NATURAL HISTORY OF THE OX. 23 



In the general way, the cattle were not nearly so carefully 

 fed as they are with us in these days, and hence the labour 

 of threshing would be attended with some compensatory advan- 

 tage in the temporary abundance of which the animals might 

 take their fill, provided they were not muzzled. After the 

 corn was threshed, the oxen were used to draw it home in carts, 

 which were simply trays or shallow boxes mounted on a pair of 

 wheels. The wheels were merely slices cut from the trunk of a 

 tree and were not furnished with iron tyres, and they were not 

 very round, but were soon worn so as to be irregularly oval. The 

 axle, too, was simply a stout pole fastened to the bottom of the 

 cart, and having its rounded ends thrust through holes in the 

 middle of the wheels, and consequently the friction was enormous. 

 As, moreover, oil and grease were far too precious to be used 

 for lubricating the axles, the creaking and groaning of the 

 wheels was extreme. Although the cattle were evidently 

 then tended with more care than at the present day, those 

 animals which were used for agriculture seem to have passed 

 rather a rough life, especially in the winter. The Jews were not 

 acquainted with the idea of preserving the grass by making it 

 into hay, and hence the chief food for the cattle was the straw 

 and chaff which was left on the threshing-floor after the grain 

 had been separated. Many parts of Palestine are entirely devoid 

 of cattle, and only those districts in which fresh forage may be 

 found throughout the year contain them. Except a few yoke of 

 oxen which are kept in order to draw carts and act as beasts of 

 burden, the cattle are turned loose for a considerable part of the 

 year, and they ran about in herds from one pasturage to another, 

 and therefore regain many of the characteristics of wild animals. 

 Hence have arisen many of the Scriptural allusions such as : 

 " Many bulls have compassed me, strong bulls of Bashan have 

 beset me round. They gaped on me with their mouths (or, 

 their mouths opened against me) as a ravening and a roaring lion." 



" When I was a boy," writes the Rev. J. G. Wood, the author to whom we are 

 indebted for some of the foregoing information, "I sometimes amused myself 

 with going into a field where a number of cows and oxen were grazing, and lying 

 down in the middle of it. The cattle would soon become uneasy, toss their 

 heads about, and gradually draw near on every side, until at last they would be 

 pressed together closely in a circle, with their heads just above the object of 

 their astonishment. Their curious, earnest looks have always been present to 

 my mind when reading the above-quoted passage."' 



