Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy Part 18

He would ask Dominie Black to let him take Jenny home.

What could be more sensible and straightforward than such a plan?

Of course the good old Schoolmaster gave Andrew the desired permission, and everything ended happily. But the best thing about the whole affair was the lesson that young Scotch boy learned that day.

And the lesson was this: when we are puzzling our brains with plans to help ourselves out of our troubles, let us always stop a moment in our planning, and try to think if there is not some simple way out of the difficulty, which shall be in every respect _perfectly right_. If we do that we shall probably find the way, and also find it much more satisfactory as well as easier than any of our ingenious and elaborate plans.

THE WILD a.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILD a.s.sES.]

If there is any animal in the whole world that receives worse treatment or is held in less esteem than the ordinary Jacka.s.s, I am very sorry for it.

With the exception of a few warm countries, where this animal grows to a large size, and is highly valued, the Jacka.s.s or Donkey is everywhere considered a stupid beast, a lazy beast, an obstinate beast, and very often a vicious beast. To liken any one to a Jacka.s.s is to use very strong language.

In many cases, this character of the Donkey (with the exception of the stupidity, for very few Donkeys are stupid, although they try to seem so) is correct, but nevertheless it is doubtful if the animal is much to blame for it. There is every reason to believe that the dullness and laziness of the Donkey is owing entirely to his a.s.sociation with man.

For proof of this a.s.sertion, we have but to consider the a.s.s in his natural state.

There can be no reasonable doubt but that the domestic a.s.s is descended from the Wild a.s.s of Asia and Africa, for the two animals are so much alike that it would be impossible, by the eye alone, to distinguish the one from the other.

But, except in appearance, they differ very much. The tame a.s.s is gentle, and generally fond of the society of man; the wild a.s.s is one of the shyest creatures in the world; even when caught it is almost impossible to tame him. The tame a.s.s is slow, plodding, dull, and lazy; the wild a.s.s is as swift as a race-horse and as wild as a Deer.

The best mounted hors.e.m.e.n can seldom approach him, and it is generally necessary to send a rifle-ball after him, if he is wanted very much.

His flesh is considered a great delicacy, which is another difference between him and the tame animal.

If any of you were by accident to get near enough to a wild a.s.s to observe him closely, you would be very apt to suppose him to be one of those long-eared fellows which must be beaten and stoned and punched with sticks, if you want to get them into the least bit of a trot, and which always want to stop by the roadside, if they see so much as a cabbage-leaf or a tempting thistle.

But you would find yourself greatly mistaken and astonished when, as soon as this wild creature discovered your presence, he went dashing away, bounding over the gullies and brooks, clipping it over the rocks, scudding over the plains, and disappearing in the distance like a runaway cannon-ball.

And yet if some of these fleet and spirited animals should be captured, and they and their descendants for several generations should be exposed to all sorts of privations and hardships; worked hard as soon as their spirits were broken, fed on mean food and very little of it; beaten, kicked, and abused; exposed to cold climates, to which their nature does not suit them, and treated in every way as our Jacka.s.ses are generally treated, they would soon become as slow, poky, and dull as any Donkey you ever saw.

If we have nothing else, it is very well to have a good ancestry, and no n.o.bleman in Europe is proportionately as well descended as the Jacka.s.s.

ANCIENT RIDING.

There are a great many different methods by which we can take a ride.

When we are very young we are generally very well pleased with what most boys and girls call "piggy-back" riding, and when we get older we delight in horses and carriages, and some of us even take pleasure in the motion of railroad cars.

Other methods are not so pleasant. Persons who have tried it say that riding a Camel, a little Donkey, or a rail, is exceedingly disagreeable until you are used to it, and there are various other styles of progression which are not nearly so comfortable as walking.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

There were in ancient times contrivances for riding which are at present entirely unknown, except among half-civilized nations, and which must have been exceedingly pleasant.

When, for instance, an Egyptian Princess wished to take the air, she seated herself in a Palanquin, which was nothing but a comfortable chair, with poles at the sides, and her bearers, with the ends of the poles upon their shoulders, bore her gently and easily along, while an attendant with a threefold fan kept the sun from her face and gently fanned her as she rode.

Such a method of riding must have been very agreeable, for the shoulders of practised walkers impart to the rider a much more elastic and agreeable motion than the best made springs, and, for a well fed, lazy Princess nothing could have been more charming than to be borne thus beneath the waving palm-trees, and by the banks of the streams where the lotus blossomed at the water's edge, and the Ibis sniffed the cooling breeze.

