164 on animal and vegetable food. Dee. 5. 
scarcely sufficient for the purposes of agriculture ; } 
for which reason, several of the Mohammedan em- 
perors of Hindostan have occasionally been obliged 
to forbid the slaughter of oxen and cows fora time *. 
By reason of the bad and scanty fodder, the beef, 
and-€ven mutton throughout Hindostan, is not only 
extremely hard and heating+, but on the coast of 
Malabar is intolerably disgusting; and the eating of 
it is attended with so much danger, that Europeans’ 
have been known to get the most malignant ulcers 
from that practicet. In the whole of the torrid zone 
there are but a few districts, which by rare properties 
of soiland climate, abound in nutritious and wholesome 
herbs and grafses, and accordingly where numerous 
herds of tame European animals are able to: find’ 
food; and the animals of these: ‘pastures yield a meat 
no lefs salutary, than well tasted. Among these 
districts we may particularly reckon Java||, and’ 
Madagascar J, as also Abyfsinia §; and most of the 
low parts of America, from twenty-five degrees 
north latitude, to thirty degrees south latitude**, 
Poivre affirms that he never in all his life saw lar- 
ger and finer'cattle than in Java; and both he and 
Gentil afsure us, that in Madagascar oxen and 
fheep are ofan extraordinary delicacy, and that 
their flefh is almost too nutritious. The oxen have 
* See Meinet’s history of religion, article, sacred animals, 
+ Bera, tom. ii. p. 25. } Toreen, p. 475. |] Poivre, p. 61, 
@ Idem, p. 15. & seg, Gentil, tom. ii, p. 402, § Loho, p. 181, 
** Gily, tom, iv. pafsim, partic. 1379; Smith’s tour in the United 
States of America, vol, is p. 3826 
