382 THE HIGHLANDS OF CEXTEAL IXDIA. 



they afford for countless herds of cattle, annually 

 brought to them from great distances in the open 

 country on both sides during the hot season. Fine 

 <Trass and abundance of shade and water make this 



o 



one of the finest grazing countries in all India, and 

 the amount of wealth which thus actually seems to 

 depend on its continuance as a waste is very great. 



At first siorht some hesitation mio;ht be felt at the 

 prospect of these great graziug-grounds being reclaimed 

 for cultivation, when it is considered how all-essential 

 to the life of a country like India is the breeding of 

 larse stocks of oxen. Here the drau2;ht ox takes the 

 place of the fann-horse and the steam-engine of England. 

 Cattle are bred, not as an article of food, but as afford- 

 ing perhaps the only description of power by which 

 the operations of agriculture could be performed at 

 all. Horses could not take their place in converting 

 the hard, burnt-up soils, under the blazing sun of the 

 season, when ploughing and sowing the autumn crop 

 goes on, nor, so far as we know the resources of the 

 land, could steam power, even if otherwise suitable, 

 find sufficient fuel at anything like a moderate cost. 

 Thus it may not have been without a teaching of far- 

 seeing policy that the Hindu has been prohibited by 

 his religion from converting the race of horned cattle 

 to the purposes of food. It may be true that the 

 rigid prohibition against touching the carcases of such 

 animals, or in any way trafficking in their death, may 

 have excluded the Hindu cattle-owner from much 

 legitimate profit in the way of leather, horn, tallow, 

 glue, etc. ; but it is impossible to draw fine shades 

 of distinction in religious sanctions, and if, as is pro- 

 bable, the slaughter of cattle useful for the plough 

 could not be otherwise prevented, then the sanctification 



