We left our knight errant in the hands of the medicos who did finally find a cure for his agonies. Having accomplished their mean feat, he was given a place of honor in a nearby apartment which provided access for the public to view this most noble and well known protector of fair maidens and God's chosen righter of injustices.
In the stable where Rozinante and Amadis were housed, Sancho and his new friends found comfort in the freshly laid straw. As was typical after a filling meal and pleasant sleep, Sancho was difficult to rouse and he found himself being gently kneaded by one of the maidens who had accompanied him in his afternoon's rest. She was acting on the direction of the vet-medico whom we must give a name as he continues to be a most important member in the events which follow. Juan Jose Gutierrez was his name and he was well known in the area as being an enterprising businessman, perhaps somewhat unscrupulous in his dealings, but, capable in the performing of veterinarian arts.
Once awakened, Sancho was addressed as follows by the medico; "Sancho, I must speak to you of you fine ass that has attracted much attention since you and he arrived in our fair city." "Amadis, for I believe that to be his name, is destined to become famous. That is, if you so permit me to use him in a most interesting and I might add, profitable experiment." "Sir." replied Sancho, "Never would I permit my ass to be placed in a position that endangered him as we have long been inseperatable and do truly love one another."
"Sancho, what I am about to propose will be most pleasurable for Amadis and will fill your purse with many golden coins. Hear me out."
"Perhaps if you would share the skin of wine that I see you have brought from the operating theater, we can talk about your offerings."
"Of course." And speaking to the nearby lady of the stable, he said, "Go and fetch us two skins of the best red wine and place it on the Don's account. But wait, fetch three so that you and your friends can take it to the shade of the trees and enjoy it, leaving Sancho and myself to discuss our business in the quite of this room."
The lady departed, soon to return with the three skins and gathering up her associates, left as they had been so bid. Sancho sampled the wine and found it to be good. Having quenched his thirst for the time, he asked, "Now what is it that will make my pockets fill with gold?"
"Honest Sancho, I know one of God's secrets that has been revealed to few men. A moor who was once a captive of the Israelites was of the country of Arabia. This man who knew the art of language and religions of the world, came from a poor family who served one of the Princes of the desert. In that distant place, it was not unusual that a families most proud possession was its stable of horses. They often let their children go hungry and without shoes so that their horses could be fed and shod. Now it came to the attention of this Moor that the Prince had in his stable a most famous stallion. One that was known for his swiftness, courage and great endurance. In addition he was most graceful and beautiful. Use of this stallion as a stud to sire offspring that contained his rare abilities was practiced in a most stingy way as the prince knew that supply and demand were elements that he could take advantage of. Accordingly he used his stallion only on his most favored mares and with reluctance permitted not many of the royal family to also use the services of his good male."
"This is rather interesting, but I fail to see how an Arabian stallion can offer pleasures to my ass, Amadis, or to enrich my purse. But continue, for your wine is good and the shade of the stable is far better than the heat of the sun."
"This famous stallion was kept in a paddock under careful watch so that no one would be tempted to offer him the fruits of a mare in season. However, as is usually the case, those who watch were often lulled into sleep by the heat of the sun as you say, and know. This is where our Moor comes into the story. You see, he had long watched the servicing of the mares and had developed an understanding of the method in which the stallion used his fifth member to attend to the mare in season. He determined that it was possible to remove the stallions seed and with his own arm and hand perform the mission that the stallion had once only performed. And, Sancho, I tell you he was successful. He was able to provide the mares of his family with the seed of the stallion and the colts produced were as beautiful and outstanding as those of the royal prince's herd. You may say that is good, now he will be rich and powerful as well as the royal prince. But that was not to be, for as soon as the prince saw that the offspring of his neighbor's mares were equal to his, he became enraged and did take all the family's horses, their every possession and he had the Moor seized and sold into bondage to a ship that lay in the harbor. This ship which plied the Mediterranean had a port of call in Jordan and the slave was sold to a merchant that traveled widely. Our man found himself in Jerusalem and in a market was sold to a Spaniard who seeing that the Moor was more intelligent than most, might earn a profit if sold in Spain. It came to pass that the man's new owner lived in this fair city of Zaragoza and he was employed as a man of the house doing the biding of my neighbor. I found the Moor to be quite reasonable and he and I discussed the world and its many pleasures. In time we became friends and I decided to set him free. For this he offered me the rarest of secrets which I have now revealed to you. He has now gone to, I know not where, but the secret is yours and mine. What do you say, Sancho?"
