Mullion

“ I have the greatest respect for a mule. He knows more than the horse; just as the goose or the duck knows more than the chicken. Six days the mules on the ranch laboured; but on the seventh they were turned out into the pastures to rest and roll and stand around gossiping sociably, rubbing their long, ridiculous Roman noses together, or switching the flies off one another with their tasselled tails. Each evening at sunset all the various teams came in from different directions, converging at the lane, and plodding dustily up its length to the sheds and their night's rest. ”

“ A mule, however, will eat almost any thing rather than starve. Straw, pine boards, the bark of trees, grain sacks, pieces of old leather, do not come amiss with him when he is hungry. There were many instances, during the late war, where a team of mules were found, of a morning, standing over the remains of what had, the evening before, been a Government wagon. When two or more have been kept tied to a wagon, they have been known to eat each other's tail off to the bone, And yet the animal, thus deprived of his caudal appendage, did not evince much pain. ”

“ Once again the herd came towards me, and I saw that I was not mistaken, but that a mule really was among them, a mule of a delicate light brown color, with dark back-stripe, and which I thought had the biggest head and the longest ears I had ever seen. Mules are more suitable for rough mountain-riding than horses, are surer-footed, and less likely to fall into abysses—a fact worth consideration. To be sure they are obstinate, and I have known a mule be beaten half to death rather than take another step, not because it was overladen or the way was hard, but simply because it would not. ”

“ A mule is following the path, and I am the adventurous traveller who is astride on the beast's back. The first observation that occurs to me in my new position is, that mules thoroughly deserve their reputation for obstinacy, and that, in regard to the particular animal on which I am riding, the less I interfere with him and the more I conduct myself as if I was a pack-saddle on his back, the better we are sure to get on together. ”

“ I have driven mules, single and double, night and day, from two to ten in a team, and have handled them in every way that it is possible to handle them, and have in my charge at this time two hundred of the best mule teams in the world, and there is not a span among them that could be forced over the road in four minutes. It is true of the mule that he will stand more abuse, more beating, more straining and constant dogging at him than any other animal used in a team. ”

“ I've spent about fifteen thousand of Muley's credit with him, and being a minister, he's a little suspicious of his fellow-men.
"I ride with you for the good of my soul," orates the old boy, when he offers to accompany me.
I reckon that when a shepherd goes into cow-land, it's like taking a ship into fresh water to knock off the barnacles.
He's a queer old coot. Imagine a man of his cognomen, add the smell of sheep, dress him up around the neck like a preacher, tuck his pants into the top of a pair of heavy boots, and you've got a portrait of Old Testament. ”

“ Now, a white mule is an old mule, and the older the mule, the bigger the fool, and when they peeped over the top of that hill, only to butt into a goggle-eyed demon, they did what mules always do. When I first saw them I was looking at the north end of that funeral procession. The next instant I was looking at the south end. And as the thing turned over once to adjust itself to different direction, a venerable old darky shot out of the rear end of that hearse, followed by a two-dollar coffin, and everything in that two miles of vehicles turned tail at the same time. ”

“ We never, I confess, became quite reconciled to the habit all mules have of keeping on the side of the path next to the precipice—except when they meet animals coming from the opposite direction, when they instinctively crowd closely to the over-hanging mountain—but we soon learned that the mule had as much care for his safety as we had for our own, and then the danger, we at first so much dreaded, became more apparent than real. ”

“ Tenterden.—The church comprises chancel, nave, north and south aisles with chancels (which are private property, as in numerous other instances) south porch, late Perp. vestry east of the south chancel, and large square west tower with battlements, stair turret, and pinnacles at the angles of the top. This church has been sadly mutilated. The mullions and tracery of all the windows, save those of the private chancels, have been removed. The tower resembles others of the district, but much exceeds them generally in size. A very little coloured glass remains. ”

“ Why? Simply because a mule is—a mule. No one has yet written a theory of the evolution of mules. We all know a mule is a blend of horse and donkey, and that reproduction of the species is mercifully withheld by the grace of heaven, but further than that we do not go.
When the war began our C.O. was talking about mules. We had not crossed the water [27] then. He said: “I will not have any mules. No civilised man should have to look after a mule. When I was in Pindi once, a mule ... Mr. Jenks”—our worthy Transport Officer—“there will be no mules in this regiment.” ”

“ And about noon, when the sun stood radiant above them, they met three Men of the Mountains, with shallow baskets on their heads, coming down to gather Ukka-nuts in the valley. These Mulgars have long silken, black-and-white hair and very profuse whiskers. They are sad in face, with pouting lips, have but the meanest of thumbs, and turn their toes in as they walk, one behind another, and sometimes in chains of a hundred together. Thumb stood in their path, and inquired of the first of them, as before, which way they must follow to cross the mountains. ”

“ But commend me to a good mule; over a broken country, where their delicate little hoofs find a secure foothold over shelving rocks, or upon the brink of a yawning precipice, where you drop the bridle, close your eyes and offer up an orison for your blessed mule to bear you safely. And with what sagacity they feel their way, and how often an imprudent rider will find cause to bless his stars that the wilful little beast takes the bit in the mouth, and obstinately pursues his own path! However, as I said before, they are not pleasant animals when the danger is passed ”

“ They stand for the most part about three spans high in their grass slippers. Their noses are even flatter than the noses of the Mullabruks. Their teeth stand out somewhat, giving their small faces a cunning mouse-look, which never changes. Their eyes are round and thin-lidded, and almost as colourless as glass. Yet behind their glassiness seems to be set a gleam, like a far and tiny taper shining, so that they are perfectly visible in the dark, or even dusk. Thus may they be seen, a horde of them together in the evening gloom of the forest when they go Mulgar-hunting. ”

