It is to be regretted that the Arabians, who have so long taken care to preserve the breed of their horses, had not paid the same attention to the ass, since from the above it appears that Arabia is not only the first, but also the best climate in the world for both. From Arabia they have passed into Barbary and Egypt, where they are handsome and high in stature. In the Indies, and in Guinea, they are larger, stronger, and better than the horses of those countries: there are a great number of them at Madura, where one of the most considerable and noble tribes of the Indians pay particular homage to them, because they believe that the souls of all their nobles pass into the bodies of asses; in short, asses are found in great numbers in all parts of the east, from Senegal to China, and wild asses are more commonly found than wild horses. The Latins, after the Greeks, have called the wild ass _onager_, which animal must not be confounded, as some naturalists and travellers have done, with the zebra, because the zebra is of a different species from the ass. The onager, or wild ass, is not striped like the zebra, and is not near so elegant in figure. Wild asses are found in some of the islands of the Archipelago, and particularly in that of Cerigo; there are also many in the deserts of Lybia and Numidia. They are grey, and run so fast that the horses of Barbary only can beat them in hunting. When they see a man they give a loud cry, turn themselves about, and throw up their legs, then stop, and do not attempt to fly till he comes very near them: they are taken in snares made with ropes, go in troops to pasture, and their flesh is also eaten. There were, in the time of Marmol, wild asses in Sardinia, but they were less than those of Africa; Pietro della Valle says he saw a wild ass at Bassora, whose figure differed in no respect from a domestic one, only of a lighter colour, and had from the head to tail a stripe of white; he was also much livelier and swifter than the asses usually are. Olearius mentions, that one day the King of Persia made him go up with him to the top of a little building, in form of a theatre, to eat fruit and sweetmeats; that after the repast, 32 wild asses were brought in, when the king amused himself for some time by firing at them, both with bullets and arrows, and having wounded some, he afterwards permitted the ambassadors, and other lords, to do the same; that it was no small diversion to see these asses with a number of arrows sticking in them, and, from the pain they felt, biting and rolling over each other; that when they were all killed and laid before the king they were sent to the royal kitchen at Ispahan; the Persians setting so great a value on the flesh of these wild asses that they have a proverb expressive of it. But it does not appear that these 32 wild asses were all taken in the forests, and therefore it is probable they were asses brought up in large parks, for the pleasure of hunting and eating them.