But when the father or brother of the Princess wished to ride, especially if it happened to be a time of war, he frequently used a very different vehicle from an easy-going Palanquin.

He sprang into his war-chariot, and his driver lashed the two fiery horses into a gallop, while their master aimed his arrows or hurled his javelin at the foe.

Riding in these chariots was not a very great luxury, especially to those who were not accustomed to that kind of carriage exercise. There were no seats, nor any springs. The riders were obliged to stand up, and take all the b.u.mps that stones and roots chose to give them, and as they generally drove at full speed, these were doubtless many and hard. There was in general no back to these Chariots, and a sudden jerk of the horses would shoot the rider out behind, unless he knew how to avoid such accidents.

We of the present day would be apt to turn up our noses at these ancient conveyances, but there can be no doubt that the Egyptian Princesses and warriors derived just as much pleasure from their Palanquins and rough-going war-chariots as the ladies of to-day find in an easy-rolling barouche, or the gentlemen in a light buggy and a fast horse.

BEAUTIFUL BUGS.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

We are not apt--I am speaking now of mankind in general--to be very fond of bugs. There is a certain prejudice against these little creatures, which is, in very many cases, entirely unwarranted. The fact is that most bugs are harmless, and a great many of them are positively beautiful, if we will but take the trouble to look at them properly, and consider their wonderful forms and colors. To be sure, many insects to which we give the general name of bugs are quite destructive in our orchards and gardens, but, for all that, they are only eating their natural food, and although we may be very glad to get rid of our garden bugs as a body, we can have nothing to say against any particular bug. None of them are more to blame than the robins and other birds, which eat our cherries and whatever else we have that they like, and we never call a robin "horrid" because he destroys our fruit. True, the insects exist in such great numbers that it is absolutely necessary for us to kill as many of them as possible, and it is very fortunate that the robins and black-birds are of so much benefit to us that we are glad to let them live.

But all this should not make us despise the bugs any more than they deserve, particularly as they are just as beautiful as the birds, if we only look at them in the right way. A microscope will reveal beauties in some of the commonest insects, which will positively astonish those who have never before studied bugs as they ought to be studied. The most brilliant colors, the most delicate tracery and lace-work over the wings and bodies; often the most graceful forms and beautifully-contrived limbs and bodies and wing-cases and antennae, are to be seen in many bugs when they are placed beneath the gla.s.ses of the microscope.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRANSFORMATIONS OF BEETLES.]

But there are insects which do not need the aid of magnifying gla.s.ses to show us their beauties.

Some of the Beetles, especially the large ones, are so gorgeously colored and so richly polished that they are imitated, as closely as Art can imitate Nature, in precious stones and worn as ornaments.

There are few living things more beautiful than a great Beetle, glittering in resplendent green and gold, and the girl (or woman either) who will hold one of these in her hand or let it crawl upon her arm while she examines its varied colors, shows a capacity for perceiving and enjoying the beauties of nature that should be envied by those who would dash the pretty creature upon the floor, exclaiming, "That horrid bug!"

There are many insects with which we need not desire to be too familiar, such as Mosquitoes, Fleas, Wasps, and Bees; but when a "bug"

is harmless as well as beautiful, there is no reason why we should not treat it as a friend. Who is afraid of a b.u.t.terfly?

And yet a b.u.t.terfly is really just as much a bug as a Beetle is. The fact is that the term "bug" is applied with a certain propriety to many insects which are not at all pleasant (although the Lightning Bug is an exception), and we should therefore be very careful about giving what has grown to be a bad name to insects that do not deserve it, and should avoid treating such as if they were as ugly and disagreeable as the name would seem to imply.

A BATTLE ON STILTS

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BATTLE ON STILTS.]

In the year 1748 the great Marshal Saxe, who was travelling through the Low Countries, came to the town of Namur in Belgium. There the citizens did everything in their power to make his stay pleasant and to do him honor, and among other things they got up a battle on stilts. These inhabitants of Namur were well used to stilts, for their town, which has a river on each side of it, lay very low, and was subject to overflows, when the people were obliged to use stilts in order to walk about the streets. In this way they became very expert in the use of these slim, wooden legs, and to make their stilts amusing as well as useful they used to have stilt-battles on all holidays and great occasions.