudes, yet beyond a question the breed could be 
greatly improved even in countries colder than our own. Were a proper selection to be made of the parents for breeding, and 
were the young to be properly fed, so that their form might be developed, and were they to be sheltered from the inclemency of 
the weather in the same manner as the Horse, we should succeed in rearing asses greatly superior in strength and spirit to the 
diminutive creatures which we see on our highways and commons. The animals, indeed, are mostly in the hands of those who 
have not the means to procure proper males, or pursue a right system of management; but on this account it is the more im¬ 
portant that some attention should be paid to the subject by the wealthier classes. Our commercial relations with Spain and the 
Levant would enable us, at no great cost, to improve the defective races of the country by the easiest means. 
Besides the direct services which the Ass can render to us as a beast of burden, he is endowed with the faculty of propagating 
a race of animals superior to himself in strength, and equal in sagacity, patience, and fortitude. The Mule is a creature invaluable 
in the countries in which he is reared for his many and varied services. In Spain, he is the beast of burden the most generally 
used and esteemed. He is employed in coaches and chariots of all kinds, and used for the saddle even by people of condition, as 
safe, hardy, and suited to distant journeys. In a rocky and precipitous country he is, of all known animals, the best adapted for 
the carrying of loads. He has the mountain habits of the Ass with the strength of his other parent. Countries divided from one 
another by high and precipitous mountains would remain separated in intercourse but for this hardy creature. In the transporting 
of merchandise across the dreadful cliffs of the Andes and Cordilleras,' no animal can be compared with the Mule. The parent 
