Gallicia and Asturia, countries of Spain, produce a species of horse which have a peculiar pace of their own, very easy for the rider, which arises from the two legs of the same side being moved together. By studying the nature of this step our horses have been taught the movement, which we call ambling. [Illustration: ASS.—_Ásinus Vulgáris._] Marcus Varro informs us that Quintus Axius, the senator, paid for an ass the sum of four hundred thousand sesterces (or nearly $16,000). I am not sure whether this did not exceed the price ever given for any other animal. It is certainly a species of animal singularly useful for ploughing, and other farm labor. The attachment of asses to their young is great in the extreme, but their aversion to water is still greater. They will pass through fire to get at their foals, while the very same animal, if the smallest stream intervenes, will tremble, and not dare so much as to wet even its feet. In their pastures they never drink at any but the usual watering-place, and make it their care to find some dry path by which to get at it. They will not pass over a bridge either, when the water can be seen between the planks beneath. Wonderful to relate, too, if their watering-places are changed, though they should be ever so thirsty, they will not drink without being either beaten or caressed. They ought always to have plenty of room for sleeping; for they are subject to various disturbances in their sleep, when they repeatedly throw out their feet, and would immediately lame themselves by coming in contact with any hard substance; so that it is necessary that they should be provided with an empty space. Mæcenas was the first person who had the young of the ass served up at his table;[113] they were in those times much preferred to the onager or wild ass; but, since his time, the taste has gone out of fashion. The best wild asses are those of Phrygia and Lycaonia. Africa glories in the wild foals which she produces, as excelling all others in the flavor of their flesh. It appears from some Athenian records, that a mule once lived to the age of eighty years. The people were greatly delighted with this animal, because on one occasion, when, on the building of a temple in the citadel (the Parthenon), it had been left behind on account of its age, it persisted in promoting the work by accompanying and assisting them; in consequence of which a decree was passed, that the dealers in corn were not to drive it away from their sieves. CHAPTER III. THE OX.