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Updated: May 12, 2025
I doubt if you could find upon it so much as a goat or a poll-parrot much less an `onager, a buffalo, or a boa-constrictor, some of which at least are indispensable to a desert island of any respectability." "Why, then, do they call such delightful places desert islands!" repeated Johnny.
"A very rare variety of ass found in Persia," the naturalist continued, "the onager of the ancients, equus asinus, the koulan of the Tartars; Pallas went out there to observe it, and has made it known to science, for as a matter of fact the animal for a long time was believed to be mythical.
Now, too, the onager, the goats, and the sheep in the corral furnished daily the milk necessary to the colony. The cart, or rather a sort of light carriole which had replaced it, made frequent journeys to the corral, and when it was Pencroft's turn to go he took Jup, and let him drive, and Jup, cracking his whip, acquitted himself with his customary intelligence.
The wild ass, or para, celebrated by the same ancient author, is generally understood to be the onager, an animal, which is to this day highly prized in Persia and the deserts of Tartary, as being fitter for the saddle than the finest breed of horses.
But the cart continued its progress, for not one of its defenders thought of abandoning it. At that moment Pencroft stopped the onager, and in a hoarse voice, "Oh! the villains!" he exclaimed. And he pointed to a thick smoke rising from the mill, the sheds, and the buildings at the poultry-yard. A man was moving about in the midst of the smoke. It was Neb. His companions uttered a shout.
Let me remind you of what saith Saint Jeremie, Onager solitarius, in desiderio animae suae, attraxit ventum amoris; the wild ass of the wilderness, in the desire of his heart, snuffeth up the wind of love; whereby that holy man signifies that vain earthly love, which is but wind and air, and shall avail nothing at all, when this weak, impure flesh is sloughed away.”
Perhaps it was this custom that gave rise to our own proverb, 'Surely as a red donkey. At some period when natural history was much neglected in France, I think a traveler must have brought over one of these strange beasts that endures servitude with such impatience. Hence the adage. The skin that you have laid before me is the skin of an onager. Opinions differ as to the origin of the name.
Every other day one of the settlers, driving the cart or mounted on an onager, went to look after the flock of musmons and goats and bring back the supply of milk required by Neb. These excursions at the same time afforded opportunities for hunting.
A tame onager, in short, is worth an enormous amount; it is well-nigh impossible to catch them among the mountains, where they leap like roebucks, and seem as if they could fly like birds. Our myth of the winged horse, our Pegasus, had its origin doubtless in these countries, where the shepherds could see the onager springing from one rock to another.
At the court there would be a supply of venison, antelope's flesh, hares, partridges, and other game, varied perhaps occasionally with such delicacies as the flesh of the wild ox and the onager. Fish must have been an article of food in Assyria, or the monuments would not have presented us; with so many instances of fishermen.
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