In the East he is the king of beasts. Turkish and
Persian superstition even credits him with a mysterious origin; and
when stories of the prowess attributed to him are told in Thibet or in
Tartary, the speakers mingle Solomon's name with that of this noble
animal. 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. In Persia they breed asses for the saddle, a cross
between a tamed onager and a she-ass, and they paint them red,
following immemorial tradition. 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. Some claim that _Chagri_ is a Turkish word; others insist
that _Chagri_ must be the name of the place where this animal product
underwent the chemical process of preparation so clearly described by
Pallas, to which the peculiar graining that we admire is due;
Martellens has written to me saying that _Chaagri_ is a river----"
"I thank you, sir, for the information that you have given me; it
would furnish an admirable footnote for some Dom Calmet or other, if
such erudite hermits yet exist; but I have had the honor of pointing
out to you that this scrap was in the first instance quite as large as
that map," said Raphael, indicating an open atlas to Lavrille; "but it
has shrunk visibly in three months' time----"
"Quite so," said the man of science.
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