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.