The zebra possesses some of the characteristics of the horse;--smaller
in size, it strongly resembles it in the shape of its body, its head,
its limbs, and its hoofs. It moves in the same paces, with a similar
activity and swiftness. But it discovers none of that docility which
has rendered the services of the horse so invaluable to man. On the
contrary, it is proverbially untamable; it is ever the most wild even
among those ferocious animals which are ranged in the menagerie, and it
preserves in its countenance the resolute determination never to
submit.
In the year 1803, General Dundas brought a female zebra from the Cape
of Good Hope, which was deposited in the Tower, and there showed less
than the usual impatience of subordination. The person who had
accompanied her home, and attended her there, would sometimes spring on
her back, and proceed thus for about two hundred yards, when she would
become restive, and oblige him to dismount. She was very irritable, and
would kick at her keeper. One day she seized him with her teeth, threw
him down, and showed an intention to destroy him, which he disappointed
by rapidly extricating himself. She generally kicked in all directions
with her feet, and had a propensity to seize with her teeth whatever
offended her. Strangers she would not allow to approach her, unless the
keeper held her fast by the head, and even then she was very prone to
kick.
The most docile zebra on record was burnt at the Lyceum, near Exeter
'Change. This animal allowed its keeper to use great familiarities with
it,--to put children on its back, without discovering any resentment.
On one occasion, a person rode it from the Lyceum to Pimlico. It had
been bred in Portugal, and was the offspring of parents half reclaimed.
The zebra of the plain differs from the other species in having the
ground color of the body white, the mane alternately striped with black
and white, and the tail of a yellowish white. A specimen of this animal
was a few years since in the Tower of London, where it was brought to a
degree of tameness seldom reached by the other variety. It ran
peaceably about the Tower, with a man by its side, whom it did not
attempt to leave except for the purpose of breaking off to the canteen,
where it was sometimes regaled with a glass of ale, a liquor for which
it discovered a considerable fondness.