The Ass was also used for agriculture, and was employed in the plough, as we find from many passages. See for example, "Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass" (Isa. xxxii. 20). Sowing beside the waters is a custom that still prevails in all hot countries, the margins of rivers being tilled, while outside this cultivated belt there is nothing but desert ground. The ox and the Ass were used in the first place for irrigation, turning the machines by which water was lifted from the river, and poured into the trenches which conveyed it to all parts of the tilled land. If, as is nearly certain, the rude machinery of the East is at the present day identical with those which were used in the old Scriptural times, they were yoked to the machine in rather an ingenious manner. The machine consists of an upright pivot, and to it is attached the horizontal pole to which the ox or Ass is harnessed. A machine exactly similar in principle may be seen in almost any brick-field in England; but the ingenious part of the Eastern water-machine is the mode in which the animal is made to believe that it is being driven by its keeper, whereas the man in question might be at a distance, or fast asleep. The animal is first blindfolded, and then yoked to the end of the horizontal bar. Fixed to the pivot, and rather in front of the bar, is one end of a slight and elastic strip of wood. The projecting end, being drawn forward and tied to the bridle of the animal, 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 self-acting 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."