THE SAL FORESTS. 369 



of these great grazing-grounds being reclaimed for cultivation, 

 when it is considered how all-essential to the life of a country 

 like India is the breeding of large stocks of oxen. Here the 

 draught ox takes the place of the farm-horse and the steam- 

 engine of England. Cattle are bred, not as an article of food, 

 but as affording perhaps the only description of power by 

 which the operations of agriculture could be performed at all. 

 Horses could not take their place in converting the hard, 

 burnt-up soils, under the blazing sun of the season, when 

 ploughing and sowing the autumn crop goes on ; nor, so far 

 as we know the resources of the land, could steam power, 

 even if otherwise suitable, find sufficient fuel at anything like 

 a moderate cost. Thus it may not have been without a 

 teaching of far-seeing policy that the Hindu, has been pro- 

 hibited by his religion from converting the race of horned 

 cattle to the purposes of food. Few of -the precepts of any 

 religious system which are directed towards the regulation of 

 mundane affairs will be found to be wholly unconnected with 

 some object of sound policy. It may be true that the rigid 

 prohibition against touching the carcasses of such animals, or 

 in any way trafficking in their death, may have excluded the 

 Hindii cattle-owner from much legitimate profit in the way of 

 leather, horn, tallow, glue, etc. ; but it is impossible to draw 

 fine shades of distinction in religious sanctions ; and if, as is 

 probable, the slaughter of cattle useful for the plough could 

 not be otherwise prevented,, then the sanctification of the 

 animal from all such uses was probably a measure of the 

 highest policy. Even looked on as an article of food, it is 

 probable that the sacredness of the cow has been productive 

 of more gain than loss, milk and butter being much more 

 wholesome articles of diet than beef in a hot climate. Cer- 

 tainly, any measure which would be likely to endanger the 



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