the animal's obstinate sulky temper. When the whip 

 the giraffe-hide thong, doubled into a heavy loop 

 produced no effect, the boys took the yoke off to see 

 if freedom would tempt the animal to rise ! It did. 

 At the first touch of the whip Bantom jumped up 

 and charged them ; and then, seeing that there was 

 nothing at all the matter, the boys inspanned him 

 and made a fresh start not touching him again for 

 fear of another fit of sulks ; but at the first call on 

 the team, down he went again. 



Many are the stories of cruelty to oxen, and I had never 

 understood how human beings could be so fiendishly 

 cruel as to do some of the things that one heard 

 of, such as stabbing, smothering and burning cattle ; 

 nor under what circumstances or for what reasons 

 such acts of brutality could be perpetrated ; but what 

 I saw that day threw some light on these questions, 

 and, more than anything else, it showed the length 

 to which sulkiness and obstinacy will go, and made 

 me wonder whether the explanation was to be sought 

 in endurance of pain through temper or in sheer 

 incapacity to feel pain at all. This is no defence of 

 such things ; it is a bare recital of what took place 

 the only scene I can recall of what would be regarded 

 as wanton cruelty to oxen ; and to that extent it is 

 an explanation, and nothing more ! Much greater and 

 real cruelty I have seen done by work and punishment ; 

 but it was due to ignorance, impatience, or on rare 

 occasions uncontrollable temper ; it did not look 

 deliberate and wanton. 



There were two considerations here which governed 

 the whole case. The first was that as long as the ox 



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