"A most interesting story. But I must confess that I believe you to be a fool for buying the freedom of a Moor for some sum of money in exchange for a story that is much like one that my master, Don Quixote, often tells. And the people of the country think him mad."
"Mad, I am not. And wealthy both you and I shall become for gaining the knowledge that the Moor has imparted. Hear me out. This is the plan which involves not you but your good ass, Aramus, and the many mares of the area that can benefit from his service."
"Now I know you to be indeed, a fool and a madman as well. Amadis is an ass, a donkey, a burrow. You are a physician practicing the art of an animal medico, and you think Amadis is a stallion. Somewhere in you learning experience in the universities you must have missed a most valuable lesson."
"Ah, Sancho, that is what makes our experiment the more valuable. Others have not thought that an ass and a horse could produce an offspring. Their reasoning being that the size of the two prevented any performance that would ensure success. But I tell you, I now know the art as practiced by the good Moor and I can achieve what Aramus could not. I will take his seed and use it to produce many offspring that will have the patience and endurance of an ass and the size and strength of a horse. When others see our results, they will pay great sums to have a chimaera of such beauty."
"I am beginning to believe that you are not as daft as I once thought. In my eye of the mind, I can see such an animal and indeed if it is as you describe, we will be most wealthy. How do we go forth from this time in the stable?"
"Sancho, I will take Amadis. I will keep him as my own. I will place the seed into willing mares and in some fifteen moons, we will have colts that dazzle the most questioning eyes. These I shall offer for sale and the proceeds I shall share with you. After the passage of two years, I shall return your good and faithful ass to you. The two of you much enriched by our noble experiments will return to your la Mancha and live as royal princes. What say you?"
"Done. Tomorrow when I depart with my master, Don Quixote, it will be on foot as you shall have Amadis for your service."
The next morn, Don Quixote who felt much improved from his bout with the medicos and being separated from the dopplegangers and his teeth, was anxious to depart from this city which he believed to be inhabited by spirits even more evil that those of the countryside. His squire came early to attend to him, bringing Rozinante from the stable. As soon as the Don was properly dressed, undressed, his body functions attended to and redressed they were ready to depart. The careful reader should note that by an early morning leaving before others had awakened, it was possible to shift the burden of the hosting of the Don, his squire, Rozinante and Amadis to those who chose the feather bed to an honest days work.
It was not lost on the knight of rueful countenance that his squire was afoot and not mounted on his faithful ass. After some hours on the path leading toward la Mancha, he asked, "Sancho, it appears to me that you have left something behind in the city of Zaragoza. Is there an explanation?"
To this Sancho replied, "Master, I have a most interesting story to relate to you and having told it you will see that I shall soon be quite wealthy, have properties even more vast than your own, that I will have no need for an island kingdom, my pockets will be filled with gold to overflowing and my good ass, Amadis, will be returned to me and we shall live in comfort in a castle of our own."
"As the morning is young and we have a long trail to follow, please let us stop in the friendly shade of those trees and you can reveal to me the magic that will reward you so well." said the Don.
They stopped under the trees. Don Quixote dismounted and Rozinante was given freedom to feed on the fresh grass. Seating themselves comfortably, Sancho removed his boots to massage his sorely abused feet and began his tale which he completed in more detail than that which I have just described as he was more understanding of the physical needs of horses and asses and such. After he was finished, Don Quixote could only look to his squire in amazement. He said, "Sancho, you be a greater mad man than I. And if I think you without senses, think of how your good wife will view your latest madness. You Sancho, have best make a story that involves giants, dopplegangers, midgets, lions and such that is more believable so that you will not be taken to you house and tied to you bed to restrain you from actions that you just describe. Poor, Sancho, I bethinks my own madness has a contagion."
Having said thus, Don Quixote remounted Rocinante and with Sancho walking at his side they continued toward their next adventure.
So it was that Sancho Panza and Juan Jose Gutierrez agree to the terms of separation of Sancho from his ass and the following morn Sancho as agreed, departed from the fair city. Alas, there is more to the story than just that told. The reader must be made aware of what went wrong in the vet-medico's plans. Juan Jose was successful in producing offspring from Amadis and the many good mares of the area. After some thirteen months or fifteen moons, the offspring began to appear and they were as the medico had predicted large, muscular and of great endurance. But, they had a distinguishing characteristic that was most unsettling. They retained the ears of the donkey and a rather long face that was not all that pleasant to behold. The villagers who had been selected by our enterprising veterinarian were not happy with the results of this hand-maiden marriage and drove him from the village in the dark of night, leaving Amadis alone in the stable. A passing tin-merchant seeing that the ass was not in the possession of anyone, simply accepted him as his own.
It might be added as an afternote, in addition to the unpleasant disposition of Amadis' production, it was found that when they became of mature age, that they were unable to produce offspring. The thickness of their hide and head led in latter day to the term to describe those who tried to entreat the animals to move and do their bidding, as a "mule-skinner." Had Juan Jose Gutierrez remained in the village until that time, he surely would have been deprived of his hide as well.
*****
As an historical note. Breeding of horses by the method described did originate in Arabia. It was only in mid-twentieth century that the practice made its way into the breeding of cattle in this country. An industry developed and the vast majority of dairy cattle are now bred artificially, using frozen semen from bulls that have extensive data collected on the quality of their progeny. Some estimate as many as 95% of world dairy cattle are bred artificially. While encouraged by the breeding companies, the practice has not been widely accepted for beef cattle, resulting in most cattle herds continuing to have one bull for each 15 to 20 cows. A few hogs are now bred artificially although the semen is mostly fresh rather than frozen. This necessitates the breeding of the female within a manner of hours after the semen is collected as compared to the ability to store cattle semen in liquid nitrogen for years (in fact the semen from some rare and valuable bulls has now been stored in this manner for more than twenty years.)
As practiced by Juan Jose Gutierrez, breeding of horses first was accomplished by collecting the semen in an animal skin much like the contraceptives of today. The semen was then removed from the skin and the breeder using his arm inserted a packet of semen into the mare's reproductive tract. Because of the value of the horses, today's owners are quite selective in which mares are bred, not unlike the Arabs of old and artificial insemination is little practiced in horse breeding..
The turkey which we are all familiar with for thanksgiving and other festive event is known as the Beltsville White. It was developed by the United States Department of Agriculture at the research station in Beltsville, Maryland. The breast meat is most favored and accordingly, the birds were bred to have more musculature in this area than range birds or wild birds. This lead to a problem in that the massive breast prevented the birds from mating. The solution was and continues to be, artificial insemination. As a side note, turkeys have a unusual ability in their reproduction. The process called parthenogenesis does not require the services of the male and in some instances turkeys appear to benefit from this trait. The offspring has only the genetic traits and physical characteristics of the female and is can only be female as no "Y" chromosome is present.
So, there have been successes and failures in the field of animal improvement. Unknown to Juan and Sancho, they were conducting an experiment that was doomed to failure. Only in the Twentieth century has it become known that the number of chromosomes in the horse and donkey (ass) is different. The horse has 64 chromosomes (32 pairs) and the donkey has 62 chromosomes (31 pairs). The product of a male ass (jack) and female horse (mare) results in a mule with 63 chromosomes (32 pairs plus a single chromosome). When a mating is tried using a mule, the chromosomes cannot form complete pairs and thus there can be no offspring. The product of a male horse (stallion) and a female donkey (jenny) results in a hinnie which has 63 chromosomes as did the mule produced by the other cross. The hinnie is usually sterile but some success has been made at Texas A & M in making a cross with a donkey. As the reader may remember, Cervantes' story retells the unpleasantness that Sancho and Don Quixote encountered at one of the inns at the hands of the mule drover, the inn keeper, the Asturian wench and the Officer of the Holly Brotherhood of Toledo. It would appear that Cervantes (or at least the translators) was familiar with the mule as another beast of burden. Perhaps in this episode following Don Quixote's encounters with the medicos of the day, Juan Jose was simply using Sancho and his ass as a method to take advantage of the local gentry and separate them from their monies? For poor honest Sancho, he must await another tale before he arrives at the magic kingdom of castles, islands and wealth beyond belief. And like Sancho, many of those who have practiced animal breeding using artificial insemination have seen their efforts at success (that is financial awards), twarted. The industry mostly focused on dairy cattle breeding has tried its hand at cloning (somewhat like parthenogenesis in that the genetic material pool avoids the random recombination of genes to yield a consistent product) but cost have limited its application. The process of cloning often mentioned in the popular press has yet to produce progeny that have improvements that exceed the results of conventional animal breeding.
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