Ancient use of the Mule—Various breeds of Mule—Supposed date of its introduction into Palestine—Mule-breeding forbidden to the Jews—The Mule as a saddle-animal—Its use on occasions of state—The king's Mule—Obstinacy of the Mule.

There are several references to the Mule in the Holy Scriptures, but it is remarkable that the animal is not mentioned at all until the time of David, and that in the New Testament the name does not occur at all.

The origin of the Mule is unknown, but that the mixed breed between the horse and the ass has been employed in many countries from very ancient times is a familiar fact. It is a very strange circumstance that the offspring of these two animals should be, for some purposes, far superior to either of the parents, a well-bred Mule having the lightness, surefootedness, and hardy endurance of the ass, together with the increased size and muscular development of the horse. Thus it is peculiarly adapted either for the saddle or for the conveyance of burdens over a rough or desert country.

The Mules that are most generally serviceable are bred from the male ass and the mare, those which have the horse as the father and the ass as the mother being small, and comparatively valueless. At the present day, Mules are largely employed in Spain and the Spanish dependencies, and there are some breeds which are of very great size and singular beauty, those of Andalusia being especially celebrated. In the Andes, the Mule has actually superseded the llama as a beast of burden.

Its appearance in the sacred narrative is quite sudden. In Gen. xxxvi. 24, there is a passage which seems as if it referred to the Mule: "This was that Anah that found the mules in the wilderness." Now the word which is here rendered as Mules is "Yemim," a word which is not found elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures. The best Hebraists are agreed that, whatever interpretation may be put upon the word, it cannot possibly have the signification that is here assigned to it. Some translate the word as "hot springs," while the editors of the Jewish Bible prefer to leave it untranslated, thus signifying that they are not satisfied with any rendering.

The word which is properly translated as Mule is "Pered;" and the first place where it occurs is 2 Sam. xiii. 29. Absalom had taken advantage of a sheep-shearing feast to kill his brother Amnon in revenge for the insult offered to Tamar: "And the servants of Absalom did unto Amnon as Absalom had commanded. Then all the king's sons arose, and every man gat him up upon his mule, and fled." It is evident from this passage that the Mule must have been in use for a considerable time, as the sacred writer mentions, as a matter of course, that the king's sons had each his own riding mule.

Farther on, chap. xviii. 9 records the event which led to the death of Absalom by the hand of Joab. "And Absalom met the servants of David. And Absalom rode upon a mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth; and the mule that was under him went away."

We see by these passages that the Mule was held in such high estimation that it was used by the royal princes for the saddle, and had indeed superseded the ass. In another passage we shall find that the Mule was ridden by the king himself when he travelled in state, and that to ride upon the king's Mule was considered as equivalent to sitting upon the king's throne. See, for example, 1 Kings i. in which there are several passages illustrative of this curious fact. See first, ver. 33, in which David gives to Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the captain of the hosts, instructions for bringing his son Solomon to Gihon, and anointing him king in the stead of his father: "Take with you the servants of your lord, and cause Solomon my son to ride upon mine own mule, and bring him down to Gihon."

That the Mule was as obstinate and contentious an animal in Palestine as it is in Europe is evident from the fact that the Eastern mules of the present day are quite as troublesome as their European brethren. They are very apt to shy at anything, or nothing at all; they bite fiercely, and every now and then they indulge in a violent kicking fit, flinging out their heels with wonderful force and rapidity, and turning round and round on their fore-feet so quickly that it is hardly possible to approach them. There is scarcely a traveller in the Holy Land who has not some story to tell about the Mule and its perverse disposition; but, as these anecdotes have but very slight bearing on the subject of the Mule as mentioned in the Scriptures, they will not be given in these pages.