NATURAL HISTORY OF THE OX. 25 



eagle on the back. It was thought necessary that there should 

 also be under the tongue a knob, shaped like the sacred scarabseus, 

 and that the hairs of the tail should be double. The animal, 

 which thus represented the deity was only allowed to live for a 

 certain time, and when he had reached this allotted period, he 

 was taken in solemn procession to the Nile, and drowned in the 

 sacred waters of this river. The body was then embalmed, and 

 placed with ostentation in the tombs at Memphis. After his 

 death, whether natural or brought about in any way, the whole 

 nation went into mourning, exhibiting all the conventional signs 

 of sorrow, until such time as the priests found another bull which 

 possessed, or was thought to possess, the distinctive marks. The 

 people then went out of mourning and donned their best attire, and 

 t!ie sacred bull was exhibited in state for forty days before he was 

 taken to his temple at Memphis. Similarly, some of the Indian 

 cattle are thought to be little less than incarnations of divinity. 

 In spite of the terrible and swift punishment which supervened 

 upon the worship of the calf in Aaron's time, the idea of ox- 

 worship still remained among the people. Five hundred years 

 afterwards we find a familiar example of it in the conduct of 

 Jeroboam, " who made Israel to sin," the sin being the open 

 revival of ox-worship. The king made two calves of gold, and 

 said : *' Behold thy gods, Israel, which brought thee out of 

 the land of Egypt." Here we have a singular instance of a king 

 of Israel repeating, after a lapse of five hundred years, the very 

 acts which had drawn down on the people so severe a punish- 

 ment, and which were so contrary to the law that they had 

 incited Moses to fling down and break the sacred tables on which 

 the commandments had been divinely inscribed. Other monarchs 

 followed his example, and departed not from the ways of 

 Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. 



Another species of the ox tribe now inhabits Palestine, though 

 commentators rather doubt whether it is not a comparatively late 

 importation. This is the true buflfalo {Bubalus buffelus. Gray), 

 which is spread over a very large portion of the earth, and is 

 very plentiful in India. In that country there are two distinct 

 breeds of the buffalo, viz. the Arnee, a wild variety, and the 

 Bhainsa, a tamed variety. The former of these is much larger 

 than the latter, being sometimes more than 10 feet in length 

 from the nose to the root of the tail, and measuring between 



