Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 1/Wild asses
WILD ASSES.
BY THE LATE D. W. MITCHELL.
We are so accustomed in this equestrian land to regard the ass, the ill-used, persecuted ass, with contempt and disdain, that an untravelled English- man can hardly bring himself to believe that such noble beasts exist as are sent from Goza at a hundred guineas a-piece to far Virginia, where mules of great stature are invaluable.
The asses of Goza are generally of a deep dark brown, varying to black. In Spain wre have a race of splendid animals of every shade of grey to creamy w hite, which last extend along the African coast to Egypt and Syria, where they are the Mollahs’ favourite hack. In Norfolk there are a few of these white asses, as w*ell as pied, all probably of Spanish origin, like the troop which were formerly at Stowre. Naturalists tell us that the domestic ass is descended from an animal which still roams in Abyssinia, ’clept the Onager, of which M. Delaporte, the French Consul at Cairo some time ago sent a specimen to the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris. He looks marvellously like an ordinary ass, notwithstanding, and has none of the gallant bearing of the hemiones, not even of the hemippes, which inhabit the same stable.
The hemione, gentle reader, otherwise the dsigghetai, is the wild ass of Western India: the hemippe is the wild ass of Mesopotamia and Syria. We have both Hemione and Hemippe in the Zoological Gardens, and the Gour to boot, — the wild ass of Persia. There is another wild ass in Asia, the Kiang, which inhabits the plateau of Thibet, and perhaps other parts of Central Asia. Colonel Hamilton Smith saw in London, many years ago, a wild ass from the Sikkim Frontier of China, which rejoiced in the name of “theYo-to-tze,” and was probably a kiang. If not, the yo-to-tze comes into our catalogue as Asinus equuleus or A. hippargua, for he gave it a couple of names.
Add to these the Quagga, the Dauw, and the Zebra, in South and West Africa, with possibly a new species in the East, on the banks of the White Nile, and you have the whole of the asinine family in review.
The qualities of speed, courage, and endurance which the wild asses possess are astonishing. Their beauty is only second to that of the horse, and in comparative strength they excel him immeasurably.
When we look at them it is a marvel how the ass
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The Zebra, the Gour, and the Kiang: the latter is the principal figure in the centre, partly covering two figures of the Gour.
can have become a by-word and reproach. "Come along, old horse,” is by no means an offensive expression in the Kentuckian parlance, but the slightest comparison to asinus, asne, âne, A. S. S, or any other form of the despised name, is equally a casus belli in all countries.
The seven-year-old zebra bit harder and kicked harder, and was more difficult to hold, than any horse Mr. Rarey ever handled. It took three hours and a-half to reduce him to first submission. Now, this particular zebra is a small zebra, who had been in confinement all his life, and may be said to have never fairly stretched his legs until he was put through his paces in the little theatre in Kinnerton Street.
His entr6e was wonderful. Although he was delivered to Rarey, lmr6dafxos, in a box, it was considered prudent by that admirable artist to take up a leg before he came out of it. The bit of heart of oak was put in his mouth as a preliminary to the leg business, and he made a sortie from the box like a lion rushing into the circus. He had three ropes to his head-stall, and three sturdy aides to guide him, and so accompanied, or rather with these three weights hung on to him, he was transplanted from his dcbarcadfere to the theatre. As soon as he was landed there, and confronted with his calm antagonist, the ropes were cast off, and he stood astonished in the midst. The struggle had perhaps taken the edge off his vivacity; it was the first time since his colthood that he had been seriously contrarié (except in getting him into the box that same morning), and so he contemplated the Tamer with a look of suspicion Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/467 Africa and Asia can be pitted against each other in a steeple chase. Mr. Layard has recorded the difficulty of riding up to the Mesopotamian animal, which M. Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire has had the merit of discriminating as a perfectly distinct species. He calls it the Hemippe, Equus hemippus from an approach to the horse in its shortened ears and better furnished tail. The little female in the Zoological Gardens was sent home by the late Mr. Burckhardt Barker, during his last journey to Syria, and she is probably the only hemippe which has been seen in England. The hemippe is necessarily the wild ass of Scripture.
The tribesmen of Daghestan himt the wild ass of Persia by relays, just as Xenophon describes the chase of his day in the Anabasis. The Gour is too clever to be stalked, and far too fast to be ridden up to: and so they drive him. The hunting party sally forth to the plains when the gours are feeding, and post themselves one by one on the flank of the line which the herd are most likely to take on being disturbed, and then they are started. The first horseman gets upon the best terms he can with them, and makes furious running: if he is fortunate enough to give them the right direction, it is taken up by the second man at the nearest point to his station, and so they go at a terrific pace until distress or accident brings the gour within reach of a gun. He is despatched like a driven deer, and they say he makes a famous roast. The Jews were forbidden ass meat, but the loose Mohammedans of Persia make no difficulty about this equine gibier. The gour differs scarcely, if at all, from the wild ass of Western India. His range extends from the western limit of the desert which bounds upon the Cutch, through Daghestan to the Mazanderanee shore of the Caspian Sea, and thence he may go eastward we know not how far.
