It is related that an Arab Sheikh was seated in the centre of a numerous group, when a man who had lost his ass presented himself before him, and asked if any one had seen the animal that had gone astray. The Sheikh immediately turned to those around him, and addressed them in these words:—"Is there any one here to whom the pleasures of the chace are unknown? Who has never pursued the game at the risk of life and limb, if he fell from his horse? Who, without fear of tearing his clothes or his skin, has not thrown himself into the midst of brushwood bristling with thorns, in order to overtake the wolf? Is there any one here who has never experienced the happiness of again meeting, the despair of leaving a woman who was dearly loved?" One of his hearers answered: "For my part, I have never done, or experienced any of those things you mention." Looking to the owner of the ass, the sheikh thus spoke: "Behold the beast you were looking for! Lead him away." The Arabs, indeed, have a saying that "he who has never hunted, nor loved, nor felt emotion at the sound of music, nor prized the perfume of flowers, is not a man, but an ass." With us, war is especially a contest of agility and craft. Consequently the chace is the highest of all pastimes, as the pursuit of savage animals teaches how to pursue men. A poet has written the following eulogy of that art: "The chace disengages the mind from the cares by which it is harassed. It adds to the vigour of the intelligence, brings joyfulness, dissipates chagrin, and renders useless the science of the physicians by maintaining perpetual health in the human body. "It forms good horsemen, for it teaches them to spring quickly into their saddles, to alight promptly on the ground, to rush a horse across rocks and precipices, to clear stones and bushes at full gallop, to push on without stopping, even though some part of the harness has been lost or broken. "Every one who gives himself up to the chace, makes progress day by day in courage, and learns to despise accidents. "To fully enjoy his favourite diversion, he withdraws from perverse people. He puts falsehood and calumny to the rout, escapes from the corruption of vice, and emancipates himself from those fatal influences which tinge our beards with gray, and burden us, before our time, with the weight of years. "Days spent in the chace are not counted among the days of one's life." In the Sahara, the chace is the sole occupation of the chiefs and rich people. When the rainy season sets in, the inhabitants of that region transport themselves to the shores of the small lakes formed by the rain; and, if game get scarce at one spot, they open up a new scene in their wandering life. A legend familiar to every Arab shows with what force the passion for the chace may seize upon the heart of an African.