THE ASS
“Your uncle’s partiality, you have already been able to see, my
friends, is for the weak, the ill-treated, the unfortunate. I did not
try to eulogize the horse, the valiant animal commending itself
sufficiently to our esteem without that; but very gladly will I
enumerate the good qualities of the ass, sad victim of our brutality
despite the service it renders us. To give my words more authority I
will add Buffon’s testimony to my own.
“‘The ass,’ says the illustrious historian of animals, ‘is not a
degenerate horse, as many imagine; it is neither a foreigner nor an
intruder nor a bastard; like all animals it has its family, its
species, and its rank. Although its nobility is less illustrious, it is
quite as good, quite as ancient, as that of the horse. Briefly, the ass
is an ass, nothing more, nothing less.
“‘This initial fact is of no slight importance. In considering the ass
as a degenerate horse we are led to compare it with its assumed origin,
and the comparison is not favorable to it: the long-eared donkey makes
but a pitiful showing beside the brisk and noble courser. But as it is
in reality a separate animal let us expect of it only the qualities of
its species, the qualities of the ass, without depreciating the animal
by comparisons with others that are stronger and better endowed. Do we
despise rye because it is not so good as wheat? We thank Heaven for
both, the first as the valued crop of the mountains, the second as that
of the plains. Let us not, then, despise the ass because it is inferior
to the horse. It possesses the good qualities of its species, and
cannot possess others. We fail to recognize that the ass would be our
foremost, our finest, our best made, our most distinguished domestic
animal if there were no horse in the world. It is second instead of
first, and for that reason seems as nothing to us. It is comparison
that degrades it. We look at it and judge it, not on its own merits,
but relatively to the horse. We forget that it has all the good
qualities of its nature, all the gifts belonging to its species, and
remember only the beauty and merits of the horse, which it would be
impossible for the ass to possess.’
“Buffon asserts that the nobility of the ass is as ancient as that of
the horse. I will venture even further than the master and maintain
that it is certainly more ancient in the sense that the ass was
domesticated before the horse. It was the first to serve the Asiatic
shepherds in their migration in quest of better pasturage. It carried
the folded tent, the dairy utensils, the new-born lambs, the women and
children. What animal did the ancient patriarchs ride? What did Abraham
ride on his journey into Egypt? The ass, my friends, the peaceful ass.
On nearly every page of Genesis the ass is mentioned; the horse does
not appear there until Joseph’s time.”
“The ancient origin of the ass could not have nobler credentials,” said
Jules.
“Why then, asks Buffon, such scorn for the ass, so good, patient,
sober, useful? Should men scorn, even among animals, those that serve
them well and at so little expense? We educate the horse, take care of
it, teach it, train it; while the ass, left to the rough handling of
the lowest servants or to the mischievous pranks of children, far from
improving in quality, can only deteriorate. If it were not
fundamentally of excellent character, it would lose all its virtues
from the way in which it is treated. It is the laughing-stock and the
drudge of boors who beat it, overload it, and wear it out without
consideration.”
“Oh, how many of these poor donkeys I have seen,” Jules exclaimed,
“overwhelmed with their loads and beaten unmercifully because they
hadn’t strength enough to go on!”
“What can become of the poor animal thus degraded by bad treatment? An
intractable, brutalized, bald-headed, mangy, weakened creature, object
of pity for any one who has not a heart harder than stone. But let us
consider the ass as the Orientals know how to raise it in all the
comfort and content of careful home treatment. We shall find an animal
of fine appearance, gentle looks, glossy coat, distinguished and
spirited bearing, trotting briskly along the streets of the large
towns, where it is habitually used as mount for going from one quarter
to another. Its gait, without fatigue for the rider, makes it preferred
to the horse; the greatest ladies, in making their calls, do not
disdain its richly ornamented pack-saddle. The city of Cairo alone, in
Egypt, uses some forty thousand of these graceful trotters. In such
society would our shameful donkey dare to show itself? Ah! let us pity
the poor creature: its wretched lot has made it what it is.”
“I should willingly agree with the people of Cairo,” said Emile. “I
should prefer the donkey for a mount. At any rate, if one gets a fall
the danger is not so great.”
