The leather called shagreen (q.v.) is made by a peculiar process from the skin of the ass, which also afl'ords excellent leather for shoes and the best material for drums. The bones of the ass, which are very solid, were used by the ancients for making flutes. See colored plate of Horses, and Plate of Equid^.
ASS, Feast of the. A burlesque ceremony
highly popular in northern France during the
Middle Ages. It was of the nature of a parody
on the service of the Church, but seems to have
been instituted in good faith and without any
intentional irreverence. It degenerated, how-
ever, into scuri'ilous indecency, and was pro-
hibited by the ecclesiastical authorities in the
Fifteenth Century. It was variously celebrated
in diderent places; thus, e.g. at Rouen it oc-
curred shortly before Christmas, and consisted
in the representation of a little farce, in the
principal scene of which Balaam's ass appeared
before the altar of the cathedral and uttered
a prophecy of the early coming of Christ. See
Abbot of .Joy.
ASSAB, as-siib', or S.4.BA, sa'ba. An inlet
of the Red Sea, on the African coast, near Bab-
el-Mandeb (Map: Africa, J 3). It is about 16
miles long by 5 miles wide, and about 50 feet
deep at Busna, the main anchoring-place. To-
gether with two small islands in front of it,
Assab was ceded to the Italian Government, in
1881, by an Italian steamship company, which
had accjuired it in 1869. The town of Assab is
situated at the entrance to the bay, and has a
population of 500.
ASSAI, as-si' (from the native Brazilian name
of the palm-tree). .-V beverage much used
at Para and other places on the Amazon. It
is prepared from the fruit of certain s])ecies of
palm nearly allied to the cabbage palm of the
West Indies. ( See Areca ; and Cabbage Palm. )
The assai palms are remarkably slender trees,
the most common species {Euterpe edulis) ris-
ing to the height of 60 or 80 feet, with a smooth
stem only about 4 inches in diameter. The
fruit is small, but is produced in great quantity
upon branched spadices, which are throun out
horizontally lieneath the crown of loaves. It
consists of a hard seed, with a very thin cover-
ing of a firm pulp or flesh. The tree grows in
swamps flooded by the high tides. Warm water
is poured upon the fruit; and by rubbing and
kneading, a licjuid is procured, consisting simply
of the |)u!p of the fruit and water, which is con-
stantly sold in the streets of Para, and of
which the inhabitants are extremely fond. This
is assai. It is a thick, cream.y liquid, of a
purplish color, and a flavor like that of a freshly
gathered nut. It is conunonly used with the
bread made from Manioc (q.v.), called farina,
and either with or without sugar. The stem of
the assai ])alm is sometimes used for poles and
rafters, and its terminal bud as a cabbage or as
a salad with, oil and vinegar; but it is too much
valued upon account of its fruit to he often cut
down for these purposes. Another species, Eu-
ter/ic cfilhir/fi, is found in forests of a dr}% sandy
Boil and very peculiar vegetation, known as
catinga forests. The be-erage made from it is
sweeter than the common kind, but the product
of tlic tree is much smaller,
ASSAL, as-siil'. An important salt-lake
in the east of Africa, near the head of the Bay of
Tajura, It is over 8 miles in length, and 4
miles broad, and its surface is over 530 feet
below the sea-level. Its shores are covered with
salt, which is exported in considerable quan-
tities to Abj'ssinia.
ASSAM'. A chief commissionship in the
north-eastern part of British India, bordering
on China, Burma, Manipur, and Bengal ( Jlap :
Burma, A 1 ) . Area, 52,078 square miles. The in-
terior belongs chiefly to the valley of the Brahma-
putra, while the territory on both sides of the
river is mostly mountainous. Among the moun-
tain districts are the Garo, Khasi, and .Jaintia
Hills. The streams are abundant and the lower
lands frequently suffer inundations. The climate
is moderate as regards temperature. The annual
rainfall in some sections is the heaviest on the
globe. The frequent occurrence of earthquakes
IS a great hindrance to the development of the
country. A large portion of the country is cov-
ered with jungle, in which elephants, tigers, leop-
ards, and other wild beasts >are found in abund-
ance. Large deposits of coal, iron, and petroleum
are known to exist, but only the first is exploited
to any extent. The soil is mostly very fertile, and
the extensive forests contain numerous useful
woods. The tea-plant is indigenous and tea-cul-
ture is making rapid strides. The area under tea
is now about 300,000 acres,and the tea plantations
are owned largely by Europeans. The great
staple of agriculture is rice. The principal ar-
ticles of export are rice, tea, silk, cotton, rub-
ber, ivory, and gold. The commerce is mostly
in the hands of the Jains, The population
in inOl was 0.122,201, showing an increase of
11.8 per cent, since 1891. Over 70 different l.m-
guages and dialects are spoken in Assam. The
seat of administration is Shillong.
The Assamese, or Ahoms, are probably a Hindu-Shan (ilongolian) mixed stock, with the Hindu element predominant. They are short and thickset, with coarse, black hair and Mon- goloid face. Their language has some right to be classed as a sister-tongue of Hindi, Bengali, etc., and not as a mere dialect of the latter. It is spoken by about 4,500,000 people, the standard dialect being that of Xowgong, The Assamese literature is extremely scanty, although it em- ploys a special alphalaet of its own. The As- samese have a national festival called Baisakh Bihu, a gay occasion, in which yoimg women especially are prominent. Besides the Assamese, the country contains a number of more primitive peoples (Lushai, etc.), whose language and folk- tales have recently been studied by Major Shakespeare (1898-99), Over 50 per cent, of the population are Hindu in faith. The JIo- hammedans number about 1,500,000.
Consult: Cooper, The Mishmee Hills (London, 1873); Hunter, tStntistical Account of .l.s.vnm (London, 1880) ; Reid, Chin-Lushai Land (Cal- cutta, 1894) ; Brown, Grainmatical Notes on the Assamese Language (Nowgong, 1893) ; Bron- son, Dictionary in Assamese and English (Sibsa- gor, 1867),
ASSASSINA'TION. The act of taking the life of any one by surprise or treacherous violence, either by a hired emissary, as in the case of political plots, or by a fanatic who hopes to further his ideas through the death of his victim, as in the case of anarchists (q.v.) in recent times. Generally the term is applied to the
