apt to be soft, and they also lack
strength. This is particularly so with those that take after the mare,
and have manes and tails of the same color. Those that take after the
jack generally have black stripes round their legs, black manes and
tails, and black stripes down their backs and across their shoulders,
and are more hardy and better animals. I have frequently seen men, in
purchasing a lot of mules, select those of a certain color, fancying
that they were the hardiest, and yet the animals would be widely
different in their working qualities. You may take a black mule, black
mane, black hair in his ears, black at the flank, between the hips or
thighs, and black under the belly, and put him alongside of a similar
sized mule, marked as I have described above, say light, or what is
called mealy-colored, on each of the above-mentioned parts, put them in
the same condition and flesh, of similar age and soundness, and, in many
cases, the mule with the light-colored parts will wear the other out.

It is very different with the white mule. He is generally soft, and can
stand but little hardship. I refer particularly to those that have a
white skin. Next to the white and cream, we have the iron-grey mule.
This color generally indicates a hardy mule. We have now twelve teams of
iron-gray mules in the park, which have been doing hard work every day
since July, 1865; it is now January, 1866. Only one of these mules has
become unfit for service, and that one was injured by being kicked by
his mate. All our other teams have had more or less animals made unfit
for service and exchanged.

In speaking of the color of mules, it must not be inferred that there
are no mules that are all of a color that are not hardy and capable of
endurance. I have had some, whose color did not vary from head to foot,
that were capable of great endurance. But in most cases, if kept
steadily at work from the time they were three years old until they were
eight or ten, they generally gave out in some part, and became an
expense instead of profit.

Various opinions are held as to what the mule can be made to do under
the saddle, many persons asserting that in crossing the plains he can be
made to perform almost equal to the horse. This is true on the prairie.
But there he works with every advantage over the horse. In 1858, I rode
a mule from Cedar Valley, forty-eight miles north of Salt Lake City, to
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, a distance of nearly fo