“The donkey is just the mount for invalids, children, women, and old
people; it is naturally gentle, as quiet as the horse is spirited,
mettlesome, and impetuous. Since, by endowing it with a patience that
is proof against everything and with a small size which makes a fall
from its back not at all dangerous, Heaven has created the donkey
expressly for you, show the good beast by your care that you are not
forgetful of your servant.
“The ass is patient; it suffers punishment and blows with constancy and
perhaps with courage. This fine virtue is, as it were, written on its
coat. You will often see on the donkey’s back a long black stripe and
another shorter one crossing the first on the shoulders. The two dark
bands form the image of the cross, divine symbol of resignation to
suffering. I know very well that this peculiarity in the animal’s coat
has not the least significance in itself; but still it is worthy of
remark that the donkey, the innocent victim of our brutality, bears the
cross on its back.
“The ass is temperate in both the quantity and quality of its food. It
is contented with the toughest and least palatable pasturage, which
horses and other animals disdain to touch. Along the roadside it
browses the prickly tops of thistles, branches of willows, shoots of
hawthorn. If afterward it can roll on the grass a moment, it counts
this as the very summit of earthly happiness. But it is very dainty
about water: it will drink only the very clearest and from streams that
it knows. It drinks as temperately as it eats, and does not plunge its
nose into the water, from fear, as they say, of the reflection of its
ears.”
“That’s a funny sort of fear,” said Jules.
“Therefore I don’t believe the saying is well founded. The ass is not
so silly as to be frightened by the reflection of its ears. If it
drinks merely with its lips, without plunging its nose into the water,
it is because, like the cat, it fears getting wet. It does not, like
the horse, wallow in mire and water; it shrinks from even wetting its
feet, and will make a detour to avoid mud. Hence its legs are always
dry and cleaner than a horse’s. Its aversion to wet explains
sufficiently its manner of drinking, without attributing it to any
silly fear of the reflection of the animal’s ears.”
“Why do people speak of that fear, then?”
“Simply for the malicious pleasure of adding one more example of
stupidity to the donkey’s account. Is it not agreed that the
unfortunate beast has every possible whimsicality? Has not its very
name become the favorite term to denote stupidity? All this is pure
calumny; far from being the idiot it is called, the ass is a cunning
beast, prudent, full of circumspection, as is proved by the care it
takes in not drinking except from known springs already tested by use.”
“Why make such a fuss about drinking?” was Emile’s query.
“Why? Alas, my friend, evil sometimes befalls us for not exercising the
donkey’s prudence in the choice of our drinking-water. The unknown
spring whence we draw water may be too cold, unwholesome, full of
injurious substances. Better advised than we, the ass will put its lips
only to water known by experience to be wholesome.”
“And the ass is a hundred times right,” Jules declared.
“If I dared to, I should blame the ass for the passion it has for
rolling on the ground, sometimes, alas, without any thought of the load
it carries. But is it really the animal’s fault? Since nobody takes the
trouble to curry the ass, to relieve the itching of its skin, it rolls
on the grass and seems thus to reproach its master for neglect. Let the
curry-comb and the brush keep its back clean, and the donkey will cease
trying to rub itself, all four legs in the air, against the prickly
foliage of the thistles. It is the accumulation of dust and dirt that
torments it, not parasites, for of all hairy animals the ass is the
least subject to vermin. It never has lice, apparently on account of
the hardness and dryness of its skin, which is in fact harder than that
of most other quadrupeds. For the same reason it is much less sensitive
than the horse to the whip and to the sting of flies.
“When overloaded, it lies on its stomach and refuses to move,
determined to let itself be beaten to death rather than get up. ‘Oh,
the stubborn brute! Oh, the stupid ass!’ cries the master; and down
comes the stick. Is it stubbornness on the animal’s part to refuse to
work? Listen first to a short story. In the old days of the Roman
Empire a man of profound wisdom, Epictetus, was a slave in the house of
a brutal master. One day the latter beat him unmercifully with his
cane. ‘Master,’ said Epictetus to him, ‘I warn you that if you keep
that up you will break my leg and your slave will lose in value.’ The
brute struck all the harder, and a bone broke. With sublime resignation
the slave uttered no reproach except to say: ‘I told you you would
break my leg.’