But in Ladak and Thibet we have a perfectly different species, first known probably to Pallas, but rediscovered by Mr. Hodgson, who gives us for it the vernacular name of Kiang, and the scientific Shibboleth of Equus or Asinus polyodon. This has clear demarcations of form, colour, and dentition. Its colour is a deep rusty chestnut with white underparts, which in the living animal afford a brilliant contrast, especially in its close and glossy summer coat. In winter, from the high elevation at which he lives, the kiang grows a longer covering than any of the wild races; and from his extreme hardiness as well as size (for the males stand fourteen hands), he would make a desirable addition to our acclimatable series.
Mr. Thomason, who for many years administered the government of the North-West Provinces of Bengal, once gave a kiang to the Zoological Society. If he had lived, it was his intention to have sent a subsequent supply to begin a breeding-stud. The individual kiang in question came into his hands unexpectedly, having been brought down to the great fair at Almorah by a party of Bhootiahs, who promised to bring more in the following year. The kiang was accompanied by a little Bhootiah pony, for whom he had conceived the most extraordinary attachment. The pony was never out of his sight, and being particularly good-tempered, afforded great facilities for controlling him. It was only necessary to lead the pony, to be sure that the kiang would follow. They were shipped on board an unfortunately small vessel at Calcutta, en route for England, and it appoars that they bore the inconveniences of life at sea with equanimity, and would in all probability have performed the voyage in perfectly good health had they not encountered so stiff a gale off the Cape of Good Hope that the captain had to lighten his vessel. Finding the kiang and his fidus Achates rather more inconvenient than his dead cargo, he began by throwing them overboard. The death of Mr. Thomason put an end to the hope of effecting the more extended importation which he had promised. Major Huy, who contributed largely toward the collection of Indian pheasants in 1857, has now brought with him on his return from India a fine female kiang, which actually figures for the first time in the catalogue of the Zoological Society, and completes their series. This animal was obtained by Major Huy from the Chinese Governor of Rûdôgh, in Little Thibet.
The herd of Indian wild asses in the Jardin des Plantes is immensely valued there, and not without reason. The paterfamilias is a magnificent beast, perfectly docile, clean-limbed, and of the purest colour. If he had been broken to harness, he wonld have done good work. He is growing old now. His stock are not quite equal to himself, but under more favourable treatment would probably have attained greater size at their age. Tho mules between the hemione and the common ass are extremely good animals, taking most after the hemione, and may bo very usefully employed, if properly handled, in their second and third year. A pair of these mules used to work at the roller in the Zoological Gardens six or seven years ago — rather hard in the mouth, but not intractable, although they were seven years old when first put into shafts. There was a mule between the Indian wild ass and Burchell's zebra at Knowsley, but that presented no improvement on either species, and nothing therefore was gained by the cross. The mules between BurchelTs zebra and the common ass are particularly hardy animals, stout, and as fast as ponies of the first class. The Zoological Society’s cart was drawn about town, some twenty years ago, by a pair of them, driven tandem fashion—a very good advertisement—and it is only surprising that their perfect conduct did not induce a continued production of this useful cross, which is as desirable as any hybrid can be.
When we consider the small amount and rough quality of keep bestowed on the common ass in proportion to the work he does, the patient endurance of bad treatment which he has undergone from generation to generation, we cannot but wonder that he makes so bad a figure by the side of his petted and cherished rival.
The wild horse is unknown to us: he exists nowhere now at all events, any more than the wild camel; so that we do not know what has been done for him in the way of improvement on the original stock, but we are certain that every aid which skill and money can produce has been given to horse-breeding, and that even now new efforts are being made to add to liis qualities. Had a fractional part of these labours been bestowed on the oppressed and neglected ass, he would not be the miserable dwarf that we too often see. And when we have such elements to deal with as the hemippe, the gour, the kiang, the hemione, and the three zebras, each more brilliantly coloured than the other, why should we not, like the Queen of Portugal, have our zebra teams, or, like the Zoological Society, our zebra tandems? Why should we not have our phaétons à quatre hémiones, and scour the Bois de Boulogne with our hemippes au grand galop as the Chaldeans drove them over the Mesopotamian Plain?
Their mouths are a little hard, perhaps, but hand and patience would overcome that difficulty, and after two or three generations of careful breeding they would gradually acquire as an hereditary quality that aptitude for direction so astonishingly developed in the horse — a quality which, though multitudes use him, but few indeed fully understand.