24G THE OX. 



pated herds have regained a certain degree of natural liberty, 

 travellers have observed that, when a bullock has been slain 

 for food, the herd surround the murderers of their comrade, 

 and express, by loud cries and groans, their sympathy and 

 sorrow, while tears have seemed to roll from their eyes. They 

 cannot know why the blood of their fellow should be shed, 

 and his body mangled ; but they shew that nature has not 

 rendered them insensible to the sufferings of their comrades. 

 When the Ox is merely a beast to* be fattened and destroy- 

 ed, when he neither shares the toils of his master, nor par- 

 ticipates in his regards, when his instincts have been blunt- 

 ed, without instruction having been supplied, he does indeed 

 seem to become the stupid and insensible brute which we 

 hold him to be. What need has he of intelligence in order 

 that he may be tied to the stall, or driven to his pasture, and 

 back again to the slaughter-house I Nature is sparing of her 

 mental gifts, giving to each creature that which fits it for its 

 condition. What, to the victim of our gluttony and avarice, 

 destined to unnatural repletion at the stall that he may be 

 fattened in the shortest time, and doomed to die a cruel 

 death, would avail the gifts of consciousness of danger, doci- 

 lity, and the knowledge of what is good for him ? His brief 

 life would be the more embittered, and the bounties of Na- 

 ture would be a cruel present. But let us look at those wild 

 Oxen which have never been reduced to slavery, as the Uri 

 of our parks, or the European Oxen, which, in the fertile wil- 

 derness of the New World, have regained their liberty, and 

 we shall find a creature altogether different from the stupid 

 and insensible slave whom we have degraded. We shall find 

 him wary of danger, resolute in his defence against the beasts 

 of prey, agile and swift, arid calling into action all his instincts 

 for his own defence, and braving death that he may protect 

 the feeble of his herd. Nay, let us regard him, even in his 

 enslaved condition, but when human reason has aided him 

 with a ray of light, and we shall see him become almost as 

 docile as a dog, guarding the property of his master, nay, so 