“To return to the ass laden beyond its strength, if it could speak it
would certainly express itself thus in imitation of the sage: ‘Master,
I assure you very humbly the load you are putting on me overtaxes my
strength and I cannot carry it.’ But the man inconsiderately continues
augmenting the burden until at last the animal’s back bends under the
weight. The donkey first inclines its head, lowers its ears, and then
lies down. That is its way of saying, ‘I told you I couldn’t carry such
a heavy load.’ Any one but a boor would hasten to lighten the load,
instead of unmercifully beating the animal, and the donkey would get up
as soon as the weight became suited to its strength.”
“They won’t make the donkey any stronger by beating it,” was Jules’s
comment.
“And, what is more, they will turn a docile animal into an obstinate,
ill-tempered one. In its early youth, before it knows the hardness of
life, the donkey is gay, playful, full of pretty tricks; but with the
sad experience of age, with crushing fatigue and ill-treatment, it
becomes indocile, slow, obstinate, vindictive. Is not that, however,
our fault? How many injuries has not the unfortunate beast to avenge,
and what a host of good qualities must it not have to remain in the end
as we find it? If the donkey harbored ill-will for blows received, its
master would become an object of hatred and it would be constantly
biting and kicking him. On the contrary, the animal becomes attached to
him, scents him from a distance, distinguishes him from all other men,
and can if necessary find him amid all the confusion of a fair or
market.
“With passable food and, above all, with good usage, the ass becomes
the most submissive, faithful, and affectionate of companions. Let it
be saddled or harnessed, loaded with pack-saddle, panniers, farm tools,
or what not, it shirks no labor. If there is any fodder for it, it
eats; if not, it crops the thistles by the side of the road; and if
there are no thistles it goes hungry without letting its fast diminish
in the least its good will. It is a philosophical beast, neither
humiliated by bearing the poor man’s pack-saddle nor puffed up by the
rich man’s elegant housings, and anxious only to do its duty everywhere
and always.
“The ass has good eyes, keen scent, and excellent ears. From the
quickness of its hearing and the length of its ears the inference is
drawn that the animal is timid. I am willing to assent to this, the ass
never having earned a reputation for prowess or daring. Moreover, its
quickness of hearing and length of ears are shared by many other
animals that do not surpass it in courage, as, for example, the hare
and the rabbit, which are even more richly endowed than the ass in
respect to length of ears. Their weakness and defenselessness expose
them to a thousand dangers and make their life a continual state of
alarm. To be warned in time of peril and save themselves by speedy
flight, their surest dependence is the excellence of their hearing,
which is partly due to the enormous size of the external ear, movable
in every direction so as to receive sounds from all sides.
“Merely because the ass has the long ears indicative of timidity shall
we charge the animal with poltroonery? That would be unfair, for if it
does not court danger it at least knows how to face it when peaceful
means of safety are out of the question. The horse is warlike, the ass
prefers the gentle ways of peace and consents to the arbitrament of
force only when no other course is possible; but then its courage rises
to meet the danger. If in its wild state it is surprised by an
assailant, it hastens to rejoin its companions of the pasture; and, all
grouping together as do wild horses in their war tactics, they begin to
kick and bite with such fury that the enemy decamps as quickly as
possible, with jaw-bone fractured by a flying hoof.”
“After such an exploit,” said Jules, “let no one tell me the donkey is
a coward.”
“I fancy,” put in Emile, “that after routing the enemy the donkeys do
not fail to chorus a song of victory.”
“It is not to be doubted that, to congratulate one another and to
celebrate their triumph, the donkeys sound a few clarion notes, such as
they so well know how to give. The horse neighs and the donkey brays,
the latter cry being very loud, very prolonged, very disagreeable, and
composed of a succession of discords ranging from sharp to grave and
from grave to sharp.”
“And the last notes,” added Emile, “are hoarser and gradually die
away.”
“I see Emile is well acquainted with the donkey’s voice. Let us go on
to some of its other peculiarities. From time immemorial the ass has
had the reputation of being stupid: its very name is synonymous with
stupidity. There is a whole vocabulary of abusive epithets that we
bestow on the ass, and these epithets nearly always allude to its
stupidity. We call it a numbskull, a ninny, a jackass, a wooden-head,
and I don’t know what all; and, as a crowning slander to the animal,
the dunce of his class at school is made to wear a cap with donkey’s
ears. Never has calumny been more flagrant. The donkey a dunce? By no
means! Is it not the donkey that, with a prudence worthy of imitation,
refuses to drink from unknown springs? Does it not, when lost in the
crowd at market, know how to find its master almost as easily as the
dog, and does it not begin to bray with joy at sight of him? But there
is something better than this to prove its intelligence. Recall to mind
the wagoner’s long team of horses on the highway. There are four, six,
eight of them, sturdily tugging at the enormous load. Between the two
shafts, the most arduous position of all, is the massive shaft-horse,
while at the head of the team proudly marches a donkey, harnessed very
lightly. What is this little creature doing at the head of those robust
companions? First, it pulls with vigor, so far as its strength will
admit; and, secondly, it has a still more important function to fill.
