JUDGING. 171 



not run off, while on your looking underneath no 

 light could be seen between the attaching surfaces of 

 board and beef. Above all things, there should be 

 no elevated ridge along the back, with flat down- 

 sloping ribs on either side. Of a fatted symmetrical 

 heifer, the head and legs being cut cleanly off, the 

 carcase should be so cylindrically true all over — no 

 hollow behind the shoulder or by the flank — that it 

 would roll a gravel walk and not miss a pebble. 

 Having come to recognise these leading points that 

 meet the eye, you must learn the mysteries of touch 

 — to "handle a beast" — a secret the acquisition of 

 which will give you no slight trouble, no less than 

 the knowing how to sharpen a razor, for which trust 

 a doctor ! If your razor become unreasonably cruel, 

 then I advise you to curry favour with the nearest 

 surgeon. But to return : a beast should have a skin 

 mellow as a French glove — not too thick, not too thin 

 — filling your hand with an ample pliant fold as you 

 grasp it, and clothed with a wealth of rich soft hair. 

 In Africa, I may observe in passing, just to show how 

 impossible it is to please all folk, this quality is at a 

 discount, inasmuch as it makes the seat of the rider 

 on the saddle-ox uneasy. 



The hide of an inferior animal is thick, harsh, 

 coarse, tight-sticking to the rib as an asphalt roof. 

 A pendent pouch of skin under the chin indicates an 

 aptitude to feed, as also does a cushion of meat upon 

 the pin-bone. And this applies, too, in a great mea- 

 sure, to the improved pig, as distinguished from the 

 gaunt natives, which, thirty years ago, used, on their 



