keeps up a continual pull, and makes the blinded animal believe that it is being drawn forward by the hand of a driver. Some ingenious but lazy attendants have even invented a sort of selfacting whip, i.e. a stick which is lifted and allowed to fall on the animal's back by the action of the wheel once every round.

The field being properly supplied with water, the Ass is used for ploughing it. It is worthy of mention that at the present day the prohibition against yoking an ox and an Ass together is often disregarded. The practice, however, is not a judicious one, as the slow and heavy ox does not act well with the lighter and more active animal, and, moreover, is apt to butt at its companion with its horns in order to stimulate it to do more than its fair proportion of the work.

That the Ass was put to a similar use in turning the large millstones may be seen from Matt. xviii. 6. In the Authorized Version, the passage is rendered thus: "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

Now if we turn to the Greek Testament we find that the passage reads rather differently, a force being giving to it which it does not possess in the translation: "But whosoever shall scandalize [i.c. be a stumbling-block to] one of these little ones that believe in Me, it were better for him that an ass's millstone were hung about his neck, and he were sunk in the depth of the sea.” The chief force of this saying lies in the word which is omitted in our translation. Our Lord specially selected the Ass's millstone on account of its size and weight, in contradistinction to the ordinary millstone, which was turned backwards and forwards by the hands of women.

There is a custom now in Palestine which probably existed in the days of the Scriptures, though I have not been able to find any reference to it. Whenever an Ass is disobedient and strays from its master, the man who captures the trespasser on his grounds clips a piece out of its ear before he returns it to its owner. Each time that the animal is caught on forbidden grounds it receives a fresh clip of the ear. By looking at the ears of an Ass, therefore, any one can tell whether it has ever been a straggler; and if so, he knows the number of times.

that it has strayed, by merely counting the clip-marks, which always begin at the tip of the ear, and extend along the edges. Any Ass, no matter how handsome it may be, that has many of those clips, is always rejected by experienced travellers, as it is sure to be a dull as well as a disobedient beast.

Signor Pierotti remarks that if the owners of the Asses were treated similarly for similar offences, the greater number would be marked as soon as they begin to walk, and of the adults there would be scarcely one who had any ear on his head.

The Ass being so universally useful, we need not be surprised at the prominence which it takes in the Scriptural narrative, and the frequency with which its name occurs. The wealthy personages of the olden time seemed to have esteemed the Ass as highly as the camel, the ox, the sheep, or the goat. Abraham, for example, is described as being a rich man, and possessing "sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maidservants, and she-asses, and camels" (Gen. xii. 16). In a succeeding chapter (xxx. 43) the prosperity of Jacob is mentioned in almost exactly the same terms.

So, before Job's trials came upon him, "his substance was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen [i.e. 1,000], and five hundred she-asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east" (Job i. 3). And after his trials, when his wealth was restored to him twofold, the thousand she-asses are mentioned as prominently as the thousand yoke of oxen.

That the care of the Asses was an honourable post we learn from several passages. Take for example Gen. xxxvi. 24: “ And these are the children of Zibeon; both Ajah, and Anah: this was that Anah that found the mules in the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father." The charge of the Asses was, as the reader must see, a post of sufficient honour and importance to be trusted to the son of the owner. A similar case is recorded in the well-known instance of Saul, whose father had lost his herd of Asses, and who at once sent his son upon the important mission of recovering them. And it was during the fulfilment of this mission that he was anointed the first king of Israel.

Later in the sacred history we find that when David consolidated his power, and organized the affairs of his new kingdom,

he divided the people in general, the army, the land, the produce, and the cattle, into departments, and appointed over each department some eminent man whose name is carefully given. After mentioning that the people and the army were divided into " courses," and that certain officers were set over each course, the sacred historian proceeds to state that one officer was appointed as overseer of the treasury, another of the granaries, another of the field-labourers, another over the vineyards, and so forth. He then mentions that even the cattle were divided into their several departments, the care of the hill-cattle being given to one man, and of the cattle of the plain to another, of the camels to a third, and of the Asses to a fourth.

