Starving Sheep 17 



ears full and heavy, rich and glorious to gaze upon. 

 Insects multiply and replenish the earth after their fashion 

 exceedingly ; the spiders are busy as may be, not only 

 those that watch from their webs lying in wait, but those 

 that chase their prey through the grass as dogs do game. 



But under the beautiful sky and the glorious sun there 

 rises up a pitiful cry the livelong day : it is the quavering 

 bleat of the sheep as their strength slowly ebbs out of them 

 for the lack of food. Green crops and roots fail, the after- 

 math in the meadows beneath will not grow, week after 

 week ' keep ' becomes scarcer and more expensive, and 

 there is, in fact, a famine. Of all animals a starved sheep 

 is the most wretched to contemplate, not only because of 

 the angularity of outline, and the cavernous depressions 

 where fat and flesh should be, but because the associations 

 of many generations have given the sheep a peculiar claim 

 upon humanity. They hang entirely on human help. 

 They watch for the shepherd as though he were their 

 father ; and when he comes he can do no good, so that 

 there is no more painful spectacle than a fold during a 

 drought upon the hills. 



Once upon a time, passing on foot for a distance of 

 some twenty-five miles across these v hills and grassy 

 uplands, I could not help comparing the scene to what 

 travellers tell us of desert lands and foreign famines. The 

 whole of that long summer's day, as I hastened south- 

 wards, eager for the beach and the scent of the sea, I passed 

 flocks of dying sheep : in the hollows by the way their 

 skeletons were here and there to be seen, the gaunt ribs 

 protruding upwards in the horrible manner that the ribs of 

 dead creatures do. Crowds of flies buzzed in the air. 

 Upon the hurdles perched the crow, bold with over-feast- 

 ing, and hardly turning to look at me, waiting there till 



c 