“ Do not buy three year old mules to put to work that it requires a five or six year old mule to perform. Six three year old mules are just about as fit to travel fifteen miles per day, with an army wagon loaded with twenty-five hundred and their forage, as a boy, six years of age, is fit to do a man's work. During the first twelve months of the war, I had charge of one hundred and six mule-teams, and I noticed in particular, that not one solitary mule as high as six years old gave out on the trips that I made with the teams. ”

“ Approach and handle him the same as you would an animal already broken, and through kindness you will, in less than a week, have your mule more tractable, better broken, and kinder than you would in a month, had you used the whip. Mules, with very few exceptions, are born kickers. Breed them as you will, the moment they are able to stand up, and you put your hand on them, they will kick. It is, indeed, their natural means of defence, and they resort to it through the force of instinct. In commencing to break them, then, kicking is the first thing to guard against and overcome. ”

“ The average mule has got more sense than the average horse has got. What’s more, every mule has got something that no horse ever had—and that’s imagination. Why, I know of an instance when a mule was killed by the power of his own imagination.
“It happened forty years ago when I was a young shaver, on my uncle’s farm up the Tennessee River. My uncle owned an old gray mule. He had the mule on pasture in a ten-acre lot. ”

“ It takes the large one so long to find enough to eat, when the grass is scanty, that he has not time enough for rest and recuperation. I often found them leaving camp, in the morning, quite as hungry and discouraged as they were when we halted the previous evening. With the small mule it is different. He gets enough to eat, quick, and has time to rest and refresh himself. The Spanish or Mexican mule, however, is better as a pack animal, than for a team. They are vicious, hard to break, and two-thirds of them kick. ”

“ There are roads so steep and difficult that it is no unusual experience to see a muleteer take hold of his mule's tail as he goes down the mountain path, and by a judicious holding back, help the animal to steady himself under a heavy, awkward load. On the other hand, when he is going up the mountain, the tired muleteer will take hold of the same convenient handle to get a little help for himself in the ascent. ”

“ A wicked mule is a beau-idéal fiend; the way he tucks his head under his body and sends all his legs out at once, like a spider, is wonderful to see; and when all four mules do it, it is like a fancy sketch in Punch. They drive none but wild mules along this road, and after three months they sell them, for they become too tame for their work. ”

“ Mulliner had only to pull the siren rope to set Nature off in a display finer than fireworks, rouse the echoing woods, and lift rocket stars of painted and screaming birds—blazing parrots, scarlet, green, and blue, paroquets, toucans circling and yelping like dogs far above the tall matamata trees, and egrets like puffs of snow against the burning sapphire of the sky. ”

“ It is curious, also, that a white mare seems to have the greatest attractions for them. I have known a stud mule to take a fancy to a white mare, and it seemed impossible to keep him away from her. Mules of all kinds, however, seem to have a peculiar fancy for white mares and horses, and when this attachment is once formed, it is almost impossible to separate them. If you want to drive a herd of five hundred mules any distance, turn a white or gray mare in among them for two or three days, and they will become so attached to her that you may turn them out, and they will follow her anywhere. ”

“ But we do not know whether this generation ever proceeded from the union of a male with a female mule, or whether the production were not effected by the junction of a male with a mare, or a male-ass with a mule. There are two kinds of males, the first is the great mule, which proceeds from the junction of a male-ass with a mare, and the small mule, proceeding from the horse and the she-ass, which we shall call bardeau, to distinguish it from the other. ”

“ We are told, in Mason and Skinner's Stud Book, that in breeding mules the mares should be large barrelled small limbed, with a moderate-sized head and a good forehead. This, it seems to me, will strike our officers as a very novel recommendation. The mule's limbs and feet are the identical parts you want as large as possible, as everyone that has had much to do with the animal knows. You rarely find a mule that has legs as large as a horse. But the mule, from having a horse's body, will fatten and fill up, and become just as heavy as the body of an average-sized horse. ”

“ The perfect mule should be large-headed, not with a little-hammer head like to a horse, but long and thin, with ears erect, round feet, and upon no account when spurred ought it to whisk its tail, for that was most unseemly, fit but for Germans, Negroes, Indians, and generally for all those he counted senseless people—“gente sem razão”; saying “of course all men are of one flesh, but some are dog’s flesh, and let them ride mules who whisk about their tails like cattle in a marsh.” ”

“ Each herd has a mulera, or bell-mare, which wears a bell hanging to a strap around her neck, and is kept in view of the other animals, who will never leave her. If the mare is taken away from the herd, every mule becomes really melancholy and is at a loss what to do or where to go. The cook of the party, or madre (mother) as he is called, besides his duty in preparing the food, must lead the bell-mule ahead of the train while travelling, the pack-animals following her with a devotion that is remarkable. ”

“ The mule was quite thin, and probably tough, while the little horse was young, and, notwithstanding the many days it had, with all of us, starved and traveled without water, was still quite plump and round, and probably tender, or, at the worst, not so tough as the poor old docile mule; so, at length we decided to kill the innocent little creature, jerk his flesh, pack it on the mule, and thereby try to save our own lives, for a time at least, and endeavor to reach some place of safety. ”

“ It is all new to me; the hills and mountains are different in shape from any I have seen; the plants, trees, rock, all strange, and as we take our horses to the beautiful creek to drink, curious fish come to look at their noses.
July 1st. Again our road was up hill, and most dangerous, so most of us walked, but with all our care nearly lost two mules, by mis-steps. The narrow passes are so worn by the trains of pack mules, that, to insure safe footing, each mule puts his foot in the same worn hole that other mules have trod, for, perhaps, fifty years previously. ”