The domestic A. is also, in Arabia, Persia, Syria, and other eastern countries, a much finer animal than as it is usually seen in Europe, although in Spain the favorable influence of a more genial climate upon its development is visible, perhaps also of better treatment, the A. being more highly valued. The A. is much used for riding in the East. From Judges v. 10, we learn that, at a very early period, the great were accus tomed to ride upon white asses, and a preference is given to white asses in the east to this day. The A. has been domesticated from the earliest times; but it does not seem to have been introduced into Europe till a comparatively recent date. In Britain, it is employed chiefly by the poor, but might probably with advantage be much more gener ally employed than it is. Its price is scarcely one twentieth of the price of the horse, and it can be kept at one fourth of the expense, delighting in the coarse herbage which other animals reject, and satisfied with comparatively scanty fare. The obstinacy ascribed to the A. seems to be very generally the result of ill treatment; and proverbial as it has become for stupidity, it is probably quite equal in intelligence to the horse.
There are two hybrids between the A. and the horse—the Mule (q.v.), bred between the male A. and the mare; and the Hinny (q.v.), the offspring of the horse and the female A.
The milk of the A. contains more sugar of milk and less caseine than that of the covr, and is therefore recommended as a nutritious diet in cases of weak digestion. Its use fulness in cases of consumption has been long known, and it was often prescribed as a kind of specific when that disease was treated on principles very different from those which regulate its treatment now, and when very nutritious food was not usually pre scribed to consumptive patients.
The leather called shagreen (q.v.) is made by a peculiar process from the skin of the A., which also affords excellent leather for shoes, and the best material for drums. The bones of the A., which are very solid, were used by the ancients for making flutes.