inheriting a portion of it.  It is natural that the larger you get his feet the steadier he will travel.  Some persons will tell you that these small feet are natural, and are best adapted to the animal.  But they forget that the mule is not a natural animal, only an invention of man.  Let your mare and jack be each of the average size, the jack well marked, and No. 1 of his kind, and I will take the product and wear out any other style of breed.  Indeed, you have only to appeal to your better judgment to convince you as to what would result from putting a jack, seven or eight hands high, to a mare of sixteen or more.

I have witnessed some curious results in mule breeding, and which it may be well enough to mention here.  I have seen frequent instances where one of the very best jacks in the country had been put to mares of good quality and spirit.  Putting them to such contemptible animals seemed to degrade them, to destroy their natural will and temper.  The result was a sort of bastard mule, a small-legged, small-footed, cowardly animal, inheriting all the vices of the mule and none of the horse’s virtues—­ the very meanest of his kind.

CHAPTER VII.  ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE MULE.

The mule seems to have been used by the ancients in a great variety of ways; but what should have prompted his production must for ever remain a mystery.  That they early discovered his great usefulness in making long journeys, climbing mountains, and crossing deserts of burnings and, when subsistence and water were scarce, and horses would have perished, is well established.  That he would soon recover from the severe effects of these long and trying journeys must also have been of great value in their eyes.  But however much they valued him for his usefulness, they seem not to have had the slightest veneration for him, as they had for some other animals.  I am led to believe, then, that it was his great usefulness in crossing the sandy deserts that led to his production.  It is a proof, also, that where the ass was at hand there also was the horse, or the mule could not have been produced.  Any people with sufficient knowledge to produce the mule would also have had sufficient knowledge to discover the difference between him and the horse, and would have given the preference to the horse in all service except that I have just described.  And yet, in the early history of the world, we find men of rank, and even rulers, using them on state and similar occasions; and this when it might have been supposed that the horse, being the nobler animal, would have made more display.