The burro draws no color line. He affiliates as readily with the Mexican and the Indian as he does with the whites. The desert tribes have little success with horses, and even the rugged bronchos cannot endure the heat and thirst incident to life in that region, but the burro is as much at home and seemingly as contented there as are his brethren who live and labor in the alfalfa meadows of the fertile belt.
The burro is never vicious. Unlike his cousin, the mule, he knows no guile. As a playmate for children he has no rival. He humors them, bears with them, and lets them work their own sweet wills with him. He requires little care, asks little to eat, and seems simply to crave existence.
TAKING ON THE CARGO
From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.
Let the artist in search of a model for contentment go to the burro. There he will find contentment personified.
He does not sigh and moan that he, alas,
Is but a mongrel, neither horse nor ass.
Content that being neither, he may do
His work and live as nature meant him to.