THE OX 281 



These anointings with the holy dung make you smile, 

 children; in me they arouse serious reflections. 

 From what depths of misery must 'not the domestic 

 animals have raised us if the Hindoo of our time 

 still preserves in these strange rites some vestiges 

 of the ancient veneration of the entire Orient for one 

 of these animals, and that one the most important, 

 the ox!" 



"I should say it was a strange rite," declared 

 Jules, "to daub oneself with dung in honor of the 

 cow. They might have hit on a better way. ' ' 



"In every age and in every land popular imagina- 

 tion has easily lent itself and still lends itself to ex- 

 travagant notions. In the most important city of 

 the South I have seen, I, Uncle Paul, the people lead- 

 ing through the streets, in triumphal procession, the 

 fattened ox that was to be sacrificed on Easter Eve. 

 A laurel branch on its forehead, many-colored rib- 

 bons on its horns, the peaceful beast bore on its 

 shoulders a pretty little child, rosy, plump, clothed 

 in a lamb's skin. A retinue accompanied it in 

 bright-colored costumes. Is not that a vague re- 

 minder of the procession of the bull Apis, with this 

 difference that the Egyptian bull returned after the 

 ceremony to its perfumed manger, while ours meets 

 its end in the heavy blow awaiting it at the slaugh- 

 ter-house? It is the custom for the be-ribboned ox 

 to be led from door to door, where its escort never 

 fails to present the basin for offerings, great and 

 small ; for it is to be noted that at the bottom of every 

 superstition is found the quest of the piece of coin. 