Its part is to guide the equipage and keep it in the middle of the
road, to avoid ruts, get around difficult places, and, in general, pick
the way. While the heavy horses work only with their shoulders to draw
the load, the donkey, to lead the way, works at the same time with its
head. This post of honor, this position as leader of the file—would it
be assigned to the ass if the animal were not recognized as the most
intelligent of the team?
“I should like to show you also the donkey traveling in mountainous
countries in company with horses and mules. It is the one to direct the
band, showing the others the turnouts to take to avoid a dangerous
place. If the path gets too bad, the donkey foresees the peril with an
astonishing sagacity; it turns aside a moment from the beaten track,
finds a way around the difficult spot by a cleverly calculated bend,
and takes the regular road again farther on. Any mule or horse that
disdains to follow the donkey’s intelligent leadership runs the risk of
getting into trouble whence it will be very hard to get it out.”
“As far as I can see,” said Jules, “the donkey is more intelligent than
the horse, since it acts as the horse’s guide.”
“That is my opinion, too, in spite of the reputation for stupidity that
it has acquired, I don’t know why. The donkey walks, trots, and gallops
like the horse, but all its movements are within a smaller compass and
much slower. Although it can start out at a brisk enough pace, it
cannot cover great distances or continue on the road for a long time.
Whatever gait it takes, if the animal is urged to go faster it is soon
exhausted. It is especially suited to mountainous countries. Its small,
hard hoofs enable it to follow stony paths with the greatest ease; its
prudent gait and firm and circumspect step give it access to rough
places and the steepest slopes.
“The donkey is very robust. In proportion to its size it is perhaps of
all animals the one that can carry the heaviest load, but as its body
is small the burden placed on it ought not to exceed moderate limits.
What a useful servant would one not have in an animal having the
qualities of the donkey and the vigorous development of the horse! Such
a creature does not exist in the natural order, but man has obtained it
by the intervention of his art.
“The species of the horse and that of the ass are unmistakably distinct
from each other and never cross in the wild state. Nevertheless, since
they are very nearly related, as their close resemblance in form
proves, cross-breeding between them is possible with careful
management. From this unnatural union comes the mule, of which the
father is the ass and the mother the mare. The mule then is not a
separate species of animal having its own independent existence; it is
not an ass nor a horse, but a bastard creature intermediate between the
two. To its father, the ass, it owes its large head, long ears, narrow
and hard hoofs, thick skin, rough coat, generally dark in color and
sometimes ornamented with the two black stripes in the form of a cross
on the back. To the ass it also owes its temperate habits, its tenacity
in work, its robust constitution, and the sureness of foot so necessary
in mountainous countries. From its mother, the mare, it gets its
powerful equine frame, its quick gait, its freedom of limb. Its rude
strength, moderation in supplying its animal wants, power of enduring
the utmost fatigue, indifference to extreme heat, make it one of the
most useful animals, especially in hot climates where there are long
spells of drought.”
NOTES
[1] Uncle Paul and his nephews are here allowed to defy the purist, as
they probably would in real life.—Translator.
[2] The poulard (French poularde) bears the same relation to the pullet
as the capon does to the young rooster.—Translator.
[3] The quoted passages are from Audubon’s “Ornithological Biography,”
vol. I, pp. 2–9, and are here reproduced verbatim, though very freely
treated by the French author.—Translator.
[4] Audubon’s narrative (“Ornithological Biography,” vol. I, pp.
319–324) is here reproduced with greater accuracy than the French
writer chose to observe. The omissions indicated occur in the French,
but are not there indicated.—Translator.
[5] This was written before the days of inoculation as a preventive of
hydrophobia.—Translator.
[6] Centigrade, not Fahrenheit.—Translator.