It is scarcely necessary to mention that the flesh of the Ass was forbidden to the Jews, because the animal neither chewed the cud nor divided the hoof. How repulsive to them must have been the flesh of the Ass we may infer from the terrible description of the siege of Samaria by Benhadad. The sacred historian describes with painful fidelity the horrors of the siege, and of the dreadful extremity to which the people were reduced. No circumstance could be more terrible than the quarrel between the two mothers, who had mutually agreed to kill and eat their children, and yet on a par with that dreadful statement is mentioned the fact that even the flesh of the Ass was eaten, and that an Ass's head cost eighty pieces of silver.

Whether the milk of the she Ass were used or not is rather a doubtful point, but, in all probability, the milk was considered as lawful food, though the flesh might not be eaten.

As to the legends respecting the Ass, they are innumerable, and I shall only mention one or two of them.

The first is an old Rabbinical legend respecting the Flood and the admission of the creatures into the ark. It appears that no being could enter the ark unless specially invited to do so by Noah. Now when the Flood came, and overwhelmed the world, the devil, who was at that time wandering upon the earth, saw that he was about to be cut off from contact from mankind, and that his dominion would be for ever gone. The ark being at last completed, and the beasts called to enter it in their proper order, the turn of the Ass came in due course.

Unfortunately for the welfare of mankind, the Ass was taken with a fit of obstinacy, and refused to enter the vessel according to orders. After wasting much time over the obstinate animal, Noah at last lost patience, and struck the Ass sharply, crying at the same time to it, "Enter, thou devil!" Of course the invitation was at once accepted, the devil entered the ark, and on the subsiding of the water issued out to take his place in the newly begun world.

SINCE the Christian era, many curious legends have sprung up respecting the Ass. One of the most familiar of these legends refers to the black stripe along the spine and the crossbar over the shoulder. This black cross is really believed by many persons to have been given to the animal in consequence of its connexion with our Lord. I need hardly tell the reader that it is the remnant of the stripes which in the zebra cover the animal from head to foot, which in the quagga cover the head, body, and part of the limbs, and which in one species of Wild Ass are not seen at all in the adult animal.

There is another Christian legend respecting the Ass of Palestine, which is thought to owe its superiority in size, swiftness, and strength to the fact that it helped to warm the infant Saviour in the manger, that it carried Him and His mother into Egypt and back again, and that it was used by the Lord himself and His disciples. Any one who ventures to hint that the Ass of Palestine owes its superiority over its European brother to the warmer climate, is thought to be a heretic by the pious but ignorant men who believe and disseminate such legends.

Signor Pierotti tells a story of a certain Russian monk who happened to visit Palestine, and in the course of his travels found the leg-bone of an Ass, which he took back with him and publicly exhibited as part of the identical animal on which the Virgin Mary and infant Saviour rode. (I need scarcely mention that there is no mention in the Scriptures of the fact that the Holy Family rode upon an Ass; though such a mode of travel was certainly the one which they would adopt.) For some time, this deception drew for the impostor many gifts from the superstitious but pious people, but the affair at last reached the ears of his superiors, and he paid the deserved penalty of his trickery.

There are recorded in the Scriptures two remarkable circumstances connected with the Ass, which, however, need but a few words. The first is the journey of Balaam from Pethor to Moab, in the course of which there occurred that singular incident of the Ass speaking in human language (see Numb. xxii. 21, 35). The second is the well-known episode in the story of Samson, where he is recorded as breaking the cords with which his enemies had bound him, and killing a thousand Philistines with the fresh jaw-bone of an Ass.

THE WILD ASS.

The Arod and Pere of Scripture-Various allusions to the Wild Ass-Its swiftness and wildness—The Wild Ass of Asia and Africa-Knowledge of the animal displayed by the sacred writers-How the Wild Ass is hunted-Excellence of its flesh-Sir R. K. Porter's meeting with a Wild Ass-Origin of the domestic Ass-The Wild Asses of Quito.

THERE are several passages of Scripture in which the Wild Ass is distinguished from the domesticated animal, and in all of them there is some reference made to its swiftness, its intractable nature, and love of freedom.

In the Hebrew Scriptures there are two words which are given in the Authorized Translation as Wild Ass, namely, Arod and Pere, and it is rather remarkable that both words occur in the same passage. If the reader will refer to Job xxxix. 5, he will see the following passage: "Who hath sent out the wild ass (Pere) free? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass (Arod)?" Now there are only two places in the whole Hebrew Scriptures in which the word Arod occurs, and there are many doubts whether the word Arod is rightly translated. The first is that which has just been quoted, and the second occurs in Dan. v. 21: "And he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses."