490 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



such a painful angle. But " all bands-" alike are regularly 

 " chewing the cud," with half-closed, sleepy eyes, in a dreamy 

 kind of way, which seems to alleviate their heavy lot, if not 

 their toil,, and often serves to remind me of the use of tobacco 

 by civilized man, especially as formerly practised, and parti- 

 cularly by old sailors. 



Moreover, in my writing this I am reminded of a Scandi- 

 navian settler here at Dannevirke who has adopted the novel 

 mode of working two oxen in a light dray-like cart, completely 

 harnessing them as if they were horses (the oxen yoked to 

 their drays having no harness at all). Now, the having a bit 

 in their mouths prevents the two poor animals from chewing 

 the cud, and so these, being debarred from their natural habit, 

 have no solace while standing still at loading or unloading, 

 &c. I spoke more than once to the owner about it, pointing 

 out the great natural difference between horses and cattle in 

 the formation of their mouths, and then' manner of eating, 

 ruminating, &c. ; but my doing so displeased him not a little. 

 For my part, I cannot see that he gains anything by putting a 

 bit into their mouths, as he does not us'e long reins — it can 

 only serve for show. At the same time I should not omit to 

 say that his two oxen look very well in condition, and are very 

 docile. The harnessing of an ox or bullock within the shafts 

 of a cart after the manner of a horse is not, however, wholly 

 new in this colony, for I remember often seeing in the "forties" 

 an ox so harnessed coming into Wellington with a settler and 

 his family ; but that had no cruel and irritating bit in its 

 mouth. 



But, of all the varied work and labour of oxen that I have 

 ever seen, that of drawing out the large trunks of felled timber- 

 trees through the thick, uncut, uncleared forest, without tracks, 

 is to me the most astonishing. The incessant labour of both 

 man (the driver) and beast is beyond all comparison — not to 

 mention that of the faithful dog. At one time the pair of 

 leaders, or the head or horn of an ox, at another the end of 

 one of the yokes or the end of the log, gets jammed among 

 the thick standing trees, and so "backing out" and clearing 

 must take place before they can again move slowly on. Then, 

 the multiplicity of words and of phrases used in all manner of 

 tones (I don't mean swearing), and the discordant barking of 

 the dog, nov»^ on this side of the oxen and now on that — which 

 somehow the patient animals seem to understand — at all events 

 they mostly obey — is surprising. On one occasion, on wit- 

 nessing a work of this kind in the dense forest, I asked the 

 driver (a steady, hardworking, honest man, who was . known 

 to me) which he considered " required the most patience, the 

 man or the ox." He said he thought " both pretty nearly 

 alike," and I agreed with him. 



