THE FLOCKS AND HERDS 



109 



used for saddle purposes in one way or another but for the 

 wide use of the horse, a creature very much better adapted for 

 carrying weight. The cloven foot of the bulls and buffaloes 

 gives a weakness to the extremities v^hich vv^ill quickly lead to 

 disease in case they are forced to carry heavy loads such as 

 the horse or ass may safely bear. 



The help which our bovine servants afford us by the 

 power which they exert in traction, as in drawing ploughs, 

 sleds, or wagons, 

 appears to have 

 been first rendered 

 long after their in- 

 troduction to the 

 ways of man. The 

 first of these uses 

 in which the draw- 

 ing strength of 

 these animals was 

 made serviceable 

 appears to have 



been in the work of ploughing. In primitive days and 

 with primitive tools, hand delving was a sore task. The 

 inventive genius who first contrived to overturn the earth 

 by means of the forked limb of a tree, shaped in the sem- 

 blance of a plough and drawn by oxen, began a great revo- 

 lution in the art of acrriculture. To this unknown ofenius 

 we may award a place among the benefactors of man- 

 kind, quite as distinguished as that which is occupied by 

 the equally unknown inventors of the arts of making fire 

 or of smelting ores. After the experience with the strength 

 of oxen had been won from the work of ploughing, it was easy 



Ploughing in Syria 



