CHAPTER XL 



THE GALLOWAYS. 



THESE are a polled, or hornless, race, originating in the low- 

 lands and extreme south-western part of Scotland, taking their 

 name from the district where they have been mainly bred. We 

 let Youatt speak of them : 



" The stewartry of Kirkcudbright and the shire of Wigton, 

 with a part of Ayrshire and Dumfries, formed the ancient 

 province or kingdom of Galloway. The two first counties 

 possess much interest with us as the native district of a breed 

 of polled, or dodded, or *humble cattle, highly valued in some 

 of the southern Scottish counties, and in almost every part of 

 England, for its grazing properties. So late as the middle of the 

 last century, the greater part of the Galloway cattle were horned 

 they were middle-horns ; but some of them were polled they 

 were either remnants of the native breed, or the characteristic 

 of the aboriginal cattle would be occasionally displayed, although 

 many a generation had passed. 



" For more than one hundred and fifty years the surplus cattle 

 of Galloway had been sent far into England, and principally to 

 the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. The polled beasts were 

 always favorites with the English farmers; they fattened as 

 kindly as the others, they attained a larger size, their flesh lost 

 none of its firmness of grain, and they exhibited no trace of 

 the wildness and dangerous ferocity which were sometimes serious 



" * Dr. Johnson gives a curious derivation of the term humble. He says of their 

 black cattle (Journey to the Western Isles, p. 186): 'Some are without horns, 

 called by the Scots humble cows, as we call a bee a humble bee that wants a sting.' " 



