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 fourteen hundred miles.
Starting from Cedar Valley on the 22d of October, I reached Fort
Leavenworth on the 31st of December. At the end of the journey the
animal was completely worn down.

In this condition I put her into Fleming's livery stable, in Leavenworth
City, and was asked if she was perfectly gentle. One would suppose that,
in such a condition, she would naturally be so. I assured the hostler
that she was; that I had ridden her nearly a year, and never knew her to
kick. That same morning, when the hostler went to feed her, she suddenly
became vicious, and kicked him very severely. She was then about twelve
years old. I have since thought that when a mule gets perfectly gentle
he is unfit for service.

Proprietors of omnibuses, stage lines, and city railroads